An operating brewery is filled with the din of industrious creation: The thrum and slam of the centrifuge, the whirr of a bottling line, and the constant soundtrack of heavy metal or hip-hop spilling from speakers—all mingling to create the sonic landscape of the craft brewery. Yet one sound cuts through the noise, snapping workers into frenzied action and, some say, scarring their memories.
The scream of a pump that’s run dry is the stuff of brewers’ nightmares.
Pumps are intrinsic to a brewery. After all, there are all sorts of liquids that need to get from one place to another, from water to wort, from yeast slurry to beer, plus all the chemicals and cleanup afterward. Unless you can get gravity or gas pressure to move the fluids, you need to apply some mechanical work, be it a bucket brigade or a progressing cavity pump. There is a whole arsenal of pumps at the brewer’s disposal for whatever solution they require.