Page 51 - Packaging News Sep-Oct 2020

CASE STUDY KRONES
Krones provides the tools that fuel the passion
Creativity and science – two seemingly antithetical disciplines that the Taihu Brewery is consummately synergising – and its craft beer shows that this combination is superbly successful.
Taihu Brewery likes to surprise the market with innovative approaches, such as tea-flavoured beers or sours with smoked Taiwanese plum.
The brewery’s managing director, and one of its founders, Peter Huang said: “We at Taihu Brewery are extremely adventurous and creative. When it comes to developing recipes and designing labels, for many of our beers we take inspiration from Asian culture.”
But for the brewing process itself, by contrast, the craft brewers adopt a stringently scientific approach.
“Our brewery is like a laboratory, in which we rigorously test every step, every altered ingredient, and keep detailed records,” Huang said.
“Our paramount goal is to continually improve our beers. We never brew the same beer twice; sometimes we alter the fermentation temperature, sometimes we use new hop varieties. You see, we never regard anything as perfect, we’re always striving to become even better.”
For these trials and small brews, Taihu has installed a Steinecker MicroCube. With its size of ten hectolitres, it’s ideally suited for trying out new combinations, and these beers are subsequently tested for popularity in one of the firm’s own six taprooms in Taipei. If a recipe proves successful, Taihu can then use its CombiCube B in the brewhouse to make batch sizes of up to 50 hectolitres.
The brewery was using a MicroCube from the very first day – but the choice of this model was more or less coincidental. Originally, Taihu got in touch with Krones only for the bottling kit.
Huang said the company thought it would be able to manage the brewing on its own, as it had very experienced staff. But, when it came to bottling, they wanted to be on the safe side to ensure a consistently high-quality, shelf-stable product.
For this purpose, we needed a state-of-the-art line, which definitely had to come from Krones,” Huang said.
“During these meetings, we then found that for brewing operations, too, Krones offers solutions for the small output range – and it can safely be said: the salespeople from Freising were very persuasive. A short time later, we ordered the MicroCube, and then immediately began planning a second, larger brewery centred around the CombiCube B.”
Besides the brewing equipment from Steinecker, the brewery ordered the bottling kit as well: a filler-closer block from Kosme.
Huang said Taihu is a small brewery without a big engineering department, so the technical support from Krones was essential.
“Even as a small brewery, we and our concerns were always taken seriously,” he said.
“The entire team is fantastic. Starting with the salespeople and then the project managers, all the way through to the service technicians, everyone always found time for us. All of them are very approachable and friendly – and nevertheless tackle things with precisely the professionalism you would expect from a company like this. Krones is precision and professionalism – without pretentiousness.”
Krones in Australia is a member of the APPMA.
ABOVE: One of Taihu Brewery’s founders, and its managing director, Peter Huang
LEFT: Taihu’s head brewer Winnie Hsu are working with a Steinecker MicroCube.
“Krones is precision and professionalism – without pretentiousness.”
MACHINERY MATTERS SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2020 7