Can an existing brewery expand into whisky production?

Adding whisky production to an existing brewery can be one of the most economical routes into distilling, because much of the expensive infrastructure may already be sitting on site. But a successful brewery to distillery conversion involves far more than finding room for a pair of pot stills. This guide covers the questions I look at when assessing whether a brewery can realistically make whisky, from spare brewhouse capacity, steam and cooling through to hazardous areas, effluent, warehousing, cash flow and spirit quality.

For an established brewery looking to diversify, whisky can be a very logical next step. A brewery already has many of the expensive parts of a distillery in place: malt handling, milling, a brewhouse, fermentation vessels, utilities, cleaning systems and, just as importantly, a production team that already understands how to run a process plant.

That does not mean the project is as simple as buying a pair of stills and connecting them to the steam supply. Sometimes the integration can be relatively straightforward, but the stills themselves are only one part of the job, and often not the part that causes the biggest problems.

Before looking seriously at equipment, I would want four things to be clear: what type of whisky the brewery wants to make, whether there is enough physical space to do it properly, whether the brewery has enough spare production and utility capacity, and what the available budget actually is.

Those four answers usually tell you very quickly whether the idea is worth pursuing. Once they are reasonably firm, you can start looking properly at production capacity, spirit quality, compliance, cash flow, warehousing and equipment selection.

What type of whisky should a brewery make?

For many breweries, the answer will be single malt. There are several reasons for that.

Single malt is widely seen as a premium style of whisky, the traditional pot still story is well understood by consumers, and the production process fits naturally with infrastructure that a brewery may already own. You are still milling malted barley, mashing it and fermenting wort. The major new process step is distillation.

In a suitable brewery, the existing malt intake, mill, brewhouse and wort transfer systems may therefore require little or no fundamental change. That is one of the main reasons a brewery can sometimes add whisky production for considerably less capital than a completely new distillery.

Batch pot stills also tend to fit brewery operating patterns quite well. A continuous distillation column makes most sense when it can run at high utilisation and, ideally, continuously. Breweries are often less predictable. Beer demand moves through the year, brewing schedules change, and spare capacity can vary significantly between seasons.

A pair of pot stills can be operated around those available production windows much more easily. That does not mean single malt is always the right answer, but it is often the natural place to start.

Will a whisky stillhouse actually fit in the brewery?

It is quite common to walk around a brewery and hear, “we could put the stills there.” Sometimes that is true, but what matters is whether a complete, workable stillhouse can go there.

The stills need space, but so do condensers, spirit receivers, pumps, pipework, controls, access platforms and safe working areas. You also need enough room to maintain the equipment once it has been installed. Height can be every bit as limiting as floor area, and the route for physically getting the equipment into the building should be considered long before delivery day.

There is also the question of hazardous areas. A stillhouse handles flammable alcohol vapour and high strength spirit, so the proposed location needs to make sense once zoning, ventilation, drainage, fire strategy, escape routes, electrical equipment and operator access are taken into account.

This is why I like to put a representative stillhouse into the available space very early in a whisky distillery feasibility study. It is a simple exercise, but it can answer a lot of questions before much money has been spent. If the plant fits sensibly, with proper access and service routes, the project starts to look workable. If every pump, receiver and control panel has to be squeezed into the last remaining corner, it probably needs more thought.

Distillery effluent can become a major constraint

Whisky production produces a great deal of liquid that is not whisky. Depending on the process, as much as 90% of the liquid moving through the production cycle can ultimately leave as effluent or another process stream.

Pot ale, spent lees and cleaning effluent all need somewhere to go, and this tends not to feature very prominently in the early conversations about adding a distillery. In practice, it can become one of the biggest logistical and financial issues on the site.

The answer is highly location specific. A smaller facility may be able to obtain a relatively straightforward discharge consent. Other sites may face limits on flow, temperature, pH or pollution load, while larger projects in some jurisdictions can face zero liquid discharge requirements.

The route needs to be established early. Finding out after commissioning that the local drainage network cannot accept the additional load is exactly the sort of surprise that can turn a viable project into an expensive headache.

Can the existing brewhouse and fermenters support whisky production?

A brewery may have a 30 hL brewhouse and a cellar full of fermenters, but that does not tell me how much whisky it can make. What matters is when those assets are actually available.

The first step is to look at the production schedule. When is the brewhouse running, when do vessels sit empty, and where could whisky production fit without compromising the beer business? From there, a mass balance can be used to establish what level of spirit production the existing operation could realistically support.

Fermentation is often one of the easier parts to solve. A distillery washback does not necessarily need all the features of a brewery fermentation vessel. Whisky fermentations can often run adiabatically, do not require carbonation pressure, and may have a relatively short residence time. If extra capacity is required, adding straightforward dedicated washbacks can therefore be much less expensive than adding equivalent brewery fermentation capacity.

