Courage Eastern. Brewing School visits 1968 to 1969

Courage & Co. Ltd, Horsleydown and Globe Bottling Stores

Visit by Brewing School students in January 1969

18,000 barrels per week. Traditional brewhouse but a new brewhouse is to be built soon. Seven quarters of flaked maze in the 96 quarter grist charge. Water from paraflow used in brewing dosed with sulphuric acid in tank to pH 6.0 to 6.1 plus weighed amount of calcium sulphate.

A Wittemann hop strainer is in use.

This is followed by a whirlpool separator, the cone must not get too hard so the flow rate is reduced so the cone is easy to wash away. Can deal with 300 barrels in two hours; 20 minutes through the Wittermann, half an hour settling and two hour pump over.

Capital saved on attemperation of Fvs. Any fluctuation detected causes full cold or warm liquor through the coils which works satisfactorily. There is a constant radius control cam.

Low gravity beers are not warm conditioned higher ones are. Low gravity beers are about 1028 which are primed up to 1030. Russian stout causes chaos in the brewery.

There is a well-used yeast propagation system where two gallons from the lab are pitched into 20 barrels of sterile wort on a Monday. On Wednesday 70 barrels more wort is added and on Friday 360 barrels are added making a total of 450 barrels. The operation allows 1/3 of the yeast to be replaced every week.

There are two kegging lines producing 28,000 pieces a week.

Globe bottling stores

The line produces 2,000 dozen bottles per hour mainly Courage Light Ale.

Makeup for dispatch is elaborate. Products are kept in bays with tramway and trolleys which have a picking list attached. Loads are made up with consideration of one-way streets, the position of the cellar entrance etc. Four trolleys are put on each load and then craned on to a flat wagon. Whole load of empties removed by crane also. There would be difficulty delivering a single dozen.