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Mark Anthony Brewing Goes for the Gold Standard

The largest and most technologically advanced brewery built in the U.S. in the past 28 years, a 1.3 million-sq-ft highly automated, fast-track greenfield facility wins a Manufacturing Innovation Award from ProFood World.

MAB’s new facility makes Mike’s Hard Lemonade, White Claw Hard Seltzer, and other ready to drink brands and will provide increased capacity to keep up with consumer demand in the eastern U.S.
MAB’s new facility makes Mike’s Hard Lemonade, White Claw Hard Seltzer, and other ready to drink brands and will provide increased capacity to keep up with consumer demand in the eastern U.S.
Photo courtesy of Mark Anthony Brewing

Columbia, S.C., is the home of Mark Anthony Brewing’s (MAB) newest state-of-the-art brewery. The company needed to quickly expand production capacity as demand continued to grow for White Claw Hard Seltzer, Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Mike’s HARDER, Cayman Jack Cocktails, and MXD Cocktails.     

MAB’s new facility makes Mike’s Hard Lemonade, White Claw Hard Seltzer, and other ready to drink brands and will provide increased capacity to keep up with consumer demand in the eastern U.S.MAB’s new facility makes Mike’s Hard Lemonade, White Claw Hard Seltzer, and other ready to drink brands and will provide increased capacity to keep up with consumer demand in the eastern U.S.Photo courtesy of Mark Anthony BrewingMAB is the fourth largest brewer in the U.S. and provides supply chain management and brewing services for The Mark Anthony Group of Companies, an international drinks company with a portfolio of beverage brands.

During the global pandemic, while other businesses paused operations or were implementing cost-savings measures, MAB took a different approach. The private, entrepreneurial company made the decision to invest $1.4 billion in its three breweries and to construct the most technologically advanced brewery built in the U.S. in the past 28 years to support the demand for White Claw Hard Seltzer. The largest of these facilities is the new $490 million, 1.3 million-sq-ft state-of-the-art brewery and packaging facility in Columbia.

The MAB site selection task force looked at 18 possible locations in five states and narrowed the field down to two locations, according to the brewing company. One of the primary reasons MAB decided to build in Columbia was the spirit of collaboration and engagement from the State of South Carolina, the Department of Commerce, and the Richland County Economic Development Council that embraced its vision and timeline to transform the location from initial concept to a fully operational facility in record time.


Read article   Download a free copy of the white paper, “2021 Beverage Trends Driving Change.”

A project of this size would normally take four to six years to plan and build. MAB’s ambitious timeline saw the site transform from initial groundbreak to production of the first saleable case of product in just 346 days.

To fast-track the project, MAB required an integrated design-build team to make its vision come to fruition. The brewer chose engineering firm Clayco to meet the speed and high build quality experience needed for the challenging project.

Variety packs are placed in final cartons that are loaded and palletized again, ready to send to market.Variety packs are placed in final cartons that are loaded and palletized again, ready to send to market.Photo by Sam FentressA high-speed completion timeframe was demanding for all project partners, explains Joe Crawford, Clayco project manager for the facility design. “Creating the engineering and getting the equipment ordered and shipped in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic was a huge challenge,” he says. In fact, construction began just 30 days after the project was awarded to Clayco, and substantial completion was reached in less than a year.

At peak production, the facility can produce 6 million barrels of finished product and package 80 million cases per year, with a packaging speed of almost 1,000 barrels per hour. A glass bottling line fills 50,000 bottles per hour. The Columbia facility produces White Claw Hard Seltzer, Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Mike’s HARDER, and Cayman Jack Cocktails, and will provide the increased capacity to keep up with consumer demand in the eastern U.S. 

MAB conducted its first meeting with Clayco in October 2020. A month later, MAB gave Clayco approval to proceed on the greenfield project. With groundbreaking in December 2020, process installation began in April 2021. By using point cloud modeling, Clayco created an online replica of the facility in a 3D environment, providing MAB and its project partners access to a fully immersive plant before the plant was fully operational.

Collaboration fast-tracks installation

MAB carefully assembled teams of engineers and international OEMs on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The complex project was purpose-designed and -built with technology that in part had to be developed and designed as the facility was being built. Throughout it all, safety and high-quality build standards were paramount.

Cartons of Surf, the newest MAB product that combines various flavors of White Claw, roll off the packaging line.Cartons of Surf, the newest MAB product that combines various flavors of White Claw, roll off the packaging line.Photo courtesy of Mark Anthony BrewingTo accomplish its goal, MAB had to throw out convention and work hand-in-hand with partners to engineer, design and innovate at lightening speed.

From the outset, MAB challenged its partners to think differently and innovate in ways they had never done before. In some instances, the project included competing suppliers that focused on fufilling MAB’s vision.

Ziemann Holvrieka oversaw the project’s processing technology and worked in close contact with packaging line suppliers KHS and Krones to coordinate all items on the pipe rack into the building, the location of feeds, and utilities that each pipe required.

“Getting the space ready for the OEMs—Krones, KHS, and Ziemann Holvrieka—was one of our biggest challenges,” says Daniel Botts, Clayco project director. “We broke ground on Dec. 1, and we turned approximately 40,000 sq ft over to Ziemann on April 15. One month later, we turned over about 400,000 sq ft to the Krones and KHS teams.”

Mab Pei SuppliersZiemann Holvrieka provided 56 purpose-built stainless-steel tanks, with total capacity to hold nearly 4 million gallons of liquid. The tanks traveled by barge down Germany’s Rhine River, where they were loaded on a vessel and shipped to the Port of Charleston. Then the tanks had to take a very specific, safe route to arrive at the MAB site in Columbia, which is more than 100 miles from the harbor.  

The tanks have about a 2,000-hectoliter capacity, equivalent to 1,700 barrels. “The outside diameter is a little over 4 m, which is the max that you could put on a truck and ship down a highway and, hopefully, not have to remove traffic lights and other things along way,” states Greg Norris, sales and business development director, North America for Ziemann Holvrika. 

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