gotta have gear

The Brewery

The MBC brewery is mostly located directly behind the bar, as a part of our décor and ambiance. The brewery was originally designed and built in 1997 by Brewing Design Services in England, which we acquired second hand, and installed ourselves. The brewery has an 8 HL brew length and includes 4 fermenters and 7 serving tanks. All the tanks are of stainless steel construction and are pine-cladded on the exterior.

Brewing takes place 1- 3 times a week depending on the season and is done during the day when the bar is closed. It usually takes 8-9 hours to finish a hopped wort, get it into the fermenter, and to have all the equipment cleaned up and put away.

MAJOR PARTS OF THE BREWERY

Malt Mill

Motorized machine that has adjustable rollers that grind/crack the malt grains so that the malt sugars can be better extracted during mashing.

Hot Liquor Tank

Insulated tank that holds and heats the water used for brewing and cleaning.

Pumps

Several pumps are used to move water, wort, and beer from tank to tank.

Mash Tun

Tank used to mix the ground malts and hot water for mashing. For wort collection, this tank has a wire-wedge false floor which allows the water/wort to pass through but not the grains.

Copper

Tank used to boil the wort. During boiling, the wort is sterilized, solids are separated, the specific gravity is slightly increased, and the hops are added.

Heat Exchanger

After the boil, a plate heat exchanger is used to cool the wort down to the desired fermentation temperture. This is acheived by passing the hot wort through the heat exchanger while cold water is passed through the other side of the plates.

Fermenter

10 HL cylindro-conical tank. Insulated, cooling jacketed, and temperature controlled for fermenting ales and lagers.

Bright Beer Tank

8.5 HL cylindro tank. Insulated, cooling jacketed, and temperature controlled for holding and serving beer direct to the beer taps.

Filter

Horizontal leaf diatomeasious earth beer filter.

CIP

Double tank with pump and one side heated cleaning unit. Used to clean all brewery tanks.

Cooling Unit

Industrial water chiller used to cool all the fermenters and bright beer tanks.