The family-owned brewery de Halve Maan converted an unusual project: it laid a beer pipeline under the old town of the Belgian city Bruges to deliver its beer, brewed in the city center, to its filling plant on a greenfield site. The pipeline was inaugurated on 16th September 2016 and has been fully operational since this day. BRAUWELT International talked to Xavier Vanneste, brewery owner in 6th generation, about the challenges of this adventurous project.

The newly developed GEA clearamic BeerFiltration offers an alternative to current methods of filtration. Unlike filtration with kieselguhr, this option is based on membrane technology. Ceramic membranes not only deliver reliable filtration results, but there is no need to replace the membranes and they pose no hygiene risks. With regard to cleaning, ceramic membranes also exhibit a number of advantages over polymer membranes. In this article, the properties of the ceramic material, the filtration method and procedure are discussed, followed by a review of test results and a calculation of potential cost savings.

Laboratory filtration is a reliable method of predicting filterability of beer. However, this method just gives an indication of the expected filter behaviour. By combining it with prior enzymatic treatment of samples to be tested, it is possible to draw conclusions about filtration-inhibiting substance groups. Results can be of value in helping to improve filterability in the long term.

The American craft beer invasion of Europe is more than competition for markets. It’s as much a battle of beer cultures as it is a battle over the prerogative on taste. BRAUWELT International’s Ina Verstl discusses the repercussions with Belgian beer industry expert Krishan Maudgal.

San Diego, California is situated in the far southwestern corner of the US on the border with Mexico and looks out across the vast expanse of the Pacific. Along with other famous cities further up the coast, like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, San Diego is on the extreme western edge of the so-called Occident. Nevertheless, its influence has been felt across the brewing world. The Golden State, as California is known, is the birthplace of American craft beer, and the state’s brewing industry continues to exhibit healthy growth. San Diego was settled by immigrants from Europe, Latin America and Asia, among others, who followed the sun in search of gold. Those still seeking gold in California will find that it still flows in great abundance – as “the juice of the barley”.

This series of articles provides a detailed description of the installation and operation of the thin-layer chamber mash filter (TCM). The design of the mash filter and the results of worldwide inspections were presented in part 1, BRAUWELT International no. 3 2015, pp. 154-158. The following part deals with the question of achieving a full extract yield and discusses the options currently available as well as the limitations.

The following series of articles provides a detailed description of the installation and operation of the thin-layer chamber mash filter (TCM). Part 1 presents the design of the mash filter and the results of worldwide inspections with the aid of tables and images. In Part 2 the author then deals with the question of achieving a full extract yield, demonstrating the options currently available and the limitations.

In the business world there is a cruel joke about Brazil: it’s the country of the future – always has been, always will be. The only thing of which we can be certain is that the future cannot be known, and that any prediction is at best a gamble. Then why did foreign brewers fall for Brazil’s luridly tempting projections?

Many different technical solutions for improving the environmental performance in a brewery are widely available from the major brewhouse suppliers. In part 1 of this series, the combination of a vapour condenser, condensate cooler, heat storage tank (stratification tank) and wort preheater was discussed. This is the obvious choice for any new brewery for recovery and reuse of thermal energy, even though this solution is not always a guarantee that energy is effectively recovered and reused. Often there is an imbalance between heat recovery and heat reuse. In spite of the benefits, surprisingly few breweries use stratification tanks.

Swedes are on first name terms with Billy, Malm and Hemnes. They come in birch veneer, black-brown, oak veneer and white and are sold by Ikea. Ever since Ikea was founded exactly 70 years ago, it has not only changed the way Swedes furnish their homes – perhaps eight in ten people sleep on an Ikea mattress, and it’s even been suggested that most babies are conceived in Ikea beds – it has also changed the way Swedes run their lives. If you can assemble an Akurum kitchen without going mad, you won’t be daunted by the task of building your own brewery. Don’t get me wrong. Not every Swedish homebrewer has turned to brewing full-time, but quite a few have. Therefore, today’s 70 or so craft breweries owe their existence, at least in part, to the prevalent Ikea can-do approach.

The notion that thermally regenerated kieselguhr could serve as an alternative to conventional, untreated kieselguhr has been a topic of discussion for years in the German brewing industry. Some view kieselguhr, also known as diatomaceous earth, which has been thermally regenerated, as a fully acceptable alternative while others refuse to even consider it. When attempting to ascertain basic facts on this subject, it becomes evident that there is almost no solid information specific to this application. Therefore, an objective evaluation for the utilization of thermally regenerated kieselguhr in beer filtration is needed. The results of the evaluation conducted by the VLB Berlin in cooperation with Tremonis GmbH, Dortmund are described in this paper.

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