A Giant Reborn Huge New Investment at Guinness in Dublin Stream Krones Brewhouse (Brew- Dition and Modernity at the 255-Year House No

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Interior of the new Brewhouse No.4 in St James’s Gate Brewery

A giant reborn Huge new investment at Guinness in Dublin stream Krones brewhouse (Brew- dition and modernity at the 255-year house No. 4) and an extension to the old site. He explained that the total Fermentation and Beer Processing brewery output was currently seven Plant. The extension is called the million hL of beer annually and that New Cold Block (NCB), and is used the new brewhouse had expanded primarily in the production of Dia- the capacity of the site by about geo’s own ale and lager brands such 40%. Guinness stout continues to be as Harp and Kilkenny, as well as the main product with about five beers brewed under licence such as million hL produced annually along Budweiser and Carlsberg. Expansion with 1.5 million hL of lager and 0.5 of grain handling and utilities gener- million hL of ale. ation and distribution has been an in- Of the £2.3 billion of beer sales tegral part of the development. About within Diageo, the St. James’s Gate 40% of the total investment was brewery supports £1.7 billion in fin- Right to left: Paul Guinness at St. James’s spent on the new brewing facilities ished product – supplied directly Armstrong, Diageo’s Gate in Dublin has been Beer Supply Director and about 35% on the cold block from the site or by its Guinness speaking to Irish around so long that it has with 27 new fermentation and matu- Flavour Essence (GFE) concentrate Taoiseach (Prime become almost synony- ration vessels to handle the addi- business – which is exported to over Minister) Enda Kenny, mous with the city itself. tional capacity. The extra vessels 50 countries worldwide. In addition along with Diageo Chief were sourced from Holvrieka in Hol- to Guinness, the enlarged brewery Executive Ivan Since its foundation by Menezes, at the official Arthur Guinness in 1759 land and were installed and inte- also produces Carlsberg, Budweiser, grated with the existing plant by Harp, Tuborg and Satzenbrau lagers opening of the new it has rung the changes developments in St. GEA Ireland and GEA Europe. The along with Smithwick’s and James’s Gate. wrought by technological grain intake and handling element Kilkenny ales. New innovative stout developments in every was awarded to local provider beers have been recently produced era, but no change has Buttimer Ireland, who fought off for select markets and even in the been as profound as very able competition from some middle of an exceedingly busy com- what has happened in well-known international groups. missioning schedule time, space was the northern section of found to deliver these new products. Brewery overview Seventy-five per cent of the its 57-acre site in the last I met with Paul Armstrong, Supply brewery’s output is exported. The 18 months. Director, Brewing, at Diageo’s In- existing GEA Till kegging plant at ternational Supply Centre based at St. James’s Gate packages approxi- by Gerry McGovern St. James’s Gate, who put into con- mately 60% of the beer produced. text just how important the site and The remainder is transported to Dia- iageo, Guinness’ parent com- the development was for the Diageo geo’s packaging plants at Belfast in Dpany, has just completed con- parent in an overall sense. Paul told Northern Ireland and Runcorn in struction of a €169 million me that St. James’s Gate is one of England for filling into cans and bot- state-of-the-art brewhouse and brew- the oldest industrial sites in Ireland tles. Beer from St. James’s Gate is ery extension, with a brand-new 3- and Brewhouse No. 4 combines tra- shipped three times each day from

