The Brewers Journal May-June 2016, iss 3 vol 2

the magazine for the professional brewing industry

Brewers T H E

J O U R N A L

May~June 2016 ISSN 2059-6669

Fourpure Broadening its horizons

P.40

tweed brew co: marketing is key

P.52

canning: focus on test & inspection

P.64

san diego: a us brewing hotspot

In a not too distant future...

Craft brewing is dead!

Craft brewing as we know it has become unsustainable, A victim of its own success. Ever increasing use of the “craft” hop varieties sends demand so high that brewers can no longer get them. Beer drinkers worldwide mourn as their beloved brews slowly disappear. Their breweries bust, ex-brewers wander their abandoned taprooms.

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l e a d er

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I

t has been a pretty productive couple of months for drinkers that look to supermarkets when it comes to stocking up on good beer. In Scotland, shoppers at Asda now have 25 new lines from breweries such as Stewart Brewing, Wooha Brewing and Eden Mill Brewery to choose from. Tesco has broadened its selection with new beers from Vocation, Caledonian, and the expansion of its BrewDog range with ‘Jet Black Heart’ and ‘Mr President’ finding their way onto shelves. While Marks & Spencer has continued the solid approach to its beer offering with the addition of numbers from Northern Monk, Arbor Ales and Harbour Brewing Co among others.

For many, this is seen as positive step in the right direction for ‘craft beer’. An increased presence in front of casual drinkers will improve the chances of the person in question opting to try something new, discovering a style previously unknown to them and a new brewery to look out for. Especially at the extremely competitive pricing model adopted by many supermarkets (four for £6, anyone?).

And therein lies the problem for many. Craft beer has a premium attached to it. A premium that is indicative, and representative, of the craft, time and quality of the ingredients used to create the drink in question.

Does a £1.25 price tag undermine that craft and if so, who is to blame? Big retail will sell said beer at a price it is comfortable with and surely it’s the prerogative of a brewery whether it wants to supply a major retail chain in the first place, and for the price offered to it.

There is an argument that the introduction of new beers and breweries in supermarkets could be the catalyst for a drinker to explore good beer in more detail. And to seek out a variety in styles that big retail can only touch upon. At that point, they are hopefully led to specialist bottleshops, mail order companies and the breweries themselves. I’m sure many smaller, independent shops also adopt an approach where they steer clear of the beer lines from breweries that have made their way into supermarkets as, among other reasons, it is going to be a battle on price they are certain to lose.

It’s a subject I’d like to look into more next time so if you have strong opinions on either side of the argument, I would love to discuss it in more detail. My contact details can be found on page six so please feel free to get in touch.

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Editor's choice How Bermondsey's Fourpure is showing there is far more to its beer output than a solid, popular core range but how it's also a case of right place, and right time, for its Pils and Pale Ale - Page 30

For this issue we visited Fourpure in Bermondsey.

It’s a period of major transition and growth for the brewery, but it’s not one that has crept up on them either. Fourpure produced between five to six thousand hectolitres in 2015. This year they will do between 1520 thousand hectolitres. It’s a big leap, and one they are well on course to hit.

“We have been a little bit fortunate with the timing of the takeovers of Meantime and Camden as there are people that don’t want to buy beer from those big breweries but still want an accessible pale ale or lager on draught. And as a result, they have been led our way, explains head brewer John Driebergen.

While this has probably played some part in the brewery’s fortunes, the production of a quality, popular, range of core beers that complement a growing stable of diverse and seasonal numbers is certainly an aspect, too.

Enjoy the issue.

Tim Sheahan Editor

May~June 2016 | The Brewers Journal 5

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c o n t en t s

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Cover story

30 - Fourpure's head brewer John Driebergen discusses the brewery's exciting rate of expansion, the focus on new beers and how draught sales are helping drive its growth news 11- Industry news Comments 20 - Rob Lovatt from Thornbridge on big brewing 22 - Jonny Garrett talks tackling online criticism the big interview 24 - John Hall, founder of Goose Island talks about his love of good beer, the UK and acquisitions Meet the brewer: tweed brewing co 40 - Why a brewery 18 months young believes hard work, and good beers, will enable it to to become a force to be reckoned with

Foreign focus: belgium 46- How Belgian beer is re足imagining its traditions, according to Tilquin Gueuzerie, Brasserie de Jandrain足-Jandrenouille and

Brouwerij Hof Ten Dormaal

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technology: canning 52 - From arriving at the brewery through to the filled product leaving for the store shelves, there are test and inspection systems for each stage of the process to help ensure a perfect result 59 - Edward M McD Scott from Ambro Systems seeks to shed some light on the operations inside the monobloc of a technologically advanced canning machine that is available in nominal speeds as low as 6,000 x 330ml cans per hour Foreign focus: SAN DIEGO 64 - Whether you love or hate southern Californiastyle hop infused IPAs, the fact of the matter is no where else in the world is craft beer taking off like it is in San Diego, according to Velo Mitrovich science: yeast 70 - Keith Lemcke, vice president at the Siebel Institute of Technology, places the spotlight on yeast management and fermentation

May~June 2016 | The Brewers Journal 11

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Thornbridge £2m investment

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hornbridge Brewery has detailed a £2m expansion programme that includes the purchase of a new bottling line, increased brewing capacity and improved warehousing and logistics facilities.

The expansion comes at a time when the brewery is targeting an 80% increase in turnover over the next three years.

Simon Walkden, chief financial officer at Thornbridge explained: “We are an ambitious company and have been planning for this investment over the past 12 months.

“It’s not all about equipment though as, in preparation for a 70% expansion to our brewing capacity, we have employed an additional 11 staff to take overall employee numbers to 46.”

Following extensive research into bottling line suppliers, the brewery opted for a system from German company KHS.

Walkden (l): "We are an ambitious company"

“The quality of our beer is, of course, paramount to us,” said Rob Lovatt, Thornbridge’s head brewer.

He added: “With almost 50% of our beer sales being in bottles it is critical that we have the best, most technically up to date bottling line to ensure a quality beer time after

time.

“My brewing team is always looking for continuous improvement in all of our processes and the new equipment will enable us to achieve extremely low levels of dissolved oxygen in the beer and so retain greater taste and freshness.”

BrewDog unveils Lone Wolf Distillery

B

rewDog has detailed its spirits project, now know as Lone Wolf Distillery, which will be the only craft distillery in Scotland to make its base spirit from grain under one roof.

First up is BrewDog vodka and the company has removed a section of its brewhouse roof and installed a 19m high 60-plate rectification column, to get the “purest, cleanest spirit possible” it said in its latest blog update.

They explained: “This will then form the basis of our vodka and gins, and where others buy in neutral spirit in bulk, we will distil everything from scratch.

“The head of our distillation team Steven Kersley is now dialling in our gin recipe using the 50 litre pilot still, with over 30 different botanicals for trial, building up the flavour complexity until the blend and ratios are perfect.”

Installation was taking place at

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the time of writing with production of the first batches scheduled for last month (April).

They added: “We don’t want to rest on the laurels of a location, like so many within the industry. Flexibility is vitally important to us, and the Lone Wolf distillery will have experimentation at its heart.

“With the pilot still we can produce a huge range of potential spirits, and with our epic barrel store we can age and then blend

the results to allow a fascinating range of flavours to develop. We want to stretch the boundaries of what a distillery can do – and what a distillery should do.

“Starting with our own all-grain distilled vodka, through our bespoke gins and whiskies and a range of other spirits besides – we can’t wait to make this natural progression for BrewDog and make as big an impact on the spirits industry as we did on the beer industry.”

May~June 2016 | The Brewers Journal 13

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Tempest Brewing Co scoops award

T

empest Brewing Co has taken home gold in two categories from the recent Barcelona Beer Festival.

The brewery from the Scottish Borders was awarded gold for its amber ale, A Face With No Name, and its seasonal apple saison, Saison du Pommes.

Around 500 beers were entered into the inaugural contest, which attracted 30,000 drinkers over the three-day event.

Tempest’s Founder and director, Gavin Meiklejohn, explains: “It’s a fantastic honour to win any award, but we are especially proud to have won these two Gold Awards at Barcelona Beer Challenge.

“We love what we do, and to be recognised for the dedication to quality that goes into our beer is of course a huge achievement. The organisers of both the awards and of

Barcelona Beer Festival deserve the highest praise for what was a great weekend spent with highly engaged enthusiasts

“We hope to build on this success throughout the rest of the year, and are excited to see what 2016 holds in store for us here at Tempest.”

Heathwick partners with wingtip

B

eer importer and distributor, Heathwick has partnered with a UK brewing company for the first

time.

Wingtip Brewing Co from Gatwick has joined the Heathwick portfolio that features Dominion, Saugatuck, and Fordham among others.

The company, which was established last year, positions itself as a travel-based brewing company that outsources brewing operations to partners either in the UK or overseas.

Heathwick is distributing the company’s draught and packaged beers that include the 4% ‘Frequent Flyer’, 4.9% ‘Night Flight’, and its 4.5% ‘The Captain 1st Class Pilsner’.

Graham Richardson, general manager for Heathwick, explained: “We are delighted to welcome Wingtip on board as the first UK based brewery in our portfolio.

“The growing potential for UK craft brands has come to our notice

14 | The Brewers Journal | May~June 2016

and we recognise the opportunity for premium UK craft breweries to stamp their mark on the burgeoning craft beer sector.

“We seek to build awareness of UK brands in the market and Wingtip is the ideal first partner with which to realise this aim.”

Simon Tripp, Director, Wingtip Brewing Co, added: “Heathwick is

a personable brand distributor that have captivated us with their ability to really get to grips with what the Wingtip Brewing Co is all about.

“We found Heathwick’s desire to integrate a scalable British brand into their portfolio, and their core range of competencies, made them an excellent choice of partner to execute our strategy.”

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May~June 2016 | The Brewers Journal 15

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Goddards Brewery up for sale

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sle of Wight-based Goddards Brewery has been put up for sale by its owner, Anthony Goddard.

Goddard, who has recently turned 70, said that he wanted to secure the brewery’s future rather than it being left as something for his family to sort.

The brewery, which has more than 250 customers, and sells more than 700,000 pints a year, is aiming to attract the right new owner.

He explained: “Back in 2012, I

started to ease away from the dayto-day running of the business and to ensure that there would be an experienced team in place.

“Goddards has an impressive and growing client base and I’d like to think that it provides really sound foundations on which a new owner can build further.”

He also believes that by buying into an established brewery, many of the risks of starting one are removed.

“Investing in a new brewery is an

expensive and risky project. It takes years to acquire the reputation and ‘gravitas’ to survive in an increasingly competitive environment,” explained Goddard.

“At least buying Goddards comes with the advantage that someone else has overcome and dealt with the growing pains.”

The brewery’s current line-up of beers include ‘Fuggle-Dee-Dum’, ‘Duck’s Folly’ and ‘Ale of Wight’, as well as more recent additions such as ‘Wight Squirrel’.

Danish brewery scoops Underdog prize

D

enmark-based Ebeltoft Farm Brewery has won a brewing competition set-up by hop merchants Simply Hops.

Underdog challenged brewers to produce an IPA that offered “powerful flavours and aromas” without using Amarillo, Cascade, Centennial, Citra, Galaxy, Mosaic or Simcoe hops.

In addition, the brewer had to use a minimum of 20% of the so-called ‘underdog’ hop, which was Target.

Beers from 11 different countries were entered and judged through four rounds by a team of industry

experts.

The two runners-up Vorpal Blade, a Black IPA by Helm Bar Brewery and Brasserie Galibiere’s EXP 16.1 IPA were both give high praise.

However, the judges opted for “straight Outta Boston” an IPA brewed by an American from Boston in a Farmhouse Brewery from Denmark.

Dan Christmas, craft marketing manager at Simply Hops explained: “It’s nice to be able to say that the result could not have been better for us.

“Not only is “Straight Outta Boston” a great IPA that manages

to deliver big flavours and aromas, it does so in a way that really highlights the fundamental idea behind the Underdog campaign.

