May has been a month of travelling all over North America to trade shows, installs and long days in our Burlington Shop. Focusing our time on the details and expertise of brewery builds, brewhouses, tunnel pasteurization, tunnel pasteurizers, flash pasteurization, expansions and beverage trends allows us to keep up on the big conversations happening in the industry right now. We pride ourselves on understanding the intricacies of pasteurization and its importance in the evolution of the non-alcoholic and low ABV industry.
Draught Beer & Operational Processes
Draught beer took a hit in the last 4 years. We all know it. Breweries and cideries are rebounding and reclaiming those margins whether it be through expanding licensee draught distribution or opening their own taprooms and keeping the product close to home. As these production facilities return to draught there is an opportunity to review best practices and machine capability really dictates that. This narrows down to the possibility of human error when washing and filling kegs. Over filled kegs extrapolated over a year will lower your gross margin, this is addressed with a volumetric filler. Human error in washing kegs is a consumer safety issue. This typically presents itself with completely manual keg washers where the operator is turning valves, mentally timing chemical and rinse cycles as well as purging. Improperly purging with CO2 can result in DO pickup and poorly executed chemical washes and rinse can pose a risk to product quality and consumer safety with residual chemicals. Semi-automated or fully-automated keg washer/fillers with volumetric filling will address all these issues while freeing up labour and the monotonous task of filling and cleaning kegs.
There are plenty of manual, entry level keg washers out there. They are the likely starting point for a new, small brewery. For those breweries that have matured to the point where quality control measures are looking to be addressed we have a solution for every size of operation. At Jenrey, we only supply semi-auto or full-auto keg washer/fillers. Complete with caustic, acid and sanitizer cycles, or better yet steam sterilization to assure the final draught container will not present cross contamination or shelf life issues. Our full-auto keg lines also have an option for external washing which really removes the need for manual labour.
Canadian Craft Brewing Awards & Conference
The Canadian Brewing Awards focuses on Canadian majority-owned breweries of all sizes to compete in a Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) sanctioned blind tasting determining the best beers in 61 style categories. This year didn’t disappoint with a wide array of delicious brews. Congratulations to our wonderful clients, Dildo Brewing out of Dildo,Newfoundland for winning Silver for their ‘Under Da Sea’ Stout brewed by Al Goodyear.
In addition, their conference was a great opportunity to display our Tunnel of Love, tunnel pasteurizer and our fully auto keg washer and have big conversations about non-alcoholic, low ABV and how to truly polish operations big and small in our beloved beverage industry. Looking forward to next year!