28 Brewer & Distiller International • November 2014 • www.ibd.org.uk Brewery profile

now on the city’s tourist trail. The through Krones’ Steinecker off- Waterford site is currently approach- shoot, whose technology is now at ing conclusion of a sale, and an an- the heart of the new brewhouse. nouncement will appear soon. Production in Dublin is currently Project implementation run by a core team of 130 people but overview St. James’s Gate is also the head- I met with David O’Leary, Director quarters of Diageo Ireland so a total of Diageo Engineering Excellence, of 834 people are employed on the who gave me a brief outline of the site. In Ireland, over 1100 people in re-birth project, and covered all as- total are employed by Diageo. This pects of its progress from planning Dublin Porter and West Dublin city centre site also incorpo- permission to the final official open- Indies Porter, two of the rates the Guinness Storehouse – Ire- ing in September 2014. innovations brought to land’s number-one visitor attraction David began by saying that in his market in the last six Ray Langton, Brewing and months. Operational Project Director. welcoming over 1.1 million visitors experience he had never seen a project per annum. This number is increas- of this size managed and completed in ing 10% year on year. such a speedy time window. He emphasised just how tight the project Brewery heritage time-lines were, with only 14 months Diageo was keen to maintain all as- from achievement of planning permis- pects of the long and excellent sion to the start of brewing trials in the brewing heritage of the Guinness first of the three brew streams in June site, according to Ray Langton, 2013. The Diageo board tasked his en- Brewing and Operational Project gineering team, along with the pro- Director, and Brewhouse No. 4 is duction teams, with delivery of key the latest expression of this heritage. project requirements. The incredibly The first brewhouse was in- ambitious targets presented to them stalled by Arthur Guinness when he included, among others: took out his 9000-year lease on the • Lowest Overall Costs site in 1759 and was very much a • Zero accidents during construction David O’Leary, Director of Diageo Below: GEA Till kegging Engineering Excellence. child of its time, with wood the pre- • Highest environmental standards line at St. James Gate… dominating material for beer tank • Low cost building, showing one of the Dublin Port to Runcorn in 300hL construction and with manual labour - Yet presenting an appropriate cor- many SKUs being road tankers. Runcorn also kegs beer the main way to get work done. porate image befitting Diageo’s handled by the line… in for the British market and supplies Later, in the Industrial Revolution latest flagship production unit this case 20-litre export markets with canned and bot- years of the 1870s, Guinness in- - And befitting the links between Guinness kegs for Japan. tled product. The new Guinness stalled what was then a revolutionary the site and the capital city it re- Bottom: 300hL road Flavour Essence plant enables the brewhouse – incorporating the then sides within tanker adjacent to production of a further seven million famous Spence Kieves (Mash Tuns) David also told me that the overall Brewhouse No. 4 hL of Guinness in overseas brew- – and heralded in an era when indus- success of the project was due in no Entrance Lobby. eries. Roasting of barley for beer trialisation transformed the world. A and GFE production is carried out at third, fully-automated brewhouse the existing plant on the St. James’s was on-stream in the 1980s, the core Gate site. Three Barth roasting ma- of which were stainless-steel vessels chines run round the clock in an en- made by Balfours of Fife, Scotland, deavour to match production and later modified by Huppmann of demands, targeting 360 tonnes each Germany. Arguably this brewhouse week and plans are in place to install was associated with the era of au- a fourth roaster early in 2015. tomation, where remotely-controlled The decision by Diageo to cen- activities with PLC and networked tralise all Irish brewing activity at computers were the order of the day. St. James’s Gate resulted unfortu- In the twenty-first century, the nately in the closure of the fine Dia- main driver for this newly-trans- geo brewery sites at Kilkenny, formed brewery has been the over- Dundalk and Waterford. whelming need for sustainability. I wrote in detail last year on the Diageo’s former brewing assets Dundalk site, the Great Northern spread over the island of Ireland Brewery, just before it closed. How- were simply unsustainable, even in ever, as Paul explained, these sites the medium term. The consolidation have a new lease of life under new of all production on a site smack ownership. The Dundalk site has bang in the middle of the biggest been sold to Mr John Teeling’s Irish local market became an obvious ne- Whiskey Company distilling enter- cessity. The impact of increased vol- prise and will soon become the Great umes and modernisation of Northern Distillery. The Kilkenny equipment has led to a huge im- city site has been sold to Kilkenny provement in utility ratios, of which City Council, and Diageo invested more later. £3 million in the newly-opened A fresh instalment of Guinness’ Smithwick’s visitor centre which is brewing heritage has now begun

