5
TWO MILLION HECTOLITRES
FOR ATHENIAN BREWERY
Brewery
in Burundi
officially
opened
"I'd have given my
right arm to have thought up
that Van Gogh advert!"
Murphy's expands
brewhouse
Record production in Greece
Sales at Murphy's Brewery in Cork (Ireland) are so
favourable that this month saw the start of a substantial
expansion in production capacity.
Own malting plant
Expansion
At the end of last year our Greek brewing group,
Athenian Brewery, had a real reason to put the flag out.
For the first time in its history two million hectolitres had
been produced within one year. So there was cause for
satisfaction. But that satisfaction had in fact already
existed for more than twenty years, for developments
have always been on the up and up ever since Amstel
started brewing beer together with Greek partners in the
early 'sixties.
Advertisements are very important for Heineken and a
lot of effort is put into their production. This applies
both to (television) commercials and to printed
advertisements. Each month the U.K. marketing
magazine "Focus" publishes a selection of the best recent
magazine advertisements.
The brewhouse at Murphy's Brewery in Cork. Installation of two new brewing kettles
started this month
The two existing brewing
kettles, which form part of
one of Europe's most modern
brewhouses, can no longer cope with
the sharply rising demand for
Murphy's Stout and Heineken lager.
So two further brewing kettles will be
installed. In addition, the 150-year-old
brewery is busy installing new malt
silos and storage tanks.
For Murphy's this rebuilding is one of
an entire series of similar
reconstruction jobs in recent years. As
General Manger G. van Soest says:
"In '"^e space of three years Murphy's
Brewery has been totally renovated.
We've simply built a new brewery on
the site of the old one. It's been a
tremendous performance,
particularly by HTB - Heineken
Technical Services. Certainly when
you bear in mind that we have lost
only one day's production during all
those three years! But I take most
pride in the new keg-filling line.That
was built in record time. All in all, it
took us only eight months from
driving the first pile into the ground to
the start-up of the machines."
The Greeks are acquiring
a growing taste for beer.
Like in many other
Mediterranean countries, the most
favoured tipple in Greece used to be
wine. Gradually, tastes in alcoholic
beverages started to change; beer
began to gain in popularity. Today, it's
not an unusual sight to see beer being
drunk at mealtimes in Greece. But the
wine tradition is still not forgotten:
during the meal the (Amstel) beer is
served in the same way as in one of the
old wine-drinking traditions: a large
bottle on the table and a separate glass
for each person.
Amstel beer is currently brewed in
three breweries: in Athens, Saloniki
and Patras. In Saloniki Heineken is
also brewed. Athenian Brewery is one
of the few European breweries with its
own malting plants.The brewery also
has its own test fields which are
located in various regions, with
differing climatological conditions
and soil types, so that it can continue
to ensure that it always has the best
quality of barley available.
We have to go back to the early 1960s
to trace the history of Amstel in
Greece.Together with a number of
Greek partners, Amstel set up a
brewery in Athens and sales grew
steadily. In 1968 Amstel merged with
Heineken and shortly after that
Heineken acquired a majority interest
in the Athens brewery. Pretty soon it
was found that the production
capacity would not be sufficient to
cope with the growth of the Amstel
brandA decision was taken to build a
second brewery inThessaloniki.
But more was yet to come: Amstel's
market share continued to show a
Slogan omitted
The Van Gogh advertisement should
in fact have carried the words
"Heineken refreshes the parts other
beers cannot reach". But, because
these words have become a
catchphrase over the past thirteen
years, the British advertising agency
can sometimes get away with omitting
this slogan entirely - as in the Van
Gogh advertisement. Just one glance
at the advert and the consumer
automatically associates it with the
slogan.
Top U.K. designer Malcolm Gaskin
was over the moon about this
advertisement. He enthused: "I'd
have given my right arm to have
thought up that Van Gogh advert!"
The prize-winning advertisement which
made one of Britain's top designers so
enthusiastic that he'd have given his right
arm to have thought up the idea himself.
In the presence of Mr. H.F.M.
Coebergh, member of the
Heineken Executive Board, and
Mr. Siertsema, general manager of
Ibecor, the new Ibecor brewery in
Gitega, Burundi, was recently
officially opened.The inauguration
ceremony was performed by Colonel
Jean-Baptiste Bagaza, President of
the Republic of Burundi. He was
accompanied by his wife and by the
ministers of trade and industry and of
home affairs.
Construction work on the brewery
started in the autumn of 1983.
Eighteen months later (in April 1985)
the brewery had been completed and
the first brew was made in that same
month. With an annual capacity of
150,(XX) hectolitres, the brewery
employs two hundred people. At the
brewery, which is called Bragita,
Amstel beer is produced. In the
summer months Primus beer is also
brewed.
Burundi is the first African country to
brew Amstel. To mark the official
opening Mr. Coebergh presented
Mrs. Bagaza with a cheque from
Heineken for 18 million Burundi
francs to set up social activities for the
less-privileged in the country,
especially in Gitega province. Mrs.
Bagaza is a patron of schemes to help
handicapped and poor people in
Burundi.
The Athens brewery
hefty increase (it currently amounts to
more than 50%).The two breweries
were hardly able to keep pace with the
demand for Amstel and the end of the
strong growth was still not in sight.
With the launch of Heineken beer on
the Greek market the need for an
expansion in production capacity
made itself felt even more. Two years
ago the Breweries of Greece
production unit in Patras was
acquired.This brought an instant
increase in production capacity of
almost one million hectolitres a year.
Sales of Heineken beer in Greece have
shown strong growth in recent years.
When the "Focus" editors
had to make their choice
of the "best advertisement
of 1986", they faced a difficult task
because of a lack of quality in the
advertisements that had been
submitted. But one of the few adverts
that really stood out head and
shoulders above the grey mediocrity
was Heineken's Van Gogh imitation,
an advert which, by the way, was only
published in a few satirical magazines.
The "Focus" editors were so
impressed that they voted it the best
advertisement of 1986.
