Case study

Case study

1000 us bbl Twin Stream Brewhouse

Location: Shenandoah, Virginia

Scope: Overall process design and build of complete 1000 US beer barrel (BBL) twin-stream brewery

Briggs of Burton’s Brewing team provided processing engineering design and specialist brewing equipment to the $300 million expansion in 2007. This made the MillerCoors Shenandoah Brewery, located in Elkton, Virginia (Shenandoah Valley), one of the most modern large-scale breweries in North America.

Briggs of Burton engineered a complete twin-stream Brewery, each stream being capable of 1,000 US BBL x 10 Brews Per Day (BPD), allowing MillerCoors to brew up to 8 million us bbl of beer a year. Shenandoah Brewery is notable for producing MillerCoors biggest brands including: Coors Light, Miller Lite, Blue Moon Belgian White Ale, Miller High Life, and Keystone Light. Shenandoah Brewery is a world class operation with improved product quality and consistency obtained at a lower production cost.

Brewing Equipment

  • Design and integration of railcar malt intake and storage system
  • Design and integration of twin stream malt handling and cleaning system
  • Design and integration of liquid adjuncts intake and storage system
  • Two 1071.5 us bbl (1257 hl) Mash tuns each capable of handling 19,500 kg malt grist with Briggs Pre-Mashers
  • Two 42 ft (12.8m) diameter Lauter Tuns
  • Four 1185 us bbl (1389 hl) Combi-Kettles including Briggs Symphony External Wort Heaters (EWH) and trub jetting machines
  • Two Briggs Wort Oxygenation units
  • Design and integration of 2 vessel Briggs rapid growth yeast propagation system, delivering 220 us bbl at 200 million cells / ml in 36 hours
  • Design and integration of yeast collection and pitching system including 4 x 120 us bbl yeast vessels
  • Design and integration of 2 x 200 us bbl scrap yeast vessels and tanker loading system.
  • Integration with 40 x 3,030 us bbl new FVs, and design of beer, yeast, CIP and DAW systems, including sampling.
  • Integration and design of green beer transfer systems and chillers, including integration with existing railcar beer system.
  • Integration with 12 x 5,500 us bbl existing (but unused) MVs, and design of beer, CIP and DAW systems, including sampling.
  • Integration of 2 x 400 us bbl/h membrane filter lines, including buffer tanks, centrifuges and chillers.
  • Integration with existing beer blending and Prime beer system.
  • Integration with existing DAW supply and conversion of an existing tank for DAW storage.
  • Design and integration of fully cleanable CO2 supply and collection pipework systems

Project Facts

  • 350,000 man hours design, 12,000 drawings and specifications (all disciplines)
  • Placement of 13,000 cubic yards of concrete. Briggs not involved in Civils, Structural and Architecture (CSA) on project.
  • 2,015 tons of structural steel, 10,000 sq.ft of new process equipment buildings. Briggs not involved in Civils, Structural and Architecture (CSA) on project.
  • 2.2 million man hours of construction across all trades
  • 33 miles of process and service pipework requiring 45,000 site welds
  • 350 graphics, 10,000 control/ equipment modules, 2,400 phases and unit operations, 750 procedures
  • I/O checking 6,500 devices
Briggs of Burton completed the process design of the brewery from railcar malt intake through Brewhouse, Fermenting, Green Beer, Maturation, Membrane Filtration and interfaces with blending, CIP and utility distribution.

Useful Links

You can find out more about the project in the Institute of Brewing and Distilling Learning Zone link below: http://www.ibdlearningzone.org.uk/article/show/pdf/685/