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were dispatched to land fill during Project partners and the short but intensive time of the suppliers project. When it came down to the appoint- ment of partner-suppliers to the David was proud to show me the just- project, the normal evaluation exer- arrived Platinum LEED (Leadership cises looking at cost, experience, in Energy and Environmental Design) management capabilities etc. were Award won by the Brewery Engineer- applied to the potential candidates. ing Team from the Green Building Ultimately a key decision was made Certification Institute. An externally- that the supply of the hot processes recognised tribute to the work in- and the cold processes would be volved in delivering the project. split. Not that a single supplier could not, in the end, deliver the Health and safety total project, but this was a hard Health and safety was also at the recognition of the fact that the scale core of the project. David set the di- and speed of the work would lead to rection for the team in delivering excessive pressure on a single sup- External Grain and small part to a re-think in how the this crucial element, although he ad- plier to deliver the full aspects of Water tanks for the new team approached the bodies and mitted that at the beginning he was timescale, quality, safety, environ- Brewhouse No. 4. groups involved in delivering it. The somewhat nonplussed at the daunt- ment etc. to the standards required. new overall term for this approach is ing target of “Zero Harm” pre- Thus Krones/Steinecker was ‘collaboration’. For instance, even sented by the Diageo board. So, awarded the Brewhouse No. 4 busi- before a formal planning application after a period of discussion and de- ness and GEA Ireland was awarded was brought forward, approaches bate within the engineering team, the NCB (New Cold Block) devel- were made to the City Council and they decided to inaugurate an en- opment. several meetings were had with rele- tirely different approach to such a Buttimer Ireland was awarded vant staff to establish what the major building project, amongst the grain end of the business. Given Council would like to see in the de- which were: the size of the recent recession in velopment. This smoothed the plan- • Firstly, the earlier-mentioned col- Ireland, both Paul and David em- ning process and in the end only two laborative approach was discussed phasised that great effort was made formal planning observations were and implemented with all the part- to maximise the Irish content of the raised to this massive development. ner suppliers and contractors on project, either directly in the case of the project Buttimer and GEA Ireland, or Environmental sustain- • 1100 people worked on the project through local sub-contractors work- ability at its peak, which meant on a ing for Krones and the others. Of A great deal of thought was put into 10,000-metre site each person had course, one other very important the control of environmental impact approximately 10 square metres supplier was Sisk Ltd, a very suc- during the construction phase of the each… an unheard-of density of cessful Irish builder and one of the project. For example, the team construction workers partners who, as mentioned earlier, sought advice from the US Green • Locker rooms and wash facilities has delivered such a great result in Building Council on ways to miti- were provided, a recognition of the terms of the project’s goals. Once gate the building works. Initiatives need to change clothes when arriv- selected, again after the usual robust included ing and going to meals on site commercial discussions and agree- • Crushing all hard materials dug up • A fine canteen facility was pro- ments were obtained, the Diageo during construction, and recycling vided for those meals Engineering Excellence Team sat them on the site • Overall access to the site was down with the partners in the spirit • Any contaminations which had tightly controlled by using biomet- of recognising that ‘their successes built up over the centuries on the rics with each individual having to were our successes’ and expanded five-acre construction site were present five finger prints and a on the collaborative approach that treated appropriately PIN code to gain entry has brought such dividends. Aidan Crowe, St • Canteen food waste from the 1100 • Safety briefs and discussions were James’s Gate Operations Director, workers on the site was composted held daily at up to 20 small areas The new brewery in detail outside Brewhouse No. and recycled site-wide at specific times at the 4 entrance. • Ultimately zero tonnes of waste start of the day, and all workers Brewhouse No.4 were present, not just their man- As mentioned earlier, Buttimer Ire- agers or foremen. In this way work- land was awarded the contract for ers from such disparate activities as grain intake and handling. pipefitting and block-laying were I met with Aidan Crowe, the on first name terms with the people site’s Operations Director, who went involved in their immediate work to great efforts to emphasise again area, and a strong interpersonal that Buttimer had fought off stiff in- emotional connection ensued. ternational competition and more than matched them in terms of ex- Ultimately only three minor LTA’s pertise and commitment. The grain (Lost Time Accidents) were system installed is expected to peak recorded during the project, an as- at handling 500 tonnes/day later this tounding achievement, given that year, with a maximum peak week overall 2,000,000 man-hours were requirement of 3000 tonnes. worked. Going to the heart of the devel-