The more difficult questions usually come from utilities.

Does the brewery have enough steam for whisky stills?

This is one of the more common assumptions on brewery conversion projects. The site already has a boiler, so it seems reasonable to assume that the heating requirement has been dealt with.

Whisky distillation can demand considerably more steam than expected. A brewery kettle might evaporate roughly 6 to 10% of its liquid during the boil, whereas a whisky still may ultimately boil off something approaching 40% of its charge. That creates a very different heat load, particularly if the brewery and stillhouse are expected to operate at the same time.

The important figure is not simply the rated output of the boiler. It is the spare steam capacity available under real operating conditions.

If the existing boiler has enough headroom, reusing it can save a substantial amount of capital. If it does not, that needs to be known before the stills are specified, not after they have been ordered.

What about condenser cooling?

The same issue appears on the condenser side of the plant. All of the vapour leaving the still has to be condensed again, and that creates a significant cooling demand.

Brewery glycol systems are often designed around fermenter cooling, cold liquor and beer production. They may not have anything like the instantaneous capacity required by a pair of whisky condensers. A separate cooling system is therefore common, and in many cases that means introducing a cooling tower or another dedicated heat rejection system.

That brings its own requirements for outside space, pipework, water treatment and environmental compliance. Compressed air, water and CIP all still matter, but steam, cooling and effluent are usually the first utilities I would examine closely.

How much does it cost to add a distillery to a brewery?

This is normally the first question from a brewery owner. The second is usually, “how much spirit will it make?”

That is a sensible order of priorities. This is a diversification project, and it has to work as a business before it works as a distillery.

How the budget is approached depends largely on the funding route. If the capital is coming from within the business, there may already be a fairly firm ceiling, in which case the project can be worked backwards from the available spend and value engineered where appropriate.

If the business intends to raise external finance, the exercise often works the other way around. You define the plant that is actually required, build up a realistic project cost and then use that as the basis for fundraising. Grant funded projects can be different again, particularly where matched funding means a solid and demonstrable budget is needed early.

At feasibility stage, I would want the owner to have a sensible view of both CAPEX and OPEX, together with an indication of likely production. You do not need every bolt and fitting priced at that point. An indicative budget, a production model and a representative stillhouse fitted into the available space are often enough to tell you whether the project deserves to move forward.

How much whisky can an existing brewery make?

Production capacity is not simply a question of still size. It comes from the complete system: available brewhouse time, fermentation capacity, staffing, operating hours and the way all of those pieces fit together.

The stills need to suit the process, but they do not have to match the brewhouse perfectly. A 30 hL brewery, for example, could work quite effectively with a 15 hL still arrangement using two charges, or with a still close to the full brew length. Something around 28 to 32 hL may also be perfectly workable by adjusting the brew length slightly.

Move too far away from that relationship and the operation becomes less elegant. A 10 hL still creates a lot more distillation cycles, while a 50 hL net still leaves you trying to find enough wash to fill it sensibly.

Neither is impossible. The point is that good whisky distillery design is about making the whole process work, not simply choosing the largest still that fits the room or the budget.

Think about the long term use of the plant

Not every brewery stillhouse is intended to be permanent.

Some clients use brewery based whisky production as a halfway step towards a larger standalone distillery. If that is the plan, it is worth considering what happens to the original plant once the new distillery comes online.

It might remain useful for development work, experimental batches, rye whisky, pot still style spirit or other products. It may continue as a smaller production unit alongside the new site.

There is no universal answer, but the long term role of the equipment should be considered before the first purchase order is placed. A plant that still has a useful job ten years later represents far better value than one that becomes redundant as soon as the business grows.

What actually determines whisky spirit quality?

Whisky marketing has spent years telling people that spirit character comes down to water, location and the shape of the stills. Those things can matter, but they are only part of the picture.

The malt matters, as does the milling. Mashing technique influences what reaches the fermenter. Yeast selection, pitch rate and fermentation behaviour all affect what eventually reaches the still. Then there is the way the still is driven, the cut points, cask filling strength, wood policy and warehouse conditions.

Each of those decisions can influence the final whisky, which is why designing a distillery around the still shape alone makes very little sense.

The stillhouse is part of a much longer process, starting with raw materials and ending years later with mature spirit. First spirit is therefore not really the end of commissioning. The plant still needs to settle down, production needs to be benchmarked, and the operators need to understand how changes in the process influence the new make.

That takes time and experience.

Whisky cash flow is very different from beer

A brewery can turn raw materials into a saleable product relatively quickly. Whisky changes the financial model completely because the stock has to mature before it can be sold as whisky.

