BrewDog was founded by the friends James Watt and Martin Dickie in 2007. Since then, the brewery company is moving in only one direction: upwards. In their first year the co-founders brewed 1,050 hl / 900 bbl in the then tiny brewery; today the annual production volume has increased significantly to 90,000 hl / 77,000 bbl. Over the last few years, the brewery has attracted international attention for their inventiveness: BrewDog successfully raised a large amount of capital, required for the brewery’s expansion, through a crowdfunding campaign called ‘Equity for Punks’. Since 2009, more than 14,000 ‘fanvestors’ have invested in the brewery via this campaign. The brewery is currently running its fourth round of funding; Equity for Punks IV aims to raise £25m from public investment. Another event that made headlines was the competition for the strongest beer in the world. With “The End of History”, BrewDog raised the bar to the current top value of 55% alcohol by volume.
In order to keep up with global reach, BrewDog will build a second brewery plant in a new 4,500 m2 building at their site in Ellon, Aberdeenshire. Ziemann will supply, install, automate, and commission the complete process technology, from the milling plant to the integration of the bottling plant.
”We are extremely proud that one of the most innovative craft brewers will produce its beer with our equipment. A decisive factor for being awarded the contract certainly was the fact that we offered the technology both in the brewhouse and in the cold block, required for the desired flexibility and quality, as a complete package,” summarized Thorsten Schwanzer, Sales Director Western Europe, at Ziemann.
Ziemann will equip the milling plant with a 6-roller grist mill as well as with the required silos. The brewhouse with the mash vessel Colibri™ and the lauter tun Lotus™ is designed for 12 brews per day, with a cast-out wort volume of 300 hl / 255 bbl each. With regard to the wort boiling, BrewDog decided in favour of an external boiler in order to be able to produce even smallest charges. In addition, the new brewhouse will be equipped with a spent grains silo, first wort vessel, hop dosing vessels, whirlpool, wort aeration system, water house and a brewhouse CIP system.
In the cold block area Ziemann will implement a yeast cellar inclusive of yeast propagation, yeast storage and pitching tanks; a fermentation/storage cellar consisting of eight CCTs with a capacity of 1,800 hl / 1,500 bbl, one bright beer tank cellar with two 1,800 hl / 1,500 bbl bright beer tanks as well as another CIP plant. A special feature in this area will be the new ZIEMANN system for cold hopping. The brewhouse as well as the cold block will be automated with the Braumat system V7.
The start of installation of the new plant at BrewDog is scheduled for August 2015, with the first brew anticipated in the 1st quarter of 2016. With this expansion stage, BrewDog will be able to brew an additional volume of approximately 200,000 hl / 170,000 bbl per year.
