Krones' new research brewery to conduct beverage trials

German packaging and bottling machine manufacturer Krones has inaugurated a brewery at its facility in Freising called the Steinecker Brew Center. Claimed to be the world’s most sophisticated research brewery, it will offer Krones and its clients an option for collaborative brewing, conducting trials and testing new technologies.

The new brewing pilot plant, worth €2.6 million, features a five-hectolitre brewhouse comprising five different vessels.

“The system is small, that’s true, but it offers maximum flexibility all the same: here we can combine different technologies and are able to demonstrate the large bandwidth of solutions offered by Krones,” explained Dr Konrad Müller-Auffermann, who was responsible for the project. “We can, for example, reproduce an ultrawide range of internationally employed processes on the one hand while also familiarising our own commissioning engineers and clients’ staff with the technologies concerned on the other.”

Syskron, Krones’ subsidiary, has integrated its ReadyKit and Share2Act products into the Steinecker Brew Center to enable it to run practical trials to find out which process-engineering solutions are most efficiently suited to beverage production, and how digital interfacing can assist the brewer. It will also help develop new products faster and test them under realistic conditions in the future.

Heiko Feuring, Head of the Steinecker Plant and the breweries business line, highlighted the swift progress of the project, which was turned into a hands-on reality within one year. He said, “We’re delighted that we’re now able to use our Brew Center.”

Image supplied by Krones.