“Ben Howe [the brewer] has used Target in conjunction with other hop varieties [Chinook and Columbus] to create something that craft beer drinkers would really appreciate.

“The result is not ‘run of the mill’ but remains very pleasant. I think that’s what really impressed the judges in the end.”

Ebeltoft were presented with the winners prize of £2000 credit to spend on Simplyhops.com.

Magic Rock fits new Boiler

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agic Rock Brewing benefitted from the investment in a 100hsp 4VT steam boiler.

The new piece of equipment, from CFB Boilers, is housed at the brewery’s 25,000 sqft facility, which the Huddersfield-based business moved into last year.

Head brewer Stuart Ross explained: “The output capacity at our previous site was only 5,000 hectolitres a year and quite simply we needed to move in order to meet demand.

“Steam was our best option at the new site as it’s better and faster at performing the heating function.

16 | The Brewers Journal | May~June 2016

We are now on course to output 15,000 hectolitres this year, and 20,000 in 2017, which will represent a four-fold increase in around 24 months.

“The new location has also allowed us to introduce a canning line, which adds to our cask and keg portfolio, and open our own 4,000 sqft bar, The Tap.” Following a site visit by CFB Boilers, the business determined that Magic Rock required a 75hsp boiler.

However, the manufacturer had a fully refurbished, pre-owned 100hsp 4VT Steam Boiler ready at its manufacturing facility in Essex, and was able to offer the larger boiler at

a similar rate to a newly manufactured smaller model.

“When we heard CFB Boilers’ proposal we realised we could get extra steam capacity from the 100hsp 4VT, which would make us future-proof in the event of further expansion, but at the same price as a new 80hsp 4VT Steam Boiler. It was a perfect solution for us,” added Ross.

CFB Boilers explained that it also helped Magic Rock save more than £13,000 during the installation process by assisting the brewery on the positioning of its gas meter and developing a solution to negate the need for a gas booster.

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Meantime appoints general manager

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aura Edwards has been appointed general manager of Meantime Brewing Company.

Edwards, who joins from Miller Brands UK, takes on the role following Nick Miller’s decision to step down after five years in the position.

Nick Miller said it was time to “broaden my horizons” following five exciting and rewarding years.

“I will work with her over the next few months to ensure a smooth handover and that Meantime’s current momentum is unaffected. The Meantime management team and

board remain unchanged,” he said.

Miller added: “It has been a privilege to lead such a wonderful group of people at Meantime and to work with a great group of customers, as we have taken Meantime beers to more and more outlets and built a loyal following both here in the UK and abroad.

“I would like to thank both the employees and the wider Meantime community for their continued support, which I am sure will enable Meantime to continue to change the way people think about beer and lead the revitalisation of our

wonderfully diverse beer category”.

Commenting on her appointment, Edwards said Meantime Brewing Company has enjoyed outstanding growth since its launch in 2000 and in that time, Miller and the team have taken beer production to new heights, turning Meantime into “Britain’s leading craft brewer”.

She said: “I have long been a huge fan of the brand so this appointment is a huge honour for me and I am looking forward to working with the team in Greenwich to continue building on the success of Meantime in the UK and beyond.”

Skinner’s targets new markets

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ornwall-based Skinner’s is targeting national and international markets after undertaking a fullscale rebrand of its core range of beers.

The brewery has teamed up with illustrators from across the music and fashion world to produce new looks for their beers.

Beers that have been undergone updates include ‘Cornish Trawler’, ‘Hops ’n’ Honey’, ‘Penny Come Quick’ and ‘Porthleven’ Steve Skinner, head taster at the

brewery, explained: “We have always known that the unique personality of each of our ales is what our customers love and our research backed this up.

“We made the decision to collaborate with a different illustrator for each of our core beers to celebrate this and allowed them the freedom to truly capture the spirit and individuality of each ale.”

In addition to a website rebrand, the brewery will also be providing a beer education programme for key trade accounts. This includes tasting

events and tap house training.

Commercial director, Mike Pritchard added: “Our trade customers are extremely loyal and we’ve always prided ourselves on offering great customer service and technical support for our trade accounts.

“In 2016, we will be investing heavily in this area of the business with expansion of our production facilities, beer tasting events for key accounts and increased spend on marketing to drive footfall in stores and dwell time in bars and pubs.”

Timothy Taylor appoints junior breweR

T

imothy Taylor has appointed Gordon McCallum as its new junior brewer.

McCallum’s appointment coincides with the promotion of Andrew Leman to head brewer as Peter Eells nears retirement.

Speaking about this new role, Heriot Watt trained McCallum said it is a “dream come true working for Timothy Taylor’s”.

He added: “When I reached an appropriate age, my father introduced me to Taylor’s beers as the pinnacle of real ale. I have enjoyed drinking them ever since that day and now count myself lucky

18 | The Brewers Journal | May~June 2016

learning how to brew that unique Taylor’s taste.”

McCallum achieved a BEng (Hons) in Chemical Engineering from the University of Strathclyde and continued his studies at Edin-

burgh Heriot Watt University with an MSc in Brewing & Distilling.

He joins at a time where Leman becomes only their fourth head brewer in the last century, having worked under the departing Eells.

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West Berkshire Brewery eyes expansion

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est Berkshire Brewery (WBB) is eyeing expansion after launching a £1.5m crowfunding initiative.

The company wants to construct a larger brewery, fund its first pub, and also launch a number of new beers through its ‘Renegade Brewery’ label.

The Seedrs crowdfunder runs for 60 days with shares priced at £3 each. A minimum of five shares is required with the scheme expected to value the company at more than

£7m.

WBB has already identified a new brewery site close to its current Yattendon, Berkshire. location. This facility would offer the company 10 times its current brewing capacity.

The investment would also comprise as a state-of-the-art bottling, canning and kegging line, visitor centre and on-site restaurant.

David Bruce, chairman of WBB since 2013, said: “In the past two years this business has gone ballistic with its expansion: last year sales grew 23%; they are up 19% this

year already.

“So we are motoring. But we remain very ambitious and feel like we’re just getting started, and we have this great opportunity to build on our success and momentum.

“However, to do that we need to move the brewery to a bigger home and invest in some other landmark initiatives that will help create a much bigger business and fuel our growth.

“And so we are inviting all likeminded people who wish to share this experience to join us.”

71 Brewing gets planning for Dundee site

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1 Brewing is set to become Dundee’s first new brewery in nearly 50 years after it secured planning permission for its city centre site.

The new brewery is the brainchild of Duncan Alexander and Mark Griffiths. The former has spent the last five years running a community microbrewery in Edinburgh.

A 7,200sqft industrial warehouse will house the 2,400l-capacity facil-

ity that has been made possible due to funding from Scottish Enterprise, Regional Selective Assistance and The Scottish Investment Bank, as well as private investment.

Fit-out works on the site are expected to commence this month, while the brewery is due to be fully operational in October.

Overseeing the installation of the brewery is brewing consultant, David Smith, a brewing consultant

and former head brewer at Samuel Smiths of Tadcaster, is overseeing installation of the brewery.

Co-founder Duncan Alexander explained: “There’s something in the water here that was justification enough for us to establish a brewery in Dundee, beyond the fact that I’m a very proud Dundonian and wanted the city to contribute to this great new beer revolution that is sweeping the country.”

Peckham brewery celebrates South East London

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ld Kent Rd. Brewery has said it wants to “take root and grow” in South East London.

The brewery is founded by Time Out journalist David Clack and experienced homebrewing brothers Will and Adam O’Neale.

The trio call are influenced and inspired by their London surroundings, recognising the local area through its first beers.

This core range includes ‘Heygate Pale’, which is named after the recently demolished Heygate Estate; ‘Asylum Black’, inspired by the local ruined chapel in Peckham that was once an asylum for retired land-

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lords; and also ‘Astoria Saison’.

The latter takes its name from the Astoria Theatre that stood on Old Kent Road itself in the early 20th century.

Co-founder David Clack explained: ‘In my day job, working for Time Out, I’m lucky enough to try loads of great new food and drink coming out of London, particularly beer, so I’m more aware than most of the standard of what’s already out there.

“In the beginning we were really just brewing for our own pleasure, but as soon as we bottled our first batch together, we could see the potential.

“We shared some samples with our local barman in Peckham, who was bowled over and said he’d take as much as we could produce.”

Co-founder Will O’Neale added: “We wanted to celebrate the south east London area, where all three of us were born and all three of us call home.

“There’s such a rich history and cultural mix here, it’s the perfect place for a brewery like ours to take root and grow.”

The brewery’s full range of beers will be available exclusively at The Beer Shop in Nunhead from early April, with a roll-out after at other stockists in London.

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Why the Big boys need craft beer

Rob Lovatt, head brewer at Thornbridge, was always well aware that the big brewers were pretty efficient at producing beer as cost effectively as possible, with the accountants ruling the roost, not the brewers.

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owever, it wasn’t until a few months ago when I got chatting to a friend who did a stint for one of the ‘big boys’ did I realise how efficient they were.

Here is an extract from the e-mail: I have omitted the name of the two brands: “We produced ‘X’ and ‘Y’, but ‘Y’ was definitely the more extreme ‘macrobrew’ of the two. The malt bill was about 25% syrup and only 75% malt. The rest of the wort production process was fairly normal (we did also use alpha-acid extract in the kettle, but only about 10% of the hops used were extract, and I don't find that too out of the ordinary).

“We tried to ferment it in less than 100 hours, but we looked at hours, gravity/AE, and total VKD count before calling fermentation done. Once the beer was between a certain AE and the total VKD was below 100ppm, we crashed the temperature, regardless of whether it was still fermenting (usually it wasn't, in fact many times we crashed a batch because it had gone above our 120 hour maximum fermentation time).

“Once a batch had hit 2 deg. C, we centrifuged it and sent it to a maturation vessel. During this transfer we would add two things: first was a tetra- and hexaiso-alpha-acid extract blend to bring the bitterness in spec (the kettle hop dosings were purposefully low, so we could add the extract and get the correct bitterness every time); and secondly, we would add ‘recovered beer’.

“This was beer that was filtered from the bottoms

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of the maturation vessels, pasteurised and then re-injected into subsequent batches; ‘Y’ could be up to 20% recovered beer, ‘X’ could be up to 5% (but recovered beer was a blend of those two brands - all of the bottoms were collected together in a series of tanks and it didn't matter which brand they were, the mixtures were injected into either beer).

“Maturation was at -1oC and had a minimum of 5 days in residence. After that time it was filtered. At this point the ‘Y’ was at about 8%-9% abv and the ‘X’ was at about 6.5%-7.5%. During my time there, we filtered them at this higher alcohol content and used (really cool and impressive!) blenders that would dilute a beer with de-aerated water and carbonate it as it was sent from the bright tank to packaging.

“These blenders measured AE, abv and carbonation and was able to keep the beer in a series of specifications as it was blended at a rate of 150 hectolitres per hour (so around 300 hectolitres an hour of diluted ‘Y’). The ‘Y’ was blended with de-aerated water to 4% and ‘X’ was diluted down to 5%, so the ‘Y’ was cut oftentimes by more than half, whereas the ‘X’ was only diluted by about 25%.

“One of the issues with high gravity brewing, which I remember from my classes at Brewing school was that high gravity brewing results in decreased head formation and retention, hexa-iso-alpha-acids increases head formation and retention (tetra- do as well, but to a lesser degree). Tetra- and hexa-isoalpha-acids are also light-struck resistant, so it limited skunking (although our facility only did cans and kegs).

In fact, before I left, we had developed ‘Z’, which is exactly the same as regular ‘Y’, just blended to 4.5%

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or 5% instead of 4%, but also brewed almost entirely with a tetra- and hexa- blend.”

Now, you don’t need to be Master Brewer to realise the timeframe and practices they are employing are not exactly going to result in the crème de la crème of beers.

