The $70 million centre brings a restaurant, bars, interactive history tours and a whisky distillery to the Regency Park brewery.
CityMag was guided to Coopers Brewery’s new attraction along a winding road leading to a curved design and sloping amphitheatre inspired by the round Coopers label.
When we make our way inside we were welcomed with a glass of mild ale — the orange member of the Coopers’ catalogue.
The $70 million visitor centre, designed by Studio Nine Architects, is home to a restaurant and three bars, outdoor plaza dining and family area, tasting room, microbrewery, interactive history display and guided tours, merchandise store, whisky distillery and an underground stillage for 5000 whisky barrels.
Coopers managing director Tim Cooper says the whisky barrels “will take a while to fill”.
It will be approximately four years to achieve “a nice, mature [whisky] product”.
“So, 2028 you might be able to sell some whisky. Our CFO Brad Grunert says that with any luck, we should get our money back in about 2038,” Tim laughs.
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Tim says the process of getting the visitor centre up and running has been a “labour of love”, as the site was originally expected to be open by Christmas 2023.
“It’s been a four-year process since we first started talking about what this might look like, investigating how many people might come to site, and also thinking about incorporating a new microbrewery and distillery. So we started in early 2020,” he says.
Coopers hopes the new centre will attract “about 100,000 people here per annum”.
“Which is a big increase of what we were doing before,” Tim says. “When we had our small visitor centre we’d get about two or 3000 people a year.
“So it’s one of those things that we want people to feel that they’re immersed in the Coopers heritage and culture and then, of course, as I say, they can go on a tour if they choose to book in advance. And then after the tour, taken to the tasting room and allow them to sample a number of our products.”
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As the new centre hopes to capture local, interstate and “to some extent” overseas visitors, Tim says the company has had “a few discussions with SA Tourism [South Australian Tourism Commission]”.
“We will be dependent on [SATC] to help promote the facility and in conjunction with visitors going to the Barossa, for instance, because it is at least on the way to the Barossa,” Tim says.
“We’re lucky that we’re close to the Superway, then the Northern Connector and so forth on the way to the Barossa Valley. I think it could be integrated quite well with visits to the Barossa.”
Interior designed by studio gram
Tim says what’s special is how the sixth generation of the family-owned company has been involved, particularly in the “design and construction of the facility”.
“It’s especially special that I work with my daughter, Louise, who was the project manager, and my son, who’s been involved in the some of the interpretive content and the video content of the interpretive gallery, and helping the Lego models,” Tim says.
“It’s nice that we’re handing over from one generation to the next. I’m coming to the end of my time.”
Tim says as a family-owned company established 162 years ago, they are able to look at the “long-term perspective”.
“Though we’re five per cent of the national beer volume, we’re the largest Australian brewery, we are still a family company – we can take a long-term view and invest for the future,” Tim says.
“So this is certainly at $70 million. It started off as a $50 million investment but of course the cost of construction has gone up over that time, and we’ve elaborated on the scope somewhat as well.”
The new centre is set to open on Wednesday, August 28 and will be open from Tuesday to Saturday from 10am until 6pm.
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