New Belgium Brewing to open new facility in Asheville − Contract awarded to GEA
New Belgium Brewing (NBB) is one of the most successful companies of the new generation of breweries in the United States. It was founded in 1991 in Fort Collins, Colorado, and with an output of over 1 million hectoliters per year it is the third-largest craft brewer. Now, New Belgium Brewing is planning a further expansion in Asheville, North Carolina. A new brewing facility on the U.S. east coast is expected to produce about 625,000 hectoliters of beer per year.
Brewing equipment “made in Germany“ for successful craft brewer
During drinktec 2013 in Munich, New Belgium Brewing entrusted GEA Brewery Systems with the responsibilities of the turnkey supplier for project engineering, project planning, delivery and installation of the equipment. The innovative products and technologies for the brewhouse and the cold process area come from the two locations of the internationally renowned brewing equipment manufacturer as well as from other companies of the GEA Group.
The story of NBB began in 1989 when brewery co-founder Jeff Lebesch went on a bike trip through European beer cities. From this trip, he brought the idea for the name of the first beer: „Fat Tire“. Many more beer “styles” have been added: for example, IPA’s and Blondes, which are sold in New Belgium’s 37 states of distribution in the USA. Traditional craft brewing always plays an important role at New Belgium Brewing.
The modern brewhouse is designed for a capacity of 200 hl cold wort per brew and will produce up to 12 brews per day.
Wort preparation begins with the MILLSTAR®, the efficient wet mill from GEA. With its integrated automatic quality system it enables uniform conditioning of the malt and homogeneous milling. To ensure maximum extract yield, high wort quality and efficient use of resources in the lautering process, a lauter tun with LAUTERSTAR® technology will be used. With a diameter of 6,100 mm, it provides a lot of flexibility for present and future recipes. Continuous control of the lautering process is realized by the multifunctional lautering management (MLM). This ensures high reproducibility for all brews.
Gentle wort boiling
The wort is boiled in a wort kettle designed for atmospheric
boiling with a JETSTAR® internal boiler. This internal boiler
provides not only high flexibility for the requested wort
qualities of each beer type. The innovative two-phase boiling
system from GEA also allows to separate the processes of
wort boiling and evaporation. With this gentle method,
important protein fractions are preserved. Furthermore, the
necessary homogeneous mixing and circulation in the wort
kettle is ensured. All wort particles are evenly boiled and
the hop bitter substances in the wort are optimally extracted
and isomerized. The two-phase boiling leads to excellent
technological values for DMS reduction, TBI and coagulable protein: an ideal method to obtain consistently high wort and flavor stability for perfect beer and foam quality.
Less primary energy
The energy storage system for a maximum evaporation of only 4 % allows the operation of a so-called energy-balanced
brewhouse: Primary energy is only required for wort boiling and the final step of the heating process. Thus, the
consumption of primary energy is reduced significantly. The control module Intelligent Wort Management (IWM) from
GEA Brewery Systems regulates the wort boiling process and precisely calculates the evaporation rate. It does not matter
whether other ingredients are added to the wort kettle after the start of boiling.
Summary of the brewing line equipment
- MILLSTAR® for conditioned wet milling with a capacity of 20 t/h
- Mash kettle
- LAUTERSTAR® with wort pre-run tank and wort heater
- Atmospheric wort kettle for 200 hl with JETSTAR® internal boiler system and automatic hop dosing vessels
- Energy recovery system with energy storage tank
- Whirlpool with wort pre-cooling
- Wort cooling, hot and cold water tanks for the brewing process
- CIP system
Typical hop flavor
Automation and process control