Big brewers are under the cosh when it comes to their market share. The Brewers Association in the US claim that craft beers sales equate to a whopping 12.5% of the market share: https://www. brewersassociation.org/statistics/national-beer-salesproduction-data/ and personally I think it’s only going in that direction in the UK too.

The big brewers are actually running out of ammunition when it comes to trying to halt the relentless thirst for craft beer. Despite them discounting heavily and trying to price craft beers out of the market place, the consumer still demands craft products.

I believe this situation is here to stay and think any new bar or pub opening now with only the usual suspects on the bar would be doomed to fail. So, they have resorted to buying out major craft brands: Lagunitas, Ballast Point, Goose island in the US, Meantime and Camden in the UK to name but a few.

I think gone are the days where big brewers would buy out a brewery and gradually phase out the brands they purchased, purely to cull the competition. The big brewers realise the public are tired of massproduced, ubiquitous yellow beer and if they paid such large sums for these breweries and then ditched the brands, another up and coming craft brewer would only replace them.

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I would suggest that the big brewers intend to leave the craft beers they have bought relatively untouched in terms of raw ingredients and processes.

Would it really be in their interest to rip out the heart of these beers and brew them as they brew their major existing brands, which have been haemorrhaging market share?

It’s not all one way traffic though. To give credit where credit is due, the majority of craft brewers will never be able to compete with the big boys when it comes to consistency. I know from speaking to numerous landlords, bar managers and beer distributors that they are more often than not let down with the consistency and quality of craft beer, particularly when it comes to carbonation and clarity.

Despite being extremely proud of the craft beer revolution in the UK I often shy away from ordering a new craft beer unless I’m damn sure it’s going to be a good pint and opt for a safer bet at the bar or bottle shop and go for an established craft beer or a decent German beer.

Often craft beer can be not just hazy but actively soupy, flat and/or oxidised and people are expected to pay a premium for these beers. In addition, some newer craft breweries are concentrating heavily on marketing without paying the same attention to the quality of their beer something they could probably learn from the big boys.

So, for the customer it can only be good news when and if the big brewers continue to run the breweries they have purchased the way they were before and beer quality is maintained and widely available.

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face the criticism When responding to criticism online you should stick to the facts, be timely, and explain your case, says Jonny Garrett, marketing manager at Cave Direct Beer Merchants and founder of the Craft Beer Channel.

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n many ways, Twitter is like a big family argument. Every one’s talking and no one’s listening, and everyone seems to care a lot more than you thought they did.

Emotions run high for no apparent reason as you go round and round in circles, until finally it dawns on everyone that you were all making the same point anyway, and now the turkey’s burnt.

Ok so that might have been more about me than Twitter. But it’s no wonder that many brewers and companies are shy about responding to criticism on social media. Sometimes it just feels like you are fanning the flames by trying to explain that the beer was supposed to be cloudy, because that’s what a hefeweiss is.

Lord knows it’s frustrating to watch people with little clue about brewing tear apart your beer, but this is the reason why brewers must respond – not why they shouldn’t. Education is the most important way to grow the volume of good beer. If people don’t know about it, or mistrust it, they won’t try it. Giving drinkers the knowledge will allow them to understand beer better and make better choices.

We all know that the first time you drink a lambic your face will look like a squeezed sponge, so don’t respond with silence or anger when someone tries your gose and says they’d rather drink petrol. As people who have gone through that beer journey, we know they’ll be gleefully forcing sour beer on their friends within the year. And when they are, they’ll be telling all their friends how your brewery explained what they had wrong. This transparency and approachability is part of who we are in the craft beer world.

So where misinformation surfaces, we need to put it right. You wouldn’t ignore it if someone said it to you in person, and it’s even more vital to make sure you respond online, where thousands of people could witness your stony silence. It’s even more imperative to respond if someone makes a fair criticism, because then silence can look like arrogance.

So if we definitely should respond to online criticism; the real question is how we go about it and avoid “burning the turkey”. My golden rule, which sounds simple but is broken time and time again by unthinking loudmouths, is if you wouldn’t say the words, don’t write them either.

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I’ve seen people and companies accused of things that could quite easily be taken to court for libel, and there is just no need for it. People respond to a human touch, so you need to sound like you have one even if you mashed in at 5.45am that morning and just spilt caustic on your hand.

Aside from sounding like a normal human, it’s also important to be timely. If you’ve taken the trouble to set up a Facebook page, Twitter account or Youtube channel, you are saying “I’m here, talk to me!”. So if someone has to wait two hours for a response, that’s going to irk them. They can see you’re there, they know you get the notification, so why aren’t you responding? There’s little I hate more than those shotgun approaches to social media, where a company responds to 10 replies in a batch, retweets 5 compliments in a row and then goes offline for another few days. No one benefits from this approach, least of all the brand.

The final rule to bear in mind when responding to criticism, or indeed any online conversation, is to stick to the facts. In trying to avoid the merry-go-round of arguing about craft beer, the truth is your biggest asset. The customer is, in fact, usually wrong and it’s your job to explain that as carefully as possible.

Traditionally there is a little diacetyl in a Bohemian Pilsner, that brett pale ale is designed to smell a bit like Cornwall, keg beer does not have to be pasteurized, and actually Brewdog bashing is significantly more irritating than its marketing strategy. See? Facts. You can’t argue with them.

And arguing is the last thing we want to do. Should breweries respond to criticism? A thousand times yes. Does that mean they can argue with customers or other breweries? A million times no. We may be small and independent, headed by whippersnappers in beards and check shirts, but we are also brand owners and we represent a business and the people who work for it. When I see brewers falling out on twitter it undermines everything. Our individuality and differences are what keep us together as craft brewers.

So when you’re criticized fairly, an explanation of what went wrong with an apology can turn a negative into a positive. When you’re unfairly criticized, teaching the accuser something is the only way forward for everyone.

Now to explain that to the bloggers…

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Leader of the Flock It has been five years since John Hall, founder of Chicago’s Goose Island, sold the brewery he started in 1988 to AB InBev. Cut and run, while enjoying a life away from beer? Far from it. Hall, enamoured with beer and Goose Island as much as any point in his career, was recently in London with members of the brewery for ‘Migration Week’ and he shows no sign of slowing down any time soon.

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t is a Monday night and the venue is Camden’s Daughter in London. Beers from Camden Town Brewery have taken a back seat so Goose Island numbers, many of which don’t make their way to these shores in bottle, let along in keg, are brought to the fore. The Chicagoan brewery is in town concluding the UK leg of ‘Migration Week’, a brand-building exercise to promote staples such as its ‘IPA’, ‘Honkers Ale’ and ‘312’, while also showcasing rarer beers as ‘Lolita, ‘Gillian’ and, for those lucky enough, the venerable ‘Bourbon County Brand Stout’.

Surveying his kingdom for this particular evening is John Hall. For Hall, the founding father of Goose Island nearly 30 years ago, London continues to hold a marked influence on the brewery he started nearly 4,000 miles away.

“Travelling is the best education anybody can ever have. To travel, and see what everyone is doing, it can change your life. Let me tell you,” he says with an enthusiasm as if he’s giving his first ever interview on its origins. “I was working with a big company, and I was able to travel a lot and it opened my eyes to so many things, not least of all, beer.”

It showed Hall that there were a lot of different, great beers out there that he hadn’t tasted, and many of his countrymen probably hadn’t tasted either.

He explains: “I was in my mid-forties and was ready to do something different. I read a little magazine article about small breweries in the US and that was the eureka moment. It changed everything for me.

“I decided to open a brewery and was fortunate to have a wife that was ready to jump into the deep end of the pool with me.”

Hall’s love of the UK, its beer, and the impact on the formation of his brewery, is well documented. But it’s a pointer in the route map of Goose Island that he is loathed to let you ignore.

“I had visited many breweries in small towns. And I’ll be honest they really didn’t make as much sense to me as what I had in mind. Look at Fuller’s. It’s a big brewery, based in London which is obviously a big city.

It just resonated with me. The dream for me was to be a Fuller’s, to represent Chicago like Fuller’s does in London,” he says.

Hall explains: “I have the greatest respect for the brewery, and for John Keeling at Fuller’s. They are an inspiration for many for us.

“They make great beers, and I will always respect that. And now I can relate to the the position they are in, too. There are now around 70 breweries in Chicago, and we were one of the first. I look up to them,” he adds.

Much is made of Hall’s desire to put Chicago on the map in beer, which is true, but it wasn’t the be-all and end-all either “I didn’t set out to do anything apart from make good beer, so really it is hard to believe how it has all panned out, he stresses.

Hall also speaks liberally on acquisitions, himself a key part of one in 2011 when Goose Island was sold to

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AB InBev for $38.8m, arguably pocket money in the current world of beer mega deals.

He explains: “You know, beer is a capital intensity business. Over 20 something years I grew Goose Island by mortgaging everything I had more than once. As you keep growing, you need more capital.

“If you are going to grow, you need more capital.

With everything that is happening now, some will get bigger, some won’t. I had a choice of doing a lot of different things back then.

“You look at who matters to you. For me it was my employees, the drinkers of Goose Island beer, the city and our stakeholders. These four were of paramount importance.

“And I look back at the last few years and I have to say, we had a home run with all four of those.”

According to Hall, he says he made the best deal for all involved.

“Although I could have waited four years and done better! But I am the happiest guy in the world. It worked as I hoped it would work out and thought it would work out. We are making better beer than ever, employees have more opportunities than ever.” he says.

“Look around you,” he says pointing to a packed bar. “I could not have dreamed that. Look at what we have now. Wow.” It’s hard to argue.

There are pitfalls and things to consider when considering selling though, Hall says.

He explains: “Consumers want good beer, varieties, choices, and lots of them. I was just in The Southampton Arms earlier today, drinking great

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beer on cask from small breweries and I couldn’t be happier.

“So it’s not a surprise that more acquisitions and partnerships are happening, as big business recognises that this demand for choice is not going away.

“But I would argue that opting for investment from private equity is almost the worst choice you could make. The ones that are not a long term player in the business and they are looking for economic returns.

“I can’t think of any of us in beer that got into this industry for that reason. We got into it because we loved in, and that has been a by-product.”

And for those on their outbound journey in the world of brewing, Hall stresses the need to a have a focus, and to stick to it.

“If you are to be successful, you need to be very focused. Obviously you need to have very good beers, too. You need to be focused. You need to grow and develop all of the time. But don’t worry about everyone, either,” he adds.

Hall concludes: “I would say where we are today, that if you are to be successful, you need to be very focused. Obviously you need to have very good beers, too. You need to be focused, not appeal to everybody but it is more than beer at the end of the day, too.

You need to grow and develop all of the time.

“It is really the consumer that defines what a craft beer is. I can’t tell you how much I respect breweries of all sizes. But craft beer is good beer. That is all that matters. Look at Fuller’s Chiswick, or Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. How can you not say there is craft involved?

And I tell you, we have the same spirit and culture.”

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Forward Thinkers What do you get if cross a respected, driven and innovative head brewer with two ambitious owners and a popular events organiser that operates on batteries that never run out? The answer: Fourpure in Bermondsey and their beers are coming to a bar near you, that’s if they’re not there already.

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here are a series of pipes that run behind Unit 22 at Fourpure in Bermondsey, London. 106 metres of them, to be exact. They traverse the distance between the brewery’s home at Unit 22 on the Bermondsey Trading Estate and conclude their journey at Unit 16, a distance that Usain Bolt would probably cover in around 10 seconds.

In those pipes, for today at least, flow waves of the 4.7% Pils Lager, travelling at 40 metres per minute no less. The two guys having a smoking break outside an adjacent unit? None the wiser to the beer in motion behind them.

Once it arrives at its destination, it is piped through the wall. It then goes into the brewery’s centrifuge, then through a heat exchanger to drop it down as cold as possible, around -1C, without freezing it.

It then goes through a carb stone before reaching its final destination, the tank where it will lager for between seven to 10 days.