30 Brewer & Distiller International • November 2014 • www.ibd.org.uk Brewery profile

quirement particularly with the complex menu of brew streams and yeasts, using a common suite of utilities, vessels and pipe network. Paul had earlier pointed out the people in the brewery had the highest number of qualified Master Brewers, and training would be the focus to the future of people development. Thus there has always been a strong con- Picture of the bottom of the stout nection with the site and the IBD’s lauter tun on Stream 1, and its multiplicity of run-off pipes. training and qualifications wing. The second of the three streams brew stream is finished off by a to come online was the 970hL ‘high 650hL/hr wort cooler. gravity stout stream’, Stream 1. It The standard 14-tonne materials was fully operational in March of bill can be all malt, or a mix of malt this year, and product matching and and an adjunct, such as barley for ales switching over from the old Stout or rice for Budweiser. Hops, again de- Brewhouse was achieved over three pending on brew-type, can be extract months. or pellets, or a mix of both. The configuration was essen- Given the complexity of the tially a mimic of the smaller stream processes on the site, scheduling (malt and barley Krones Power- and recipe control are crucial. Facil- mills, 2 MCVs, a single but huge itating this control was the utilisa- 14m lauter tun, one kettle, one tion of the full software whirlpool, and a wort cooler cooling Top: Inside the 12- opment, Krones of Germany was management system supplied by at 1000hL/hr). metre Pegasus awarded the contract for all the Proleit of Germany. This system During grains clearance, the ale/lager lauter tun with brewhouse areas, from milling right now controls nearly all aspects of stout lauter tun discharges 22 tonnes its knives and grains through to wort cooling. Ancillary production from grain intake to fin- of spent grain into 2 grains hoppers clearing equipment. Above: Emma Cullen, activities also had to be catered for, ished kegs in the keg plant. An MES in seven minutes. Watching the Brewhouse No. 4 such as grain outtake. The configu- system was provided by local Irish grain clearing equipment shifting Brewer, standing at the ration of the brewhouse is non-con- supplier Orbis Information Systems. that amount of grain in that time is behemoth that is the ventional for a number of reasons. Aidan emphasised that for the brew- truly an awe-inspiring experience! 14metre diameter An early decision was made to split ery team the development meant a Ponndorf conveyors are used to Pegasus lauter tun production into three streams. huge uplift in complexity. They empty the hoppers while the lauter from Krones Steinecker for stout brewing, the The first stream to come online have moved from a large stout-only tun is rapidly turned around for the third-largest lauter tun in May/June last year was the ‘ale brewhouse and just three brew- next of 12 daily brews. in the world. and lager stream’, Stream 2, de- types with a single yeast strain, to a The last of the streams to come signed to deliver 650hL brewlengths new scenario with three brewing on-board was the ‘roast stream’, of both lager and ale. It consists of a streams producing 15 brew-types, which processes large quantities of Krones Powermill (a wet-mill which six yeast strains, and a SKU count roast barley for colouring the main processes malt at 40 tonnes/hour), in the keg plant alone of up to 25! stout stream, along with producing two mash conversion vessels On top of the move from Brew- the basis of Guinness Flavour (MCV), one 12-metre lauter tun, a house No. 3 to Brewhouse No. 4 and Essence, which consists of … well, I Stromboli kettle, and a whirlpool. the importing of the product portfo- am afraid I have to draw a veil over Off to the side are a wort-stripping lios from Dundalk, Kilkenny and this aspect of the process given the system and a rice decoction vessel, Waterford, new and innovative beers very exclusive nature of the systems for production of Budweiser under have been developed which are now used to produce GFE – and the fact licence for the Irish market. The produced routinely in the new facil- that only five people in the world ac- ity. Aidan emphasised that generat- tually know what goes on in there. ing growth is critical for the future None were talking to me about this sustainability of the brewery and so most secretive of secret processes successfully commercialising inno- during my visit! Perhaps at the end vative products is a priority for the of Arthur’s 9000-year lease there will brewery team. Many complex oper- be a grand unveiling of its mysteries! ational challenges were encountered As stated, sustainability was the by the brewery team and in every in- major driver for the consolidation stance they found a way through. onto the St. James’s Gate site. As While undoubtedly many further part of this, the Krones’ patented challenges lie ahead Aidan is very EquiTherm energy control system in confident that the expertise, dedica- Brewhouse No.4 has helped to drive tion and ingenuity of the site team the cost of energy on the site down will continue to find the right solu- by 27MJ/hL to 122MJ/hL, a full tions. As an example of the new 18% reduction. The system, for in- challenges in a highly utilised brew- stance, takes very hot water at 97°C ery, every shift brewer and shift derived from the vapour condenser manager is embedding new planning and uses it to heat up mash in MCV. Pictogram of Krones EquiTherm system in a standard configuration. and scheduling skills – a core re- Heating jackets designed to max-

