Zaragoza, Algete (near Madrid), Valencia and Cordoba are
the sites of the El Aguila's four breweries. Carlos Perez is
brewery manager of the brewery in Cordoba. With justified
pride he tells that an HTB employee described his brewery's
beer as the champagne of Aguila.
Enough land
Personnel
HEINEKEN INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE NR24 PAGE 7
El Aguila in Cordoba:
top-class beer
sonnel numbers can vary widely:
in the winter period Carlos Perez
has just under 300 employees, but
their numbers swell to some 360 in
the summer. The three-shift opera
tion throughout the year is raised to
fully continuous shiftwork in the
summer.
The personnel at the Cordoba
brewery have been confronted time
and again in recent years with bre
wery modernisation projects and
the replacement of outdated equip
ment. Three years ago a new bott
ling line was installed for 20-cl and
30-cl bottles, followed a year later
by the construction of new apollo
tanks for storage and fermentation.
Recently the final work was done
on the installation of a new keg line
(50% of all production is draught
beer) and two new washers were
built. HTB packaging technologist
Jaap Bast has been posted to Cor
doba for six months to assist with
the installation of the new equip
ment.
Over the next three years a num
ber of further extension and repla
cement projects are planned. The
installation of a new filtration sys
tem, a new pasteuriser, four extra
apollo tanks and labelling
machines will ensure that the El
Aguila brewery in Cordoba will
continue to be the scene of busy
(re-)building work in the years
ahead.
The new keg line is meanwhile fully operational. Final adjustments were
still taking place when this photo was taken.
In the 1920s a brewery called La
Mezquita started operating in the
centre of Cordoba. The brewery
was named after the mosque which
towers over the city centre. In the
middle of this mosque (the clearest
evidence of the Arab influence in
Southern Spain) a Christian cathe
dral was built. Today the unusual
building of La Mezquita is a major
tourist attraction.
On 6 July 1940 the brewery La
Mezquita was acquired by El
Aguila which reached the conclu
sion in the mid-1950s that the
required expansion of the brewery
was absolutely impossible in the
city centre.
The management of El Aguila
first bought a large area of land
(165 hectares) in one of Cordoba's
three industrial estates. Then the
brewery was built. In 1964 the bre
wery officially came on stream.
Initially its capacity was modest:
150,000 hectolitres. Meanwhile
the output has already climbed to
700,000 hectolitres and, according
to Mr Perez, production capacity
can easily be expanded further
without major extension work. If
an extension of the brewery proves
necessary in future, then there's no
need to be cramped for space.
"Land enough!" explains Mr Perez
with a smile.
Left to righttechnologist Carlos
Gomez, Esther Cabrera, brewery
manager Carlos Perez and HTB
specialist Jaap Bast.
At the present moment the bre
wery in Cordoba produces only
Aguila lager and Aguila Reserva in
bottles. For draught sales Aguila
lager and Adlerbrau are brewed.
On average, some 330 employees
work at the brewery. These are only
the people employed in production
and production administration.
Employees of the sales department
are not included in this figure. Per-
The apollo tanks which have been in use for two years. A further four are The new bottle washer. It takes several weeks to assemble this enormous
planned by 1992. machine.