When a brewery in planning asked a successful craft brewer for startup advice in 2014 or 2015, it was common to hear an answer such as, “Buy a larger brewhouse than you think you need, so that you won’t have to install a new one 18 months down the road.” Such answers seem quaint today, when explosive growth is more exception than rule. Instead, breweries launching and growing today are seeking more stable, iterative approaches to growth: growing in place, designing systems in modular ways that allow for incremental upgrades rather than wholesale replacements, and finding solutions that accommodate future growth with limited downtime.
To reflect on these shifts, we asked some of the major manufacturers in the brewhouse-equipment space for their thoughts on a variety of topics. We have compiled this overview of solutions and predictions to explain where we are today and where the world of brewhouse equipment is going over the next year.
Small Is the New Big
As competition in the brewing industry increases, opportunities are shrinking. The production dream of building a brand that can sell 30,000, 50,000, or 100,000 barrels per year is all but gone; the vast majority of today’s brewery operators have much more modest sales goals. Yet despite lower volume expectations, goals for high quality remain the same. There are no “passes” on quality for smaller breweries. Manufacturers are seizing on that demand for quality by building small systems that allow for the same level of detail and control as larger production-oriented brewhouses.