32 Brewer & Distiller International • November 2014 • www.ibd.org.uk Brewery profile

Far left: NCB vessels from Holvrieka in the Netherlands arriving along the quays in Dublin in the dead of night last year. Middle left: Pentair membrane units in serried ranks. Middle right: GEA’s Ecomatrix valving system in the ECB. Far right: Green beer centrifuges from GEA Westfalia Separator Ltd. imise K-values deliver a 1°C per was the very short time lines. Brew- Six new Red Stripe minute raising of mash temperature ing started just 14 months after re- vessels about to be in the process. ceipt of planning permission. This emplaced adjacent to the NCB, whose Paul and Ray both emphasised drove a very detailed commission- concrete has hardly that there was more in that vein, for ing and product quality assurance dried out since the last instance: programme. The primary quality developments! • greenhouse gases have been halved goal was to flavour match all exist- • effluent plummeted by 60% ing products, which was no small • water consumption reduced by undertaking given that there were 30% to 4.1hL/hL, and six yeast strains and twenty beer • the whole site has zero waste to types. This meant very detailed An incongruous landfill. plans were developed to ensure that collision of old and new the brewery delivered on its promise technologies found on Cold Block of no perceptible change for any of the floor of the NCB…. use of wooden casks, GEA Ireland was awarded the NCB its consumers. However, the quality real evidence of St. (New Cold Block) contract and this goals did not stop at the successful James’s Gate brewers’ element of the project included flavour match. He pointed out that a craft credentials. some novel features. However, first step change in the control of dis- off was the need to integrate 27 new solved oxygen had occurred and vessels into the ECB (Existing Cold that shear stress and heat damage Block), and yet not lose one hec- were significantly reduced across tolitre of ongoing output. This key the brewing process, the impact of requirement was achieved ad- which was already showing through mirably. One of the novel (for Ire- in enhanced flavour stability of the land) technologies was the use of beers produced. membrane filtration technology Aidan Crowe stated that St. from Pentair plc. A large bank of James’s Gate had re-invented what these units met my eye when I went is possible in terms of building a to the upper mezzanine floor of the new brewery within a working how passionate and proud that Paul, NCB, and seemed to march off like brewery, and that this project in par- Ray, David and Aidan were with re- soldiers to the horizon in their ticular had stretched peoples’ capa- gard to all their teams’ achieve- massed ranks! GEA’s normal tech- bilities to a previously undreamt of ments. The word ‘proud’ just kept nologies such as the Ecomatrix extent. Fifty-five per cent of staff bubbling to the surface in all of my valve layouts and Westfalia cen- had to swap around roles in order to conversations with them. trifuges were also put to good use. facilitate the changes. Said Aiden: Paul was very upbeat that this A major point emphasised by “Superior qualifications and a craft development has secured St. both Paul and Aidan was that one of approach to production had in many James’s Gate’s future for the next the key aspects of the project goals ways allowed this singularly unique 30 to 40 years. His concluding was to ensure the new re-invigorated brewery to be re-born from the statement was: “In my 34 years in brewery could vie both externally ashes of the old.” the business I have never been more and internally within Diageo for new Having got to the end of the excited by a project, and never been business. So even as I visited the site road, it was very obvious to me just more proud of the end results.” in September, six new vessels had arrived overnight to facilitate the production of Red Stripe beer for the UK and European markets, worth an expected extra 400,000hL/year. Again GEA Ireland was awarded this contract. Paul and Aidan mentioned there were more such oppor- tunities in the immediate future which were even now in negotiation.

Quality and craft Ray Langton pointed out that one of An infographic produced for the establishment of Brewhouse No. 4 in the big differences about this project Diageo’s flagship St. James’s Gate Brewery.

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