“We wanted the unit next-door but we couldn’t get it. It was heartbreaking, and for a while, we thought we were going to have to move from this site,” explains Fourpure’s articulate head brewer John Driebergen.

growth curve

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he estate’s landlord was concerned that there were too many food and drinks businesses on the site. What if they all went bust? But, as events organiser Sophie Thompson explains, they invited them around for a bit of a party, explained their plans, coupled with loads of beer, and the powers that be were finally on the same page with Fourpure’s desired expansion.

“I can’t believe we didn’t think of it earlier!” she says.

The need to look beyond its current unit to accommodate expansion is testament to the growth curve Fourpure is on. It is a journey mirrored by many of its peers, especially those in and around London.

And like many of those breweries, it is a story that has developed greatly in a short period.

The Fourpure journey, for Driebergen at least, started in the summer of 2013 when he walked into an vast, empty space alongside the brewery’s co-founder Daniel Lowe. “We walked around with a bottle of spray paint and a 12-pack of Diet Coke.

We positioned them at various points on the floor, sprayed around them, using a measuring tape to help work out where everything would go, where it was going to fit, and how this whole brewery would pan out,” he says. “And I think about that all the time, and now, every morning when I walk in here I see how many tanks we have.”

Fourpure, as Driebergen explains, is going through a major phase of transition at the moment. It has

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invested in new equipment, new employees and a new unit. It is also pressing ahead with its barrel-ageing programme while also developing a wealth of new beers. Dozens of them. Not bad for a company that is currently known for its popular and prevalent core range.

Touring the older of the brewery’s units, Driebergen points out that its brewhouse came from Purity.

It’s a 20 UKbbl/33hl brewhouse, a manual, gas powered system that the head brewer describes as “rudimentary” but one the team has made significant changes to over time. One such change is its new mashing system. All of its pre-milled grain, which arrives in 25kg sacks, get fed into the grist hopper, which houses a conveyor inside that carries it up the grain, dumps it down the shoot and feeds it in to a stainless steel hydrator. “Our mash starts right there in mid air,” he says.

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nother change Driebergen and his team have made is on the hop front. He points to their whirlpool, a vessel that used to be a hop back. The brewing team used to cram it with full leaf hops, like its previous owner Purity used to. Then they would transfer all of the wort from the kettle to the hop back, recirculate and cast out from there. But with the hop loads Fourpure was using, it just didn’t work on several fronts.

“We weren’t getting anywhere near the level of flavour extraction we wanted in any of our beers from those hops. It was a a big learning curve as that kit was designed for brewing 3.5% - 4% beers.

So suddenly, when you’re trying to brew a 6.5% IPA that uses 40kg of hops, it is just not happening. The biggest load Purity ever put in was 8kg,” he recalls.

So, in the spirit of getting things to where they want to be, they did some homework, brought in some welders, and worked out how they can turn the hop back into a whirlpool. The brewery now exclusively uses pellets while it runs 100hl hot and cold liquor tanks, which can tap into Fourpure’s industrial water supply, a part of its operation that only came into operation the day before our visit.

“It wasn’t something we had the ability to tap into, but now we do! It was a challenge, it was slow and it was an arduous process. The water company was concerned with us contaminating the water supply, and we had to jump through hoops, but we are now there. Thankfully,” enthuses Driebergen.

Elsewhere in the brewery, its mashtun houses up to 800kg of grain, while the kettle has capacity for 36-38hl kettle full with the brewing team running 75-90min boils. Oatmeal Stout is on the agenda as we pass. Fourpure’s original tank setup comprised three tanks with several bright beer tanks. They now have 17 FVs and eight bright beer tanks. Impressive growth considering brewing only started two years and three months earlier.

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grand plans

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ohn Driebergen has been with Fourpure not from the beginning, but before the beginning, as he words it. Prior to his current role, he was a cellar hand at Meantime, before quickly moving up to the brewhouse, the lab and then finally running its pilot and recipe development programme.

“But one day, I had decided I had enough of developing all of these recipes for them not to be used as they were too busy churning out the London Lager,” he explains.

So Driebergen decided that he wanted something new. And it so happened that on that day, Daniel Lowe had posted an advert looking for a head brewer to work at a startup brewery.

“We met the following day at the Dean Swift pub. We had a beer, then another beer, and then we had another beer. We kept on talking, getting along really well. An hour later, he emailed to hire me. So within 24 hours of deciding I wanted to quit, I had a new job. And as I had holiday to use, I was done at Meantime a week later,” he recalls fondly.

Fourpure co-founder Lowe was in a position to hire Driebergen owing to the fact that he sold his company several years prior. It enabled him to travel, fall in love with American craft beer, decide on starting a brewery with his brother and co-founder Thomas and then bring the head brewer on board. A “very sensible decision” if the brewer says so himself.

“Too many people start breweries without hiring a brewer and decide that they can do it themselves. And that’s a mistake I think a lot of small breweries make,” he says.

By avoiding that potential pitfall, Fourpure in 2016 employs 27 people from nine different countries.

Seven of these are in production, four in sales, Sophie Thompson in events, two in office, two packaging, two owners and the team is completed by those across logistics, deliveries and the taproom.

It’s a big team Driebergen admits but, as he confidently states, Fourpure produced between five to six thousand hectolitres in 2015. This year they will do between 15-20 thousand hectolitres. A big leap, and one they are well on course to hit.

“If you are growing on that curve where you are effectively tripling in size, you need to employ the right people and you need to have people on board six or seven months before you think you are really going to need them so by that point, they can have their game face on are ready for it.”

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ccording to Driebergen, this level of growth is not unprecedented but is also very positive.

“We know what we are doing. We have

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a quality-oriented focus that is driving growth.

We export little, at present, compared to many others in our size in the UK but what we do that is disproportionate to those is the level of draught sales we do in London and that we deliver ourselves,” he explains.

“We have been a little bit fortunate with the timing of the takeovers of Meantime and Camden as there are people that don’t want to buy beer from those big breweries but still want an accessible pale ale or lager on draught. And as a result, they have been led our way,” he says. “The timing is good as the brand has been out there, the quality has been there too and the capacity to supply from our side is now less of a problem.”

While the Bermondsey business may be benefitting from the headwinds in beer buyer’s ethical decisions, regular investment at Fourpure has ensured that it is able to grasp the opportunity with both hands.

FVs from MGT are a mainstay in the brewery, but a particular focus of pride and joy for Driebergen is the team’s BrauKon HopGun. During our time with Fourpure, its Pale Ale is being dry-hopped with copious amounts of Centennial and Citra. Looking into the side you are gifted a vision into a hop-driven utopia with the flavours that have enamoured so many drinkers to such styles, literally developing in front of your very eyes.

By feeding the beer through three inlets, they form a whirlpool going in one direction while another forms a whirlpool going in the opposite direction, which forms a lot of agitation and turbulence.

According to Driebergen the pellets are being broken about at an optimal rate, with oils extracted incredibly efficiently. Normal dry-hopping takes on average three to seven days, but here it takes place in three to five hours, depending on the beer. It’s safe too, with little climbing involved while effectively no oxygen is being picked up either.

“You end up with a much cleaner dry hop character.

We were never truly satisfied with what we were doing before so we are very happy with this. We dry hop every day, it is fantastic. I love it,” he says.

The beer benefitting from this process will end up in both keg and can, the only vessels used by Fourpure. A Lambrechts kegging system, installed last December, is in operation and capable of filling up to 40 kegs an hour.

“It has been brilliant. The overall cycle, with preevacuation takes little over a minute. It’s very fast. We use EKegs and have some of our own branded ones, too. When we started with KeyKegs, we did because of the reasons many others do as they offer a very good solution for a smaller brewery, he says. “But we have found ourselves transitioning more to stainless steel kegs, supplied by Schaefer and we have been very happy with the performance of those.”

Elsewhere, its keg washer from Premier Stainless Systems, is a great piece of kit that Driebergen explains is used en masse by companies such as Summit Brewing Company in the US.

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inspired investment

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hile Fourpure has invested heavily in its kegging operations, it has done the same when it comes to its canning facilities. A brand new line from CFT is a high-specification system that features a coder and two rinsers for different can sizes, with rinse water going in a perpetual loop. 24 fill heads offers capacity of up to 12,000 cans an hour while double counter pressure pre-evacuates with CO2 while a bubble breaker knocks out any foam in the headspace before a little amount of CO2 is injected into that headspace.

It then lets the lid land on it before four rotary seamers go to work.

“This technology means we are able to process 220 cans per minute, compared to the 30 or so we could do before with our old machine. An X-ray machine checks the cans for fill level and rejects any that are short. The other way to do it is to weigh and that is hard to do at this speed, which isn’t really sustainable.

You need a scalable, reliable solution. Any short cans are punched out, and we drink them! I’m reassured that we have a guarantee that this brewery is not sending out any short fills,” he explains.

A drier, also from CFT, dries the cans before accumulation. For now, a whole team of people packs and then are palletized, a process that will imminently become more automated. It has been a significant investment for the brewery and one that has changed things dramatically. What took them six hours, now takes 45 mins. And the quality is better, too.

Fourpure’s operation is more effective and efficient

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than ever, while its Pils, Pale Ale and Session IPA are working their way into an increasing number of bars, pubs, bottle-shops and supermarkets. And while proving themselves with the “bread and butter” core range was essential and integral to Fourpure and Driebergen, demonstrating that there is more to the brewery than those beers is of paramount importance to the team. They brewed 35 unique beers last year, a figure that will easily surpassed in 2016. New numbers such as Belgian Blonde Cherry Tart, Burnt Ends Smoked Porter and White IPA Vertical Drop were all incredibly impressive while a coffee variant of its Oatmeal Stout, Morning Brew, packed a serious punch and was an excellent example of the style. While these are on show at the brewery’s popular taproom and at takeover events, the latest addition to its core range, the 4.7% Flatiron American Red, enjoyed a successful launch last month.

Access to an improved water supply, increased capacity and the introduction of a triple brew day will ensure that new beers will hopefully see the light of day even more frequently from here on in.

Driebergen is also keen to highlight the advent of the brewery’s barrel-ageing programme that will bear fruit from the end of 2016 or early next year. “We are looking at broadening things with mixed-culture sour beers among others, and this expansion was always part of the plan. Time was not on our side previously but we now have enough talented people in the team to make it happen,” he concludes.

And it’s that affirmative approach, an increasingly diverse beer portfolio and the ability to cater for growing market demands that will ensure that the third year in the Fourpure story will be its best yet.

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life in the fast lane

18 months ago, the team at Tweed Brewing Co were busy burning the midnight oil, well 4am to be exact, to ensure their first ever beer ‘Winter Tweed’ would be ready for delivery later that morning. Fast forward a year and a half, the Hyde-based company has just celebrated its 100th brew and has also made in-roads into retail.

And there’s much more to come, too.

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ou need to be confident in business and in brewing. But it needs to be natural, it needs to be organic. You can’t be putting on a face that you take off once you’ve finished a meeting, or a call with a customer,” stresses a bullish Sam Ward. “There is a lot of competition out there so you need to be good at what you do and have the beers to back it up. The team and I are very clear on that.”

He is only in his early twenties but Ward, cofounder of Tweed Brewing Co knows what he wants and he knows how he is going to get it. That's by hard work, a perfectionist approach, and a confidence and drive BrewDog’s James Watt would be proud of.

“Hard work is a key reason as to why we are doing well for such a young company. Beer is our passion, that goes without saying, but you also need to have a focus and an outlook that looks at where that beer will go, its saleability, and how people will react to it,” he explains. “People have mortgages, rent, bills to pay, so you need to make good beer, but good beer you are confident people will want to drink, too.

There is no point, especially as a small team, spending time and money on producing a beer that people are unlikely to want. I know one city centre brewer. They have double our capacity but output half our amount.

Something is wrong there.”

winter wonder

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eam Tweed is completed by Anthony Lewis and Dave Ward, with marketing maestro Thomas Ingram also playing a key role in the company’s social media presence. It was in 2014 that the two Ward’s and Lewis were having a beer one evening. And according to Sam, “not a good one at that”. But it was that experience that was the lightbulb moment for the trio. Lewis was working at another brewery at the time but the conversation that started that evening, swiftly snowballed into something bigger.

