BLACK Wolf Brewery, at Throsk near Stirling, has unveiled a £200,000 investment in a new facility for bottling its own beers and those of other small and medium-sized players in the sector.

The investment in the new bottling line and packaging facility is being backed by a £45,000 grant from taxpayer-funded Scottish Enterprise.

The brewery said the new facility would have the capacity to bottle all of its own beers. Black Wolf Brewery added that the new line, which will be in place this month, would provide bottling under contract for other small to medium-sized brewers and drinks manufacturers.

Black Wolf Brewery, which is owned by alcoholic drinks sector specialist VC2 Brands, said the line would be able to bottle small to medium quantities of beer, and use different packaging sizes and formats.

It added that this would give the brewery “much greater flexibility” in the range of beers which could be produced and bottled.

Black Wolf Brewery said the beers would be sterilised using micro filters to “ensure the flavours carefully created in the brewing process are maintained”.

The brewery, which sells cask, keg and bottled beers in Scotland and around the world, added that the investment would reduce its carbon footprint significantly by cutting out all of the transport of Black Wolf beer to other bottlers.

It also noted that energy would be saved because there would be no need to pasteurise the beer.

Andrew Richardson, a director of Black Wolf Brewery, said: “This is a big investment for us which will transform our business. It will give us far greater flexibility so that we can produce different speciality beers, or beers to celebrate big events like the Olympics, or indeed for customers who want their own beer. We also intend to use this facility to bottle for others in the drinks industry."

He added: "I should like to thank Scottish Enterprise for their support which has enabled this project to take place.”