Dayton Coffey has been appointed to the newly-created role of Head of Operations – Brewing for Mighty Craft.
Based at Mismatch Brewery, Mr Coffey will oversee the Mismatch and Jetty Road breweries, support the liaison with contract brewers such as Casella re Better Beer, and will form an integral part of the Supply Chain & Operations Leadership Team.
Mr Coffey said that he is looking forward to building on the success of Mighty Craft’s brands which he says are strong brewing hubs in their home states and to working with the head brewers at each of the breweries. He says that having oversight across the breweries and with multiple head brewers will lead to bigger volumes across the group.
“Working across the different breweries means that we have multiple business insights, that we can align quality control and help all of our breweries work towards achieving best practice,” said Mr Coffey.
In addition to leveraging the performance and efficiencies of those craft breweries, Mr Coffey is also looking forward to the faster pace and bigger scale of the likes of Better Beer, having started his career with Lion, particularly digging into the “big production, getting back into FMCG and helping Better Beer to grow”.
Mighty Craft Managing Director Mark Haysman: “This position is pivotal in driving networked and innovative beer production across the Mighty Craft group, with particular focus on curation and oversight of our beer program as well as quality standards and brewery safety, brewery efficiencies and cost of goods reductions. “
“Dayton is an incredible asset, and his technical brewing expertise and operational leadership are highly respected in the industry, both locally and abroad. We’re thrilled that he’s taking on this integral new role.”
Mr Coffey’s team includes Tom Wood (Head Brewer, Mismatch Brewing) and Sean Varley (Head Brewer, Jetty Road) and he will continue to work across the Mighty Craft network, closely aligning with Ewan Brewerton at Mismatch, Matt Grant at Jetty Road, and Nick Cogger and the Better Beer team, and other breweries within Mighty Craft as required.
Mr Coffey started his brewing career in the laboratory at West End in Adelaide before moving into the brewing department as a brewing team leader. He then moved to Sydney and brewed for James Squire at the Malt Shovel Brewery.
In 2013, Mr Coffey moved to Michigan in the US for a job at New Holland Brewing, working as the Quality Manager before moving into the Operations Manager and ultimately Technical Director role. He helped grow that brewery to be one of the 50 biggest craft breweries in the US, having one of the largest barrel aged beer programs in the country, producing over three million litres of Bourbon Barrel Aged stout annually.
He returned to South Australia and commenced with Mismatch in March 2020 having returned to Australia at the onset of COVID.