“Before long we made the decision that we wanted to be in brewing ourselves. We were looking at premises while Anthony poured through his recipes.

What started as conversations in early 2014 swiftly became all systems go,” says Ward. “I suppose we weren’t aware of just how big the boom was and would become since. I was working in a number of jobs while Dave, my dad, is a retired fireman. But that’s why it has worked, in my opinion. We have come from different backgrounds so we bring different qualities, each with something different to the table.”

The brewery counts its official formation at the point it delivered its first beer, a cask of Winter Tweed, to the Sandbar venue in Manchester.

“It was in late November 2014, and we were up till 4am ensuring everything was ready. We knew the places we could approach that would be interested

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in that type of beer, and with people we could build relationships with. Thankfully it went down really well,” he explains.

Though Tweed started its journey with cask beer, it has since diversified into keg, while its bottle range is more popular than ever.

“We stuck with cask from the beginning. We wanted to be producing traditional, sessional beers and we were building relationships and a following because of that. Too many breweries were starting off with crazy high ABV numbers, that didn’t appeal to us,” he recalls. “We wanted to make beer that lots of people could, and would want to, drink. This trend is definitely gathering even more pace with breweries moving towards perfecting a core range of quality, sessionable beers and pubs and drinkers are reacting to that.”

developing styles

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he Tweed core range comprises the 3.9% Hopster, 4.3% Orange County IPA and its 4.1% Winter Tweed. The brewery has put out around nine or 10 under its own label while it has brewed around half another dozen thanks to its relationship with a restaurant, Mr Cooper’s House & Garden in Manchester. And it’s this relationship that has driven Tweed’s increased use of keg for its beers.

“Orange County IPA and Hopster are key for us, the ones people are asking for week in week out. And it’s the demand from Mr Cooper’s that has been the main reason for us offering keg. The split between cask and keg is around 50/50 now, which still surprises us, especially as we only started kegging in February this year,” says Ward.

Running a 5bbl brewhouse, with Cumbrian Bottling handling the bottling of their bottle conditioned beers, another reason for Tweed’s increased focus on keg has been catalysed by frustration, a frustration due to their cask beer not being taken care of.

“We made that change because we felt that our beer wasn’t being looked after. There wasn’t sufficient education in the bars so our casks were getting damaged and it wasn’t on. There is a severe lack of education in many bars and pubs. It’s a shame, and it is something that needs to change,” he stresses.

And while Tweed started its journey, and still very much focuses, on sessionable beers in and around the 3-5% ABV mark, it recently took a different approach to celebrate its 100th brew, or Brew 100 as they called it. Tweed knew they wanted to go strong, and to brew a Double IPA, so that’s what they did.

“8.1% in a cask just wasn’t going to work for us and either way, 8.1% is stupidly high. It took people by surprise too, but it went well and we were happy with the results,” says Ward. “Brew 100 goes completely against the grain for Tweed, with the beer being split between keg and bottles. There are people out there that will only drink certain strength beers

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and I think it opened their eyes to what we could do, not just the lower strength ABV numbers. Maybe we could look into those sorts of beer as a white label range, and add fuel to the fire of what we do. Such a beer was a step-change for us, and it came at a time where we have also started to tell people what hops we used in each brew. Previously that was a bit of a secret. The response from that change was really good and it has helped sales that's for sure.”

He adds: We don’t have a core range of hops we fall back on for each beer. We don’t want to have that air of familiarity. Before we do any recipe, we look at what is available, and that dictates if we go ahead with it or not. It also plays a massive part in how many beers we release, we take a considered approach. We don’t want to launch 10 beers then have to stop them straight after because we can’t source the ingredients. It keeps the interest there. I look at Cloudwater and admire their seasonable approach. I think that’s the way forward.”

And the way forward for Tweed is looking pretty positive, too. They have just secured listings for Winter Tweed and Hopster for Co-Op stores, a supply that will take the form of 500ml bottles. There is also momentum on the export side of things, with discussions taking place to bring their beers to Canada.

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For Ward and co, they are taking it all in their stride.

“Too many breweries, and the people that run them, are scared of getting too big and want to stay small. Are BrewDog no longer craft because they are big? Of course not. They’ve done things right, and succeeded as a result. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to succeed. And we want to succeed.”

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belgium

Belgium goes back to the beginning Belgian beer is re足 imagining its traditions, says Thirst 足Craft Beer Brand and Marketing Consultancy. They speak to breweries such as Tilquin Gueuzerie, Brasserie de Jandrain足-Jandrenouille and Brouwerij Hof Ten Dormaal about the need for balance, dealing with popularity and mixing the old with the new.

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ike Belgium’s four other gueuze blenders and a dozen or so lambic brewers, Pierre Tilquin cannot keep up with demand for his beers.

There is an unquenchable thirst for the strange, funky and complex beers he makes by blending beers from five different breweries.

Lambic and gueuze beers are in the ascendancy. Hugely sought-after in North America and increasingly in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and other established beer-loving markets, these beers are closer in character to Champagne than an English bitter. They have a sour aftertaste, are tart and dry, challenging and complex and, to the seasoned beer lover, immensely rewarding.

But these are not new styles like a black IPA or mocha porter. More than any other type of beer, lambics and gueuzes can trace their origins to the birth of brewing, when warm wort was left outside to cool and the miracle of fermentation kick­started thanks to wild yeast lurking in the air.

There’s no single reason for the growing popularity of these beers, for years under the shadow of Belgium’s Abbeys, tripels, saisons and blondes.

A greater understanding of complex beers is one reason, as is the hunger for something new, especially among beer

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connoisseurs. Fashion and fads play their part too of course, as does the growing appreciation of food pairing: these tart beers with their big acidic kick and cleansing finish are a joy with pretty much any food.

Established in 2009, Pierre Tilquin’s Gueuzerie Tilquin is Belgium’s newest gueuze blender. In the years since launching his first gueuze in 2011 he’s seen sales rocket, with demand outstripping supply, even if he does have about 400 wooden casks in a shed filled with maturing lambics from Boon, Lindemans, Timmermans, Cantillon and Girardin breweries. Once ready, these lambics are blended into geueze, then refermented in bottles.

Pierre explains the surge in popularity for his beers: “People look for more special products, something new. With the traditional gueuze more people are discovering this type of beer and becoming more familiar with it. A lot more drinkers of speciality beers like

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to drink something new, so we take advantage of this.”

He also sees the rise in popularity as more restaurants start selling beers. “Gueuze is perfect for foods,” he says; a sentiment echoed by Alex Dumont Chassart from Brasserie de Jandrain-Jandrenouille.

“Sours, lambics, gueuzes go so well with food,” Alex declares. “Food pairing is the future of beer. Wheat beer, for example, with fish is wonderful; you have all these wonderful flavours in your mouth!”

Alex also reckons there’s a pragmatic side to having beer with your meal. “With wine there are sulphates that don’t always agree with you body.

“And besides, sharing a bottle of wine between two will put you over the drink-drive limit! “Beer is safer, natural if made in the craft way, but it’s also wonderfully refreshing; it’s a social ingredient that gets people – strangers – talking. You don’t get that so much with wine.”

For the craft beer market to keep on growing, Alex suggests, it needs to tackle wine’s stranglehold on restaurants. “That is where growth is and where the future of craft beer lies. Otherwise there will be blood.

Breweries will close down,” he warns.

His foreboding seems at odds with the international love affair with Belgian brewing. With so much of Belgian beer being exported (some 60%, though this includes Ab InBev’s Stella Artois, Hoegaarden and Leffe), particularly to the US, it seems unlikely Belgian breweries are going to start cutting their cloth any time soon. But a shift in US import policy or duty, however, could quickly jeopardise the reliance many breweries – not just Belgian – have on trade to the American markets.

And it’s not just Belgian beers that are being exported; it’s also the styles. Breweries such as Allagash in Maine, US, and Elgood’s in Cambridgeshire, UK are making their own lambic-style beers with some great results, though their characters are different because they have their own “terroir” – a term associated with wine grape regions but which can equally apply when talking about spontaneous fermentation due to that area’s airborne wild yeasts and bacteria.

Belgian lambics hail from Pajottenland, an area south of Brussels that was once rich in cherry orchards. These long-gone fruits still lend character to the wild yeast brettanomyces (different from the traditional brewers’ Saccharomyces yeast strains) and help define the area’s terroir.

But regardless of whether it’s Somerset, Pajottenland or California, these wild beers start life in pretty much the same way: wort is left out overnight to cool in large flat trays. Wild yeast in the air inoculates the wort and kick-starts the process of spontaneous fermentation, beginning the miraculous process of turning wort into beer.

And as these innovative “wild” breweries look to Belgium for inspiration, so the new wave of Belgium brewers have looked to other countries for their own ideas ... or at least for their hops.

Alex’s Brasserie de Jandrain-Jandrenouille was one

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of the first of Belgium’s breweries to start regularly using US hops in his beers, and when he brewed a saison using a heap of imported American hops, he had no idea that a few years later his IV Saison would be – without irony – described as a modern classic and inspire umpteen clones.

For him, keen to challenge preconceptions about Belgian beer, brewing is not about spices and candi sugars; it comes down to four things: water, hops, malt and yeast.

“Everything must be drinkable so medium strength – you don’t have to be drunk on one beer,” he says.

“It’s more important to satisfy the thirst, yet it should also be pleasing for a connoisseur. It’s all about balance. Balance is everything for a beer.”

He adds: “People don’t drink with their nose and mouth; they drink with their brain; and if they have a good understanding of the product they can understand the taste.”

Tilquin Gueuzerie may not find much use for Mosaic or Centennial hops in its blends, but owner Pierre clearly has an eye on the good beer renaissance across the Channel. He’s a massive fan of modern British brewing, so much so that he’s again hosting an English beer festival at his brewery (April 30-May 1), with the likes of Beavertown, Brew by Numbers, Burning Sky, Buxton, Cloudwater, Magic Rock, Moor, Partizan, Siren, The Kernal, Thornbridge, Weird Beard and Wild Beer Co attending.

Though Pierre insists on keeping his gueuzes strictly traditional (and is no fan of those who use artificial sweeteners), it’s refreshing to see such a well-respected gueuze blender look beyond Belgium for influence; an outlook that has also worked very well for Julien Gobron, of Brasserie Les 3 Fourquets, whose father Pierre set up and then sold the famous Brasserie d’AChouffe.

A proponent of marrying tradition with the modern, Belgian styles with new world hops, Brasserie Les 3 Fourquets’s hop-heavy Lupulus beers have helped grow the brewery way beyond the expectations they had when they launched in 2004. Back then it was simply a desire to “make a top quality beer with a little bit more bitterness then we have normally in Belgium”.

Their beer list shows off this ability to take in Belgium’s rich heritage yet look overseas; again, indicative of Belgium’s brewers awareness of the world around them (this sponge-like philosophy perhaps why Belgium has such a rich brewing culture in the first place). As breweries globally look to Belgium for inspiration, so Belgium’s brewers absorb ideas from all over ... though speak to any of them and they’ll tell you the focus – always – has to be on balance.

Julien’s series of Lupulus beers, for example, includes a Tripel as well as a pale ale made with US and Australian hops. He says he likes the big hoppy beers but, hammering the point, balance has to be there.

A new brewhouse and bottling line (the old one’s off to the hop-farm brewery Plukker) gives Julien

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“lots of possibilities in terms of recipes as well as packaging, but it’s important we keep the recipes artisanal and natural”.

He admits that although there’s been a lot of change in recent years (though not to the scale experienced in the UK and US), now “everybody wants to make beer”. This is encouraging, he says, “because the more there are little breweries with special or craft beers, the more people learn what is beer and become a connoisseur and the more they appreciate our product”.

For Jef Hanssens of Brouwerij Hof Ten Dormaal, it’s about catering to the beer connoisseurs. “We can’t make enough sour beer, and almost all of it is exported to the US since there’s a massive hype there for the moment.”

