Lion Brewery Co have become the first craft brewery in Southeast Asia to package their beers in Aluminum bottles.
The brewery, based out of Singapore, have re-packaged their core range of beers into the innovative aluminium bottles for release on the Indonesian market.
“Lion Brewery Co is extremely focused on doing everything possible to operate in Indonesia with a negative carbon footprint, and also have a positive environmental impact” says Indonesia General manager Mark Brown.
“Our first initiative to launch was our partnership with GreenSteps group, who are helping us to plant mangrove trees in North Sumatera, and we plant a tree for every keg we sell to offset our carbon footprint. Our next step was to package our core beers in aluminium bottles, as they are much better for the environment”
For the moment their Pale Ale, Island Lager and New England Session IPA will be available in the new packaging.
The lightweight bottles are only 15-20% the weight of their glass counterparts and take 90% less energy to recycle. They can also stay cold longer than aluminium cans and are shatterproof – so ideal for use around pools and beaches.
The brewery group has also partnered with Kertabumi Recycling Centers in Indonesia an initiative that sees the Indonesian recyclers buy the used aluminium bottles for recycling. The money generated from these sales is then used to plant more trees with Green Steps Group (GSG) in Kalimantan (Malaysia)
In 2021 they had announced a partnership with GSG to offset their beer manufacturing operations’ carbon impact by using trackable technology to replant the endangered forests in Borneo.
The bottles themselves are an initiative from Indonesian aluminium packaging firm PT New Red & White. Lion Brewery Co is their first customer for the new bottles.
“I love the bottles” says Mark, but he does caution for those brewers looking for more sustainable packaging options “It is important to note that there are some considerations you need to make about your bottling line as some won’t be compatible”.
