About Coppervat

Coppervat started as a stainless fabrication shop that happened to take on a brewery job. The brewery came back for tanks, then for a brewhouse, then sent a friend. Twenty-odd years later we build complete plants, and we still weld them ourselves.

What we believe about brewing equipment

Three things, all learned the expensive way.

First, the process comes before the machine. A brewery sized around a spreadsheet of vessel prices will be wrong within two years. A brewery sized around a production plan will still be right in ten.

Second, the weld inside the vessel is the product. Everything visible on the outside is straightforward. The seam you cannot see, in a tank full of beer at three bar, is the thing that decides whether the plant is any good.

Third, the plant has to be runnable by people who did not specify it. Head brewers move on. If the machine only works when one person is holding it correctly, it does not work.

The numbers

Three hundred and forty plants commissioned, in thirty-one countries. Batch sizes from three to fifty hectolitres. Around sixty people, of whom just over half are in the fabrication hall. No distributors, no white-labelling, no vessels bought in and badged.

How we are structured

Process engineering, fabrication, automation and commissioning are four teams in one building. The engineer who sizes your plant walks past the hall where it is being built, and the person who commissions it was in the design review. This is unremarkable inside a company and surprisingly rare in this industry.

Where we are

Our fabrication hall and offices are on one site, and visitors are welcome. Most customers come and see a vessel like theirs being built before they place the order, and we would encourage it.

A note on this website

This is a demonstration site. The company, the projects and all the contact details on it are fictional, though the engineering described is not.