Opportunities and barriers for efficient energy use in a medium-sized brewery

This paper gives an overview over the state of the art in the brewing industry commonly realised in large breweries and presents important barriers to efficiency in smaller companies. The production process of a typical medium-sized brewery in the UK was analysed to identify principal measures to reduce energy and water demand. The case study also examines the particular problems preventing the brewery from realising these measures. The analysis of the process shows that even basic and easily applicable efficiency measures have so far been neglected. Improving insulation and implementation of basic heat recovery measures could potentially reduce energy demand by 20% and would result in a payback period of 1.3 years.