How long that takes depends on where the product is made and where it will be sold. In the EU, whisky must be matured for at least three years in wooden casks with a capacity of 700 litres or less. Scotch Whisky must spend at least three years maturing in oak casks in Scotland. Premium products may, of course, spend much longer in wood.

Every litre laid down represents cash tied up in stock. The malt, energy, labour and cask have already been paid for, but that spirit may not generate revenue for years.

The commercial model therefore becomes a balance between available cash, available warehouse space and the maturation period the business wants to achieve.

The cost of wood also moves with the market. Ex bourbon cask availability, for example, ultimately depends on what is happening in the American whiskey industry. If fewer barrels are being emptied, fewer become available to producers further down the chain.

Wood policy is therefore not just about flavour. It is also about purchasing, supply and cash flow.

How much whisky warehousing will you need?

Warehousing needs a proper strategy from the beginning. Some producers want traditional dunnage. Others prefer racked storage. The economics vary significantly between countries, as do construction costs, labour, fire requirements and land values.

There is no rule that says one approach is always better. The right answer depends on the scale of production, the expected sales profile, maturation periods, local climate, available capital and the long term ambition of the business.

A brewery can produce spirit quite happily for a while before warehousing becomes visibly problematic, but once the cask numbers start to build, the space requirement grows quickly. It is much easier to deal with that on paper than after the filling programme is already underway.

Whisky distillery compliance: HAZOP, ATEX and DSEAR

Most brewery owners expect some additional licensing and compliance work when they move into spirits. The more expensive surprises usually come from hazardous area requirements.

A perfectly sensible looking layout can become much more expensive if motors, instruments, control panels or lighting end up inside a hazardous zone and need to be changed.

That is why I prefer to bring hazardous area classification and HAZOP work into the project early. The initial layout should feed into the hazardous area work, followed by the mass balance and process flow diagram, then the draft P&ID and HAZOP before detailed engineering gets too far.

The exact regulatory framework varies by country. In the UK, a project may involve DSEAR, PSSR, WSE, SDVS and HMRC requirements among others.

No single consultant should pretend to be the expert in every one of those areas. My role is often to sit between the client, the distilling process and the specialist engineers. The hazardous area engineer understands hazardous areas. The mechanical engineer understands mechanical design. The civil engineer understands structures.

Somebody still needs to make sure all of those disciplines come together as a distillery that actually works.

Where can a brewery to distillery conversion save money?

The biggest savings usually come from reusing the expensive things you already own.

If the brewhouse works, use it. If the mill works, use it. If the boiler has enough spare capacity, use it. Those are substantial pieces of equipment to avoid buying twice.

Extra fermentation volume is relatively inexpensive by comparison, and there are often sensible savings to be made in instrumentation as well. Not every temperature needs to appear on a control screen.

Where a parameter genuinely matters to the process or forms part of a safety function, it should be instrumented appropriately. Where an operator simply needs a local indication for reference, an analogue dial may be entirely sufficient. That distinction becomes especially useful once ATEX rated equipment is involved.

Safety functions are different. Loss of cooling flow, excessive temperature and other conditions that need to shut the process down should have simple, dependable responses. This is not an area where marginal cost savings make much sense.

The same applies to things such as pumps. Undersizing a pump to save a small amount of capital on a much larger project is rarely worthwhile. The saving is minor; the operating frustration can remain for years.

Layout can also reduce cost. Thoughtful placement of instruments, lighting and control panels can keep equipment outside hazardous zones where appropriate. I also prefer as much piping and fabrication as practical to be completed in the manufacturer's workshop, where conditions are controlled and labour is generally more efficient than on site.

Is second hand distillery equipment really cheaper?

Sometimes it is. Sometimes it only looks that way.

A used still can seem very attractive if you compare the purchase price with a new one, but that is not the comparison that matters. What matters is the cost of getting the equipment installed, compliant and operating in the way the new process requires.

Older plant may need modification. Material certificates may be missing. Vessels can require inspection, thickness testing or recertification. Controls may need to be replaced, and pipe connections may not suit the new installation.

By the time all of that work has been completed, the original bargain can look rather less convincing.

There is nothing wrong with second hand equipment, but it should be assessed on total installed cost rather than purchase price alone.

Can brewery staff run a whisky distillery?

In most cases, yes.

Experienced brewery operators already understand malt, mashing, fermentation, cleaning, utilities and process discipline. Learning to operate a pot still is relatively straightforward.

Learning to diagnose why the spirit does not taste the way you expected is another matter. That level of understanding takes experience, particularly when the issue may originate upstream in the mash or fermentation rather than in the stillhouse itself.

Cask management and spirit handling also introduce some new disciplines, along with the associated records, but none of that should prevent a competent brewery team from moving into distilling.

