Spital Brewery invests in a new bottling line

With a brewing tradition extending back over almost 800 years, the Spital Brewery ranks among the most ancient in the world, and is the oldest hospital and foundation brewery in Regensburg/Bavaria. In the time-hallowed Hospital Gardens at the Stone Bridge, several centuries of brewing tradition are married to high-tech filling technology.

At the end of April 2012 an entirely new bottling line was inaugurated at Spital Brewery. Hospital Master Willibald Koller and Volker Kronseder, Executive Board Chairman Krones AG, pressed the starting button for the new line, which was blessed by the cathedral’s Dean Dr. Wilhelm Gegenfurtner, the Chairperson of the Hospital Board.

The new Barifill filler at the Spital Brewery features an intelligent, compactly dimensioned filling system, a Kosme design based on original Krones assemblies, and responsively matched to the Spital Brewery’s quality thinking. With double pre-evacuation and CO₂ pressurisation, oxygen pick-up during filling is effectively minimised, thus ensuring long-term product stability. The counterpressure filler, with a pitch circle diameter of just 960 mm and 28 filling valves, is able to fill up to 7,800 bottles an hour, for both the 0.5-litre NRW and the 0.33-litre Gourmet sizes. It is fitted with a special front table, for enhanced operational hygiene.

To enable two different types of closure to be handled on a single machine, Krones’ subsidiary Kosme developed an ultra-flexible, space-saving machinery concept, called Variocap. The eight-element closer at the Spital Brewery now handles both crowns and aluminium screw-caps.

The Smartronic empty-bottle inspector is another debutant at the Spital Brewery: it features high-resolution DART camera technology (Distributed Architecture for Real Time), and monitors the washed returnable bottles for residual liquid, and performs base, sidewall, neck finish and thread inspection before they are filled again.

The Robusta is a cold-glue labeller designed specifically for the lower output range. Its compact dimensions make for enhanced user-friendliness and fast product change-overs.

One of the particular challenges involved in planning the line was the amount of space available: a mere 85 square meters for accommodating all the machines plus the pack and container conveyors. With the arena layout chosen, the bottling hall is now being utilised to optimum effect.