Where it all began...
Ovenstone 109 was built using the experience from our other day job, Scott Process Technology Ltd. If you want to know more about them then click here. Otherwise... read on.
Back in the early noughties our MD, Nick, found himself in a bar called Brewerkz in Singapore, which had its very own functioning microbrewery. Nick was smitten, and vowed that he would not rest until he had a microbrewery of his very own.
Over the next 15 years, Nick made absolutely no progress towards owning his own microbrewery. He did, however, build up his world-class engineering firm which built many things, including the system that recovered rocket fuel from the Space Shuttle solid rocket boosters.
But in 2016 Nick decided it was time for a change and the concept of building a brewery inside the workshop of the engineering firm was born.... this is the story.
The John Deere Tractor Showroom
For over 100 years the Ovenstone Brewery building served as an agricultural engineering business. It once boasted the greatest number of combine harvester sales in the whole of Europe. Which means it is very well known! Prior to our family engineering business ownership it was destined to be demolished to make way for houses.
We thought that would be a sad way for this iconic building to go but other than getting rid of the glass frontage, our engineering business kept it as it was.That was... until we decided to open a brewery......
The Tractor Showroom Revamp
We needed to update the buildng somewhat to make it a bit more 'user friendly' for a brewery and this took quite a bit of work...
The Brew Kit
But you can't have a brewery without a brew kit so we got one second hand... and we had to move it ourselves..
Building our Brewery
Our brew kit was second hand when we bought it (so it's now third hand). But it had seen a bit of action and needed a full revamp. Also... it didn't come with any pipework or support frames but you might have guessed already that we used to make all that as a day job before building the brewery...
Ovenstone 109 - East Neuk Craft Brewery is born
Several months of extremely hard graft later and our brewery was complete.
When you visit here, Nick will no doubt harp on about how we do everything ourselves. But not only is the beer brewed here, bottled here , labelled here and then shipped direct from here in our own wee van. We also put together every nut and bolt ourselves. We painted every surface ourselves. Sanded every plank of mahogany wood ourselves. We designed the entire layout, cut every pipe, wired every motor, and even cut the drainage.So when you buy a bottle of Ovenstone beer, there is genuine blood sweat and tears in every single bottle (not literally obviously, that would be utterly rank). It's 55,000 bottles, hand filled, and hand labelled so far. Also.... as of 2022... we're now award winning too.
That's alright that.......