Rotherham’s Beatson Clark expands into overseas market with new Irish craft brewery contract

Beatson Clark, the Rotherham-based glass manufacturer, continues to expand into overseas markets following its latest contract win with Irish craft brewery, 9 White Deer.

9 White Deer, which started brewing in County Cork in 2013, was set up by owners Gordon Lucey and Don O’Leary to try to introduce a greater range of beers to the Irish market.

The brewery now takes both a 500ml standard amber beer bottle from Beatson Clark for its own contract bottling line and an embossed standard beer bottle for its own range of beers.

The contract was arranged through Dublin-based packaging specialists The Packaging Centre, which could see how Beatson Clark’s embossing options were suited for the needs of 9 White Deer.

9 White Deer brews six different beers, from pale ales to a triple-hopped black IPA, and is about to launch a completely new range of gluten free beers.

Gordon commented: “When we started out we were using another bottle manufacturer but we missed that close attention to clients’ needs that we’ve since found with Beatson Clark.

“They’re very willing to talk about everything and they’re very helpful if you have any issues. Doing business with Beatson Clark is a fast and easy process, which is why we’re still with them.”

Gordon said the brewery was able to consider an embossed bottle option as they already process enough bottles through their contract bottling business to make it cost-effective.

He explained: “The first thing breweries do as they grow is get custom printed caps, and then they want to go to the next level and bring out their own embossed bottle.

“We gave Beatson Clark our logo and they came up with an embossed prototype that we were happy with. When we looked at the figures it was a no-brainer to be honest.”

The customised version of the bottle has the brewery’s white stag logo embossed on the neck and the words ‘9 White Deer’ embossed around the shoulder.

Charlotte Taylor, marketing manager at Beatson Clark, added: “Because the embossed bottle is a customised version of our standard 500ml BC beer bottle it fits on the brewery’s filling line with no need for change parts, saving both time and money.

“We can offer this service of customising standard bottles by adding embossing onto the finish moulds for production runs as low as 150,000 units.

“This reduces the cost of the moulds by more than half and gives the brewery a unique bottle design which really helps the brand to stand out on the shelf.”

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