A visit to Camba brewery

I must admit I was hitting the wall by this point. Before the study tour I'd have several industry events and a couple of weeks of networking and CPD were talking their toll on my body. But your friend may ask: "Couldn't you just not pour all that free beer down your neck when it appears?" To which I can only reply: "Don't be ridiculous". 

Camba brewery is the show brewery for Braukon, the brewery equipment manufacturer. They have a 10hl and a 50hl brewery on site, both fed by the same mill. I thought the 10hl brewery was equipment stored on racking, but no, it was all plumbed in. 

The 10hl brewery

They make around 100 different beers a year, many as their own brand but a lot of contract brewing too. 

The main 50Lbrewhouse is only two vessels, which was a bit of a surprise. Though that does have to be qualified that Germans don't count whirlpools, and I suppose they're not always in the brewhouse. At the time we were told it's because whirlpools replaced coolships, which made sense then but doesn't now. Whirlpools are for separating wort from trub and hop pellet debris, not for wort cooling. The other vessel in the pictures that doesn't count is a Hot Liquor Tank. 

The 50hl brewery

The two vessels that do count are a mash/wort kettle and a Mash Conversion Vessel. 

They use liquid calcium chloride for liquor treatment, so have a bit of plastic pipe at the addition point to avoid the metal being corroded!

The beers at the bar were a mixture of traditional and modern styles. Braukon sell kit all over the place so it makes sense to demonstrate that you can make a wide range of beers on it. 

That was the last brewery of the study tour. We did visit the factory of our besties Profipack in the evening to keep our beer and pork levels topped up. And we were all given litre steins which was really nice. I doubt I'll be getting much use out of it, but I'm sure I'll find a use for it at some point.