Jef reveals they’re working on a dry-hopped brown sour apple/cheery beer, and adds: “We pride ourselves in getting new stuff out there, doing it our own way.

Tradition doesn't mean anything to us. We are a very young brewery [established 2009] and unlike most Belgian breweries, we don't think Belgium is 'the beer land'.”

Hop farmer turned brewer Joris Camie is similarly unapologetic, though in his case it’s about distribution. If you want his beers – and people do –

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you have to come to his Plukker hop farm and brewery and pick them up yourself. Instead, he’s focused attention on his equipment and brewing, and has just bought an improved bottling line from Julien Gobron’s Brasserie Les 3 Fourquets.

Joris too has merged modern with the traditional.

His organic farm grows Cascade, Challenger, Goldings, WGV and Pilgrim hops, and it’s these that form the bedrock of his five core beers, including his Single Green Hop amber beer. It’s made using Challenger hops picked seconds before being added to the boiling wort. You can’t get fresher, he proclaims. It’s impossible to disagree.

His All Inclusive IPA meanwhile uses all five hops and is made at the end of the hop-picking season, its character and taste dependant on that year’s harvest.

But despite the focus on hops at Plukker, Joris is also adamant about the importance of balance – his single-hopped IPA might reek of fresh hops but it’s held together by a soft malt backbone.

Balance is everything for these Belgian brewers, regardless of whether it’s a blonde, tripel or gueuze.

There might be an unrivalled diversity of styles and character in Belgian beer, but look behind the variety and you’ll see that the understanding and appreciation of balance runs throughout.

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T e c hn o l o gy

c a nnin g

Line checks From packaging arriving at the brewery through to the filled product leaving for the store shelves, there are test and inspection systems for each stage of the process to help ensure a perfect result. Daniel Searle reports.

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rom a short-term hold-forinspection (HFI) delay on the filling line through to a full-scale product recall, any scale of problem with a filling operation can have a major financial impact for a brewer. Leaking cans and bottles that affect shelf-life, incorrect labelling and foreign objects in the product are all issues that brewers - and beer lovers - are keen to avoid encountering.

While packaging manufacturers employ numerous test and inspection systems to all-but guarantee their products leave the factory ready to be filled, packaging

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can be damaged or contaminated during the logistical process of travel, warehousing and unpacking. Similar systems are therefore used by fillers at the beginning of the filling line, to detect damage and dirt.

The light weight of empty cans that makes them a low-cost packaging to ship to the brewery also makes them susceptible to minor dents - which are easy to overlook but can compromise the package's integrity over the duration of the product's shelf-life.

It's therefore unsurprising that a range of empty can inspection systems are available.

Heuft's CanLine systems operates at up to 144,000 cans a minute - enough to handle a full-speed

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beverage can manufacturing line and therefore suitable for filling operations as well. It's powered by the company's Reflexx2 image-processing system, and is designed to identify deformations, indentations and other damage - focusing particularly on the quality of the flanged edge of the unfilled can, critical to the delicate double-seaming operation at the opposite end of the line. A deformed flange or neck can result in the seal either failing completely or, potentially more problematically, not sealing tightly enough.

The CanLine system also highlights dents to the body and base of the can, as well as dirt and foreign objects, using LED illumination to provide a clear view

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of each can for analysis.

The Innocheck ECI - empty can inspection - system from Germany's KHS addresses similar issues. Running at up to 2,000 cans a minute, the system uses one camera - with an option of a second for improved performance - to capture images of the can wall, base and top edges. The Innocheck software developed by KHS provides not just image analysis to detect any faults, but also individual can tracking, to ensure that any cans determined to be faulty can be automatically rejected from the line.

The system has been designed to be compact, to fit into the filling process as unobtrusively as possible,

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and importantly emphasises a hygienic approach, particularly on the inspection head. The company also highlights the long life of the LED lighting system, reducing the maintenance required.

The Ultra Compact ViS from Ibea, as the name suggests, also focuses on a space-efficient, singlelane process. Key to this is integrating the complete PC system within the ViS, meaning that no external computer is required to process the images - the whole system consists of just the accompanying monitor, keyboard and mouse.

The complete in-house hardware and software guarantees reliable round the clock production and is compatible with components of diameters up to 190mm and heights of up to 300mm - so there's plenty of scope for inspecting tallboys, stovepipes, crowlers and all the other capacious can sizes being adopted throughout the craft brewing industry. As well as being able to analyse component dimensions, detect damage and flaws in panel, body and flange, and a number of other options, the software was developed with reflective surfaces and materials in mind - making it particularly well-suited to metal components such as empty cans and crown corks.

The system includes Ibea's Real Time System (RTS), operated by a gear clock and controlling the image scanning and illumination processes and up to three ejectors, synchronising analysis and rejection to ensure bad products don't reach any further down the filling line.

German company Krones offers high accuracy inspection systems for empty cans, glass bottles and PET bottles. The company's Cantronic system runs at line speed, inspecting cans for contamination and deformation. A high-resolution CCD camera inspects the base, wall and flange, while an optional extra camera is used to detect wrinkles and dirt in the neck area of 202-diameter cans - slim cans commonly used

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for energy drinks. Any cans detected as faulty or 'risky' are automatically rejected and the details recorded, a safeguard protects the product quality and increases overall line efficiency by 5%, says Krones.

The company also produces the Linatronic 735 for inspecting empty glass and PET containers. Hygiene is understandably a priority, and the system features conveyor belts that repel dirt and moisture, a closed outer surface in the conveyor belt station, and a structure designed to prevent dirt building up above the bottle flow.

Using a camera and a sensor, the system inspects the inner and outer side-wall, sealing surface, base and thread for integrity and contamination and checks for any residual liquid inside the bottles.

As well as providing systems for single-use glass bottles, Krones has also developed a unit in the EBI range for inspecting returnable glass bottles.

The system is designed to offer improved sidewall inspection accuracy, combining four fourmegapixel cameras and crack detection capability in the neck finish section. Accuracy is further improved by the double-flash neck finish inspection, and base inspection with pre-centering. The unit is also optimised for transparent bottles with scuffing and engravings.

closing thoughts

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nce each empty container has been checked and verified as free from defects, they reach the filling stations. Here, systems such as the Filtec 3 are designed to flag up any of the various issues that can arise during filling and closing the containers.

Potential problems include overfilling and underfilling each can or bottle, and the can end or

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Clockwise from left: CMC SeamScan, Krones Cantronic, Sencon can line sensors, Ultra Compact ViS from Ibea

bottle lid either being fitted incorrectly or, if the hopper has run out of these components, missing entirely. The Filtec 3 inspection system detects these issues as they arise on the filling line, as well as identifying bulged cans, high or low foam levels, glass bottle breakages, containers falling over on the line, and where applicable, missing foil seals.

The system is more than capable of handling filling line speeds - it runs at up to 2,400 cans a minute or 1,400 bottles a minute - and collects data as it goes, keeping count of the total number of containers analysed and the total number of rejected parts. It also

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offers real-time continuous statistical analysis of the data, and uses sampling to monitor the performance of filler valves and the capping and closing heads, enabling the system to identify if a fault within an individual station is causing rejects.

As with the empty container inspection systems, the Filtec 3 recognises the lack of space typically available when installing machinery within a filling line, and is built with a deliberately small footprint.

For brewers using cans, the closing process involves what could quite reasonably be described as an unheralded wonder of engineering - the double-seam.

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Above: Heuft eXaminer II XOS

The intricacies of how such an impermeable barrier is formed - keeping high-pressure gas inside beverage cans for years and food safe to eat for decades - at line speeds is a topic to be looked at in detail another time, but seaming can safely be described as both an art and a science and is understandably the focus of a large number of dedicated inspection machines.

These machines have been developed to be compatible with today's generation of ultra-thin beverage cans. The can manufacturing industry has made ongoing efforts to downgauge the thickness of its products, as although each step only reduces the weight of each can by a fraction of a gram, with standard can production operations typically manufacturing over a million cans in a shift on just one line the cost savings and environmental benefits soon add up. This approach has also been applied to can ends, resulting in brewers running seaming operations which demand two pieces of metal both thinner than a human hair to be accurately bound together.

As a result, it's beneficial for filling operations to analyse as many seams as possible - not only to detect potential flaws, but also to identify trends in seam dimensions which can provide an early warning sign that the process may be going out of specification, allowing the operator to make modifications before faulty seams are produced.

This requirement has seen x-ray technology introduced - the non-destructive process making it possible to return products to the line after analysis, unlike the alternative approach in which the seam is cut open for measurement, and therefore allowing the seam monitoring process to take place without eating into productivity.

An example of a latest-generation system, Torus Group's SEAMetal HD was developed by Israel-based Quality By Vision, who Torus is the UK and Ireland agent for. The company highlights not just the issue

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of lightweighted cans and ends, but also pressure to increase line speeds as a further cause of potential issues arising in seaming operations.

The company first introduced a computer-based, fully-automatic double seam inspection system back in 1993, and has continued to develop the detection algorithm to improve the accuracy and repeatability of the measurements.

Its key benefits are fast, high-resolution and highaccuracy x-ray imaging, using an integrated highdefiniton camera and an SPC system that provides automatic measurement and data collection of each of the seam dimensions. From there, the software can present the information in graph form, and has compatibility with Microsoft Excel to produce customised reports.

CMC-Kuhnke's Mars-XTS combines two modules, the SeamScan XTS to make internal measurements with an x-ray system, and its CSG-Series Combination Seam Gauge for taking external measurements.

The result is a system that can measure a range of dimensions including seam height, body hook, cover hook, overlap, seam thickness, countersink depth, and body hook butting and wrinkle rating.

It offers the option of connecting directly to the filling line, with a sample of cans automatically diverted to the machine for seam analysis, or can be fed with cans manually. In either case, the cans are then either held for additional inspection or returned to the production line.

CMC-Kuhnke also highlights the handling system of the Mars-XTS, developed for transporting filled cans through the measurement stations without damaging or affecting the product.

After filling and sealing, Krones offers one further safety-check for glass bottles, with a system devoted to detecting the potentially disastrous problem of glass fragments and other foreign bodies inside the containers.

With a suitably investigative name - the Linatronic 774-FBI - the unit operates on up to 72,000 bottles an hour. It uses two camera modules, each of which take three separate images at different angles, to detect particles that are transparent, suspended in the beer, or lying flat to the base of the bottle.

label mates

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hen each container is filled with the correct amount of beer and securely closed, there are systems for the end of the line to verify the labels and branding of each can or bottle.

It's not just a branding issue - what's important for fillers is to make sure that the correct containers have been used for the relevant product. Fill a can designated for a triple-hopped IPA with a smoked porter and you'll startle a beer afficianado - but if a drinks manufacturer producing both soft drinks and alcoholic drinks at the same facility fills the wrong

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Above: Krones Linatronic: 774-FBI operates on up to 72,000 bottles an hour

can, there could be legal ramifications.

UK-based Sencon explains that cans from previous batches can get stuck on the line and then swept up into a new batch, resulting in a can being filled with contents that does not match its label. The worse-case scenario of alcohol going into a soft drink-labelled can would be a serious retail incident - but more often it results in whole pallets being held up for inspection and sorting, costing time and money.

To address the problem, Sencon developed the LVC180 Label Verifier specifically for cans, which unlike glass bottles arrive with their labelling already printed, hence the need for a slightly different approach than glass bottle filling operations.

It's suitable for the can manufacturers as well, but at a filling operation can be used to detect rogue cans in a batch prior to filling, or after filling and seaming has been completed.

A key advantage of the system is its twin-sided, 85-degree view of each can, much wider than comparable systems, adds Sencon. This in turn can help to reduce HFIs and false reject rates, improving productivity.

The system can also be used as an entry-level decoration inspection unit too, says Sencon, and notes that it is designed to be very simple to operate, requiring three button pushes to learn a can label and start work.The issue of decorating accuracy is another area to check, and although packaging manufacturers

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and label printers have their own quality control systems in place, fillers can double-check packaging for issues such as colour-matching - key for brand identity - as well as printing errors and barcode verification.

