ESTRAGON: Do you know the story of Belgium’s beer cafés? VLADIMIR: Stop it! ESTRAGON: They go quietly. More than 1,500 last year. VLADIMIR: STOP IT! ESTRAGON: Some stay and fight. But many retreat into the shadows. VLADIMIR: I remain in the dark. ESTRAGON: This is how it is. In western Europe, beer consumption is going down. Yet, in Germany they worry themselves sick over Feinstaub, in Britain they angst over Europe, and in Belgium, where the writing is on the wall for most village cafés, punters just shrug their shoulders and drink their beer elsewhere. VLADIMIR: Nothing can be done. ESTRAGON: Well, there is always the black economy and tax dodging. VLADIMIR: What do brewers do? ESTRAGON: They cry into their beer. And wait for Godot, err the taxman, to clamp down on errant publicans. Or, if they are clever, they rev up beer exports to the U.S.

Global multinationals or small regional brands: No matter what the scale of operations, every brewery is keen to find a way of addressing the growing demand for convenient multipacks. But the key challenge here is to develop a way of reaching the consumer which is both profitable and sustainable. The search is on for an overall concept which is oriented to customer needs, cost efficient and also capable of integration into existing mechanical and logistical filling processes.

Krones has developed a new cellar concept that design-enhances the field-proven double-seat valve technology with a decentralised approach to fully automated cellar systems. The new TwinPro cellar concept is based on double-seat valves, grouped together in filling and draining racks. Several tanks can be linked to the filling and draining valve racks in what are called tank loops. The number of tanks per loop is chosen to meet the specific requirements of the client concerned.

The company Teutoburger Christinen­brunnen GmbH & Co. in Bielefeld has realized and implemented new options in the area of the filling hygiene in a short term. In June 2008 a filling line in the plant Bielefeld was upgraded, so that during the running production the required hygiene status is kept during the whole filling time. With this technology beverages can be filled in their native form without adding any preservative

The Ziemann Group announces a further major development at the drinktec 2009 fair: After acquiring a majority holding in the company BMS Maschinenfabrik, a German manufacturer of packaging and palletising plants, Ziemann has now entered a joint venture with the company Nanjing Light Industrial Machinery Corporation (NLM). The state-owned enterprise NLM is China’s largest manufacturer of filling and packaging plants.

Typical measurement points are in the filter cellar and in the filling plant. The use of long-life optoelectronic compounds and process proved wetted sensor parts leads to operational times which are significantly longer than for electrochemical membrane covered sensors. Further, the response time of optical sensors is 3-4 times shorter, resulting in less beer loss when switching from water to beer in the filling line. The compact InPro 8600 sensor is designed for the simultaneous measurement of low turbidity values and beer color in filtration and blending processes. A highly precise and robust optical set-up allows for scattered light measurements under the established angles of 25° and 90°. In a second measuring cycle the same optics are used for a color measurement according to EBC.mt.

This familiar saying appears to fit the Tuzla Brewery which was founded in 1884 and has become the third largest brewery in Bosnia and Herzegovina today. In spite of its chequered history, it recently has experienced three particularly good events: Firstly, Hilmo Selimovic, president and majority shareholder of the Sarajevo Brewery, also became the majority shareholder of the Tuzla Brewery in 2006. Secondly, the brewery has realised high sales and an associated increase in turnover in recent years. Thirdly, the company has recently invested in innovative KHS technology as a basis for continuing success.

After much effort, flow cytometry has finally become established in yeast research in Weihenstephan. Since end of October 2008, the Faculty of Technology of Brewing II has had the Cell Lab Quanta SC available, a well known and, in future, a prospectively important analysis method. Not least thanks to special funding from VeW [EV] (Association of Weihenstephan Alumni at the Brewing Department) on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of the Association, evaluations for assessing yeast physiology in breweries are being carried out. The extensive possibilities for measuring yeast physiology, already identified particularly by K.-J. Hutter at the turn of the millennium, can now be fully utilised.

Obviously, it’s not the water cascading down the Niagara Falls that finds its way into the bottles of the Niagara Bottling Co. But the choice of name was a clever one, symbolising as it does the power and purity of the American epitome for water as such. For Andrew Peykoff Sr., it was also instrumental in making the American dream of “milkman to millionaire” come true for himself and his family. Today, his son Andy Peykoff II is at the helm of the company, which with its corporate creed of high quality, low price, extraordinary service has boasted average annual growth rates of over 40 percent during the past ten years and is nowadays selling around five billion (5 000 000 000) fills a year.

The multiplicity of technologies reflects the revival and significance of membrane filtration. Membrane technology is increasingly the process of choice, also in the brewing industry, with the objective of achieving optimum product quality. This makes more demands on membranes. Their performance has to be controlled reliably. Taking an EU brewery as an example, the more stringent requirements applicable to the production processes and technical implementation of same will be illustrated.

Since drinktec 2005 the interest in aseptic filling continuously grows, with cold-aseptic processes proving more popular than hot fill and filling using cold sterilisation agents. drinktec 2009, which is taking place in Munich from 14 to 19 September 2009, brings together all relevant producers of cold-aseptic beverage filling technology at one exhibition site, giving visitors a fantastic opportunity to compare the two processes.