Staffing is therefore rarely the first thing that concerns me. The more useful question is whether the brewery's existing production schedule leaves enough time and people to run the stillhouse properly.

When does adding whisky production stop making sense?

Most engineering problems can be solved if there is enough space and money. Some constraints are much harder to work around.

I would be cautious about a project with no meaningful spare brewhouse capacity, nowhere sensible to put the stillhouse, no route for effluent disposal or no workable local warehousing strategy.

The biggest concern can be operating cash.

Having enough capital to build a distillery is not the same as having enough money to operate a whisky business. You still need to buy malt, pay wages, buy casks and keep producing while earlier batches sit in the warehouse generating no immediate revenue.

If the business cannot support that stock build, the production plan needs to change no matter how affordable the stills appear.

Sometimes that means making less spirit. Sometimes contract production makes more sense initially. In other cases, the brewery is simply not the right long term home and a standalone distillery is the better answer.

What does a brewery to distillery project look like?

The next step is not to order equipment. It is to define the project properly.

That starts with a firm scope of works and a roadmap showing what needs to be resolved at each stage. I would normally expect the early concept layout to feed into the hazardous area work, followed by the mass balance and process flow diagram. From there, the draft P&ID can be developed and taken through HAZOP before the project moves into detailed process, mechanical and civil design.

Once the equipment requirements are properly defined, the project can go to tender. At that point the quotations can be assessed against the same design basis rather than simply comparing headline prices.

The procurement stage also needs somebody to follow the equipment through manufacture and make sure what is being built still matches the original design intent.

While the equipment is being fabricated, the wider compliance work can continue. Depending on the jurisdiction, that may include customs and excise applications, pressure systems, workplace equipment requirements, operating procedures, verification schemes and staff training plans.

Site preparation should happen in parallel. Getting cable trays, services and utility routes in place before the main equipment arrives sounds mundane, but it can make the installation considerably smoother.

Whisky distillery commissioning is more than turning the steam on

Once the plant is installed, it should first be checked against the approved drawings and P&IDs. From there, commissioning can move through the required stages, which may include wet testing, peak load testing, I/O checks, safety testing, benchmarking and live load testing before first spirit trials begin.

After that comes optimisation.

Operators should be trained while the plant is being brought into service, not months later. SOPs should develop alongside real operating experience, and production data should be used to establish benchmarks for future operation.

The target is not simply a stillhouse that produces alcohol. It is a safe, workable plant that repeatedly produces the spirit the business intended to make.

A brewery to distillery project in practice: Leven Bank Distillery

Maven Spirits supported Loch Lomond Brewery with the development of Leven Bank Distillery.

My involvement covered three main areas: equipment design, liaison with the fabricator throughout the build to make sure the equipment being supplied matched the original design intent, and support around HMRC and Spirit Drinks Verification Scheme requirements.

It is a useful example of why these projects benefit from somebody looking across the whole job. The brewery has its operational requirements, the fabricator has its manufacturing requirements, specialist engineers have their own areas of responsibility, and the regulatory authorities have theirs.

All of those pieces still need to arrive at the same destination: a distillery that works.

My whisky stillhouse experience ranges from installations around 1,000 litre wash and 700 litre spirit still scale through to 20,000 litre wash stills with 15,000 litre spirit stills, including twin spirit still arrangements.

The scale changes considerably. The basic questions do not.

So, can an existing brewery make whisky?

Yes, and in the right brewery it can make a great deal of sense.

You may already own some of the most expensive parts of the process. You may have people who understand fermentation and production, and you may have spare capacity that can be turned into an entirely new product category.

The mistake is starting with the still catalogue.

Start with the business and the site. Work out what you want to make, how much you want to make, where the plant will go, whether the brewery has the spare capacity, whether the boiler and cooling systems can support it, where the effluent will go, where the casks will be stored and whether the business can afford to keep laying down stock while the whisky matures.

Once those answers are clear, choosing the equipment becomes much easier.

How Maven Spirits can help with a brewery to distillery project

Maven Spirits works with breweries and distillery developers from the first feasibility discussions through design, procurement, installation and commissioning.

I do not try to replace the process, mechanical, civil or hazardous area engineers that a project needs. Part of my role is making sure the right people are involved at the right stage and that their work fits together properly.

That can mean establishing what an existing brewery can realistically support, developing the process and equipment requirements, going to market for independent vendor quotations, reviewing proposals, working with fabricators during manufacture and supporting the plant through installation and commissioning.

The work does not necessarily stop at first spirit. Maven can stay involved while operators gain experience, helping with staff training, production optimisation, new make spirit quality, wood policy and the selection of mature stock for release.

If you are considering adding whisky production to an existing brewery, contact Maven Spirits to discuss the site, the ambition and what it would realistically take to make it work.