For cans, Sacmi's Elioscan system uses ultra-highresolution 5-megapixel cameras in combination with bespoke illumination designed to counter the potential problems of imaging and analysing reflective surfaces. It comprises four colour cameras to pick out variations in colour shades, minor defects such as ink stains and discoloured areas, and read barcodes.

The Italian company also supplies the LVS360 vision system, designed specifically for quality control of labelled bottles. The system looks at the presence and positioning of each label, identifies rogue bottles within a batch, and detect more minor issues such as unglued label corners, labels applied in 'flag' format, bubbles, spots, wrinkles and tears - as well as, again, being able to read the barcode.

And for brewers using branded crown corks, KHS developed the Innocheck CLI, designed to verify that the logo on the cap of each bottle correlates to the product inside. Using an LED lighting unit and a highprecision lens system, the machine also checks for soiled or scratched caps. And it's suitable for a wide range of cap and closure types, so any brewers adding an extra element of branding to their can ends will be able to use the system as well.

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Attention to Detail Edward M McD Scott from Ambro Systems seeks to shed some light on the operations inside the monobloc of a technologically advanced CFT canning machine that is available in nominal speeds as low as 6,000 x 330ml cans per hour.

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lthough cans have several advantages over bottles, the way in which it is difficult to create a captive environment in which to fill the can and the diameter of its head means that the quality and control of the filler is exceptionally important. Unlike with bottles, the lack of structural rigidity of an open can means that it can cannot be vacuumed of oxygen prior to filling and the use of over-foam to void the headspace creates an inconsistent fill and a problem when it comes to cleaning.

advanced valve positioning

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he old style of rotary can fillers use cams and followers to position the can and dictate seaming accuracy. With each cam and follower being manually adjusted by the operator during setup and no self-correction of their positioning during filling, these mechanically positioned machines require frequent manual adjustment by an experienced operator.

The modern producers of filling machines have developed electro-pneumatically controlled filling valves where each valve operates autonomously. The increased checks and controls possible have lead to: Greater filling accuracy; Decreased dissolved oxygen pickup;

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Longer lasting freshness and better shelf life; Greater monitoring of the system via PLC; and Greater flexibility as the product and fill parameters can be adjusted remotely.

With the newfound popularity of craft beer in cans, the early volume of choice has been the 330ml.

However, with the domestic market asking for 500ml and the export market asking for 355ml it is not uncommon for a brewery to want to fill several sizes.

Fourpure’s new CFT canning line will have a double rinser box to enable them to change between 330ml and 500ml cans without any change parts and as the machine is electro-pneumatically positioned, it will be a matter of simply switching between the product types on the PLC as all three volumes share the same diameters and lid type.

seamer technology

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he cans are inspected and counted on the way to and from the seamer station.

This ensures that the chuck is protected in the case of there being no can (at the start of the shift, for example) and also helps the machine to selfmonitor the rate of seaming.

Seamers in CFT machines are made from advanced materials with the rollers being coated in titanium and the chucks being in M340 stainless steel, which is more resistant to wear than the 304 or 316 grades

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Carbon dioxide Product Can air

Figure 1: The infeed starwheel transfers the can to its individual filling valve. The cam follower raises the centering bell, allowing the empty can to enter underneath the correct point of the filling valve.

Figure 2: The can is raised to just under the filling valve; CO2 is fluxed into the can to evacuate CO2; The flushed gasses exit the can from its open top.

of steel used in less advanced machines. The hardness and corrosion resistant qualities of titanium and M340 for these critical elements of the machine increase both the reliability of the machine and the operator’s confidence in the quality of the seam and their ability to effectively clean the whole mobobloc.

The CIP solution enters through the product-fill pipe, fills the CIP cup and returns through the air-return manifold, fully flooding the system before fluxing.

This ensures that all pathways are sterile.

As the machine counterpressure fills and uses under-lid CO2 jeting to bubble break, there is very little beer spilt compared to those machines that use over foaming to void head space. However, CFT recognises that everything inside the mobobloc must be sterilised, so each machine is equipped with jets that spray foam inside the monobloc during the cleaning cycle.

changeover and cleaning

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ith an electro-pneumatically positioned machine, so long as the seamer height is adjustable changeover parts are only necessary for different diameters of can or different seam types.

In the case of a CFT machine, the change parts for a different diameter of can include the infeed screw and starwheels, only taking minutes to change.

The machine has a CIP cycle programmed, so the operator simply needs to place the special cleaning cups onto each can lifter and commence the cycle.

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beavertown's choice

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eavertown brewery have installed a 24 filling head, 4 seaming head CFT Master Can Tronic capable of an output of 12,000 cans per hour at their brewery in Tottenham Hale.

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Carbon dioxide Product Can air

Figure 3: The lifter brings the can up to form a seal on the filling head; The second CO2 purge takes place and the flushed gasses leave to atmosphere through a separate air return.

Figure 4: The air-return valve is closed; The can is brought to the same pressure as the filling bowl for isobaric filling.

"When shopping for a new canning line our main considerations were quality, reputation, proximity of engineering support and lead times. CFT were able to tick all the boxes and came highly recommended by our colleagues around the world. When you purchase equipment it is good to have the advice and support of another brewer who is already a customer and many of our friends were running CFT lines. They invited us come have a nosy and ask questions that went a long way towards helping us make our decision," says Jenn Merrick.

an advanced machine such as a CFT filler, a dedicated low speed line would be prohibitively expensive.

CFT found that many of their customers were returning for their second lines, but the financial considerations, as well as those from sequencing the production and removal of the previous lines, could become a problem for these breweries.

The expandable range of fillers is available in several speeds, from a monobloc that initially fills 100 cans per minute (6,000 cans per hour) but that can be fitted with extra filling valves and seaming heads to double capacity to 200 cans per minute (12,000 cans per hour). This expandable machine enables the smaller brewers to justify the initial purchase of a high technology machine without having to worry that the pace of their growth will necessitate its replacement in the medium-to-long term.

CFT Group was born out of the tomato processing industry, and was founded as Rossi and Catelli in 1945. Through the acquisition of complimentary companies with whom the Rossi & Catelli was

the expandable solution

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FT work with many craft scale brewers across the world and so are used to the demands of fast growing companies.

From this experience CFT realized that an expandable machine would solve 2 main problems: that of Due to the cost of the embodied technology in

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Figure 5: When the can is brought to pressure, the filling valve opens; Filling is very gentle as the beer enters via a spreader which causes the flow of beer to be down the inner wall of the can – this avoids turbulence and foam formation. The filling is complete when the beer reaches the lower tip of the gas return port; At the point, the can is without head space.

Figure 6: As the filling completes, the product valve closes; The lifter brings down the can for a pre-set stroke, creating a measured head space; The down stroke brings allows a pre-snift prior to pressure being completely released ready for lid placement and seaming. The can is then transferred via the starwheel to the seaming head; The seaming starwheel has a series of CO2 nozzles positioned to inject a continuous high flow of low pressure CO2 into the top of the can.

This serves to void the head space and break any bubbles forming, guaranteeing a more accurate fill and lowering the infection risk.

cooperating, including SIMA and Manzini, the company was able to offer full turnkey lines for vegetables and fruits from intake of raw-ingredients through to packaged goods in the warehouse.

The beverage filling expertise of CFT was born of the carbonated wine industry and a company called SBC, which along with Comaco, was purchased

by Catelli Holding Spa. Since its purchase, SIMA’s cooperation with SBC has led to CFT being one of the only companies able to offer advanced canning machines where the entire process is manufactured inhouse. This expertise has also meant that several large packaging companies use CFT seamers in their canning monoblocs, including those that serve the beer industry.

CFT has been operating in the US beverage filling market since selling its first bottling machine to Saxer

Brewing in 1980. In the intervening 36 years CFT has installed machines speeds ranging up to 51,000 bottles per hour for Matt Brewing.

The company’s US beer filling references now include such companies as Ska Brewing, Troegs, Pizza Port, Port Brewing and Lost Abbey; and Cigar City.

In the UK the company are, at the time of writing, commissioning the new filler at Beavertown and will soon be delivering a machine capable of filling 12,000 cans per hour to Fourpure Brewing Co. In recent years, CFT has further expanded its offering in beer by hiring the former head of Velo’s brewery engineering team, Elio Poloniato. Elio is training several qualified process engineers to become brewery specialists and the team are currently commissioning Jack’s Abby’s brewery in Framlington.

This is the first of several new CFT brewhouses that will come into operation in the coming year.

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Southern Comfort Whether you love or hate southern California-style hop infused IPAs, the fact of the matter is no where else in the world is craft beer taking off like it is in San Diego. TBJ’s man in California Velo Mitrovich explains all.

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ne of the most pointless gestures has to be creating a craft beer brewery map which shows the locations of all of San Diego breweries; each and every issue of the map is out of date by the time the ink hits the paper. When Brewers Journal was in San Diego in February, the count suddenly became jumped from 117 to 119 – all on one night. By the time you read this, it will no doubt be at least 120, with California’s total around 600.

And the great thing is – or scary depending on your perspective – economists believe that San Diego’s population of 1.45 million (3 million total in the huge county) can easily sustain 200 breweries. That’s a lot of beer and that’s a lot more breweries than any other city in the world.

And it’s just not locals who are quenching their

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thirst in San Diego. Green Flash Brewing Company goes from strength-to-strength while Stone Brewing is the third leading tourist attraction in San Diego. What makes this even more impressive is when you think of the city’s other attractions which includes the world famous San Diego Zoo & Wild Animal Park, SeaWorld, Lego Land, numerous surfing beaches and four professional sport teams. Want more than Stone’s?

Competing bus tour companies will take you around on beer tours – much like the wine tours in northern California.

The industry is populated by old hippies and young millennials, who seem to have one major thing in common – a thirst for beer at a young age stymied by a restricted 21-year-old legal drinking age, making home brewing the only option. From college dorm rooms and parents’ garages, they kept notching up their skills until they created a local industry now worth just shy of one billion dollars – doubling in

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value over the last three years.

Why did this happen in San Diego and can the same results be duplicated elsewhere? The Brewers Journal thinks it can be and in a series of articles in the next issues, we will be exploring this idea while profiling some of the city’s local breweries, starting with one too new to be on anyone’s radar – yet.

new kid on the block

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ou’re leaving a brewery on a foggy San Diego Saturday evening when your beer app goes off – San Diego has just gone from 118 craft breweries to 119 with the grand opening of Pure Project. What else can you do but turn the car around and head for Pure.

Even with satnav it’s difficult to find, not helped by the fact it’s located on a commercial park in a north San Diego suburb. That said, despite the nearest homes being more than a Californian walk away, the place is packed and jumping with a slight spill-over crowd. But as you eye over the rather eclectic choices of the 12 brews being offered – with some drawing flavour inspiration from the tropics such as hibiscus – you have to wonder if its brewers will still be in business six months from now.

In such a crowded market as San Diego, each new brewery has to do something to set it apart; be it having the ‘hoppiest’ IPA ever made, a brilliant location, exotic food trucks or being dog/kid friendly.

Pure Project’s niche is that it thinks its in Costa Rica.

While the Central American tropical country is not exactly on anyone’s beer tour, husband and wife owners Jessie and Agi Pine have drawn their inspiration from their three years living in the coastal village of Manuel Antonio. They have been helped considerably along with this dream thanks to the talents of brew master Winslow Sawyer, who developed his skills at Boulder Creek Brewery, a northern Californian brewery which burned down last year.

While in Costa Rica, Agi and Jessie drank what the locals did – pilsners – but their taste buds started craving something made with all the different tropical flavours which surrounded them. With the idea of introducing Costa Ricans to the potential taste and market of craft beers, the couple started home brewing. During a visit back in the States, they met up with friend and beer lover Mat Robar, and the trio took the idea even further – raising funds to build a brewery in Costa Rica.

Mat moved down to Costa Rica to help set up a small-scale brewery, bringing brew-system parts and yeast cultures in his luggage. Manual Antonio Brewing Company was born on a tropical patio during the rainy season. They created three beers, two of which are still with them: Valle Pura Vida which is a blonde ale brewed with ginger and citrus peel, and their Milagro coffee stout, which was developed in partnership with a small local coffee roasting company.

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However, the dream ran hard into reality when the they realised that the village of Manual Antonio didn’t have a sewage system and a septic tank would not be able handle the flow of wastewater their brewery would create. One of the first projects they would have to do then would be to build a water treatment facility which was prohibitively expensive.

“We couldn’t produce beer at the volume we wanted without creating an environmental impact,” says Mat. It was back to the States.

pura vida - pure life

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n setting up Pure Project, the three partners decided that instead of focusing on a specific style of beer, they would focus on ingredients. “We use the word ‘pure’ because it comes from a saying in Costa Rica, ‘Pura Vida’, which means ‘pure life’. We wanted to bring that back with us,” says Jessie. “But, while it is always our goal to source organic and sustainable whenever possible, our beers are not certified organic.”

Along with Milagro coffee – they’re still buying beans from the same Costa Rican roaster – on opening night other ingredients included grapefruit, ginger, Valencia oranges, Himalayan pink salt and hibiscus from Burkina Faso.

Instead of buying equipment, Pure Project made use of a new concept developed by the H.G. Fenton Company, called Brewery Igniter, which leases out a fully equipment brewery for around US$8,000 a month. According to SD Metro, typically, a start-up microbrewer must invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in brewing equipment, manage construction expenses and logistics, and wait for a liquor license and their equipment to be delivered before they can brew, pour and sell their first pint. Brewery Igniter takes care of all of this except for the liquor license which takes about two months.

For Pure, from the announcement of their new brewery to the grand opening, took around six months. While Pure’s team felt this wait was a “long time”, compared to other recently opened San Diego brewers this was a near-record time.

For the majority of San Diego’s new breweries, twoyears is about average. Considering leases would have been signed – and rent being paid out – equipment ordered and deposits paid, this is a genuinely ‘long time’ without any money coming in from beer sales.

And indeed, Pure Project’s seven-barrel Premier Stainless brew system was ready to brew this last October only because Brewery Igniter had ordered it months before.

As great as Brewery Igniter has been for Pure Project, Brewers Journal has to wonder about Pure’s medium and long-term plans for the location.

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Directly next door to Pure is another space being prepared by Brewery Igniter. With doors opened, will each others’ thumping-loud music bleed into the competing brewery and drive customers away? And, while Winslow said that having a brewery next door to theirs would be great, with a sharing of ideas, Brewers Journal questions whether the sharing of customers will also be considered great.

marketing hit & miss

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n talking with the three partners, it quickly becomes evident that the three are looking at Pure Project as much more than a beer, but as a statement of their lives and personal environmental views. While many breweries should have as a mission statement: ‘We get you sloshed’, Jessie, Agi and Mat’s would be: ‘Join us on our journey’. How this will play against Stone’s ‘Arrogant Bastard’ on women’s panties is anyone’s guess.

In talking with San Diego State University’s beer programme which concentrates on the marketing aspect of beer, the university questioned Pure Project’s brand name and logo.

“There is considerable competition in San Diego’s craft beer industry and you need to think how you can stand out. Having a name, logo, and logo colour which would look more at home on bottled water or face cleaner will be a tough one,” says SDSU. An interesting marketing idea Pure Project has started is a ‘Founders Club’. There are three memberships varying in price from $250 for the Founders Club Lite – opened to 60 people – to the Founders Club Platinum – open to five – which will set you back $2,500.

Pure Project believes that the total value of the Platinum membership is $8,500 and includes creating your own brew with the team to having a party for 20 of your closest friends. A five per cent lifetime discount is given for Lite membership, 10 per cent for Premium, and 20 per cent for Platinum.

During Pure’s opening, Brewers Journal watched what people were ordering. With such a different variety than most San Diego craft brewers, many customers were buying four or eight samplers and sharing with friends. The question is, however, will samplers turn into pints? “What they have is interesting,” one customer told Brewers Journal, “but I don’t think I would want to drink a pint of any except for maybe two or three of their beers.” These comments were echoed by others in the party.

That said, Pure Project seems to be already building a fan base. If these customers are willing to stick with Pure Project as it grows and develops its beers, Pure in time should be a fine addition to the San Diego scene.

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The Dry Yeast Advantage Brewing is a process with few constants and a seemingly endless string of variables that conspire to form what we lovingly know as beer. From raw materials in the brewhouse to changes in brewing practice and conditions, we fight to keep production standards tight towards creating consistent products from batch to batch. Nowhere is this battle more challenging than in areas of yeast management and fermentation, explains Keith Lemcke, vice president at the Siebel Institute of Technology.

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t is said that brewers are wortmakers and yeast wranglers. We don’t actually make beer but rather we create a nutrient-rich media that provides a rich banquet for the miraculous eukaryotes we employ to engorge themselves and expel alcohol, CO2 and a flavour matrix that add up to form the ales and lagers we present to our customers.

Trouble is should conditions not be just right, yeast makes its displeasure felt in a variety of ways. Slow/ stalled fermentations and production of off-flavours are indicative that something is wrong either in fermentation conditions or with the yeast itself.

Traditionally, commercial breweries have worked to minimise the variety of yeast strains used in their brewery and this does offer some benefit. By working with a single strain in a variety of different recipes and conditions, brewers can get to know the likes

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and dislikes of that strain under moderately differing conditions. However breweries are now required to participate in a highly competitive market by offering new recipes that challenge their skills in fermentation and yeast management.

Building a portfolio of interesting beer styles requires that breweries now manage multiple strains, but brewers also need to know the specific conditions under which each strain will perform towards creating products that both meet the stylistic touch points and offer an exceptional drinking experience.

multiple strain management

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nlike any other industry, we as brewers reuse our yeast from batch to batch.

This is a great advantage from a materialscost standpoint but it does have its

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downsides. The first is timing, in that ideally brewers should be able to practice “cone-to-cone” pitching.

This means transferring just the right amount of live, active yeast from one fermenter just after it has completed fermentation into another fermenter filled with freshly-prepared wort. In many breweries, that is a greater challenge than it sounds as wort production planning must be built around a schedule where yeast is at its peak of health in pitchable amounts from a fermenter.

This is less of an issue for breweries using a single strain of yeast in beers that are of similar moderate strengths and characteristics. Yeast completing fermentation of beers at around 5% and lower is generally not too stressed by such a moderate ethanol environment, so it should perform well in another batch. That said, at some point of repitching many strains will begin to have shifts in their fermentation performance and characteristics.

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Especially, beers that venture into the higher alcohol ranges can leave yeast taxed by exposure to such high alcohol ranges, and their performance in the next batch of wort may exhibit signs of poor health affecting fermentation speed, attenuation performance and flavour development.

With this in mind, breweries should conduct checks for viability (% of cells alive/dead) and, if possible, vitality (overall fermentative performance) every time yeast is reused to assess whether the yeast slurry is up to the task of fermenting another batch.

By the time breweries take on multiple strains in the brewery towards widening their portfolio of beer styles, an extra level of complication arises in management of these pure cultures. If the beer recipe in question is truly a “one-off” product such as a seasonal beer, the brewery must either order a “pitchable” amount of a liquid culture or go through the process of propagation of a pure culture within

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the brewery.

If ordering pitchable amounts from a supplier, typical lead times can be lengthy. In-house propagation of a culture from a yeast slant can shorten that time to within 3 to 5 days from start of propagation in the lab. In both situations, brewery operations need to synchronise to the availability of the yeast.

Live liquid yeast cultures require food and nutrition.

While keeping a propagated or “cropped� slurry under cold conditions for a day or two will most likely still yield good performance in fermentation, the truth of the matter is that when yeast is deprived of what it needs to live, its metabolic activity changes towards adjusting to such an environment.

By the time a liquid culture that has been stored for days is added to wort to begin fermentation, it can be expected that the fermentation performance will be compromised to varying extents depending on the storage conditions and on the nature of the individual strain.

testing... 1, 2, 3

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egardless of whether the liquid yeast slurry is fresh from the brewery propagator, straight out of a bottle from a yeast supplier or directly transferred from the bottom of a vessel at the end of fermentation, testing for percentage of viable cells and calculating yeast pitch is critical for consistent results in finished beer.

Brewers want to get through fermentation and

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beer finishing in the most timely fashion possible and yeast health is critical to achieve that end. However, yeast health also plays a key role in many aspects of the characteristics of finished beer, especially in flavour and aroma. Fermentation products like diacetyl, sulfur and a range of esters are dependent on consistent yeast performance, so pitching an accurate quantity of cells with a known level of viability is critical with every batch.

Yeast counts are not that difficult to conduct, but still many breweries lack the lab equipment or trained manpower to perform the tests on a regular basis.

Many brewers rely on established practice of pitching a consistent amount of litres of slurry into each batch, which could be compromised to the detriment of product quality. The cost of lost production of beer in raw materials, energy and time is too high to be allowed.

the dry yeast advantage

W

ith the worldwide growth of interest in craft beer and brewing comes both opportunity and challenge. To stay relevant in the eyes of beer consumers, brewers need to embrace creativity and innovation by expanding the diversity of their products or risk losing customers to their competition.

The creation of exciting beer styles depends in many respects on using the right yeast and fermentation techniques to meet the criteria of the style of beer being brewed. While managing multiple strains of liquid yeast in a brewery presents challenges,

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there is an option that simplifies the process of expanding a brewery’s beer style range. That option is the use of dry brewing yeast.

As little as 10 years ago, there were limited strains of dry brewing yeast available. Today, brewers can choose from a wide selection of pure brewing strains in dry form that allows them to create a huge range of beer styles, both traditional and “New World”. During production, dry yeast starts its life as a liquid culture, and the moisture from the yeast is carefully removed in a way that results in a remarkably stable product that offers excellent performance in brewing.

Vacuum-packed dry yeast can be stored in refrigerated conditions for as much as 2 years with little change it its fermentation performance. This means that brewers not longer need to schedule wort production to synchronise with availability of a

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liquid yeast culture, but rather active dry yeast can be kept on hand at the brewery and used whenever it is required.

Each batch of dry yeast has been tested in every aspect of performance and purity, assessing viability, vitality and even its genetic profile. This ensures that brewers have a consistent standard of performance with each yeast batch.

Importantly, brewers don’t need to calculate viability and measure liquid volumes of yeast slurry.

Instead, dry yeast is simply measured by weight, making calculation of the pitched amount of active cells both accurate and easy. Dry yeast is rehydrated in a couple of simple steps just before it is to be used for pitching, and the liquid slurry is then added to wort in the fermenter to initiate fermentation.

fearless brewing

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anaging multiple yeast strains towards creating an amazing range of beer styles doesn’t need to be complicated given the selection and ease-of-use of dry brewing yeast. Brewers can fearlessly experiment with creation of exciting new brands, knowing that they can count on the reliable performance and consistency provided by dry yeast in whatever recipes they choose.

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dat e s

&

e v en t s

e v ent s

Norwich City of Ale is a ten-day celebration of local pubs, breweries and real ale taking place throughout the fine city, 26th May – 5th Jun 2016

2016 18 - 19 May Brewing and Equipment Technology Birmingham NEC, UK www.brewingevent.com

11 - 15 August Great British Beer Festival Olympia, London www.gbbf.org.uk

27 - 28 May Bromley Beer Festival Bromley Cricket Club 0208 460 0281

12 - 14 August London Craft Beer Festival Oval Space, Bethnal Green www.londoncraftbeerfestival.co.uk

26 May - 5 June Norwich City of Ale 2016 Various Venues, Norwich, UK www.cityofale.org.uk/2016/

13 - 17 August World Brewing Congress Denver, Colorado www.worldbrewingcongress.org

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- ANDREW LEMAN, TIMOTHY TAYLOR’S

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