Advanced Craft Beer Filtration for Increased Quality and Capacity

With consumers increasingly preferring quality to quantity, the demand for tasty, unique craft beers is on the rise. This creates not only new opportunities but also new challenges in scaling up and maintaining flexibility, even at lower production volumes. The right filtration can be a vital solution.

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In the past couple of years, the global craft beer industry has grown significantly, with the estimated market now in excess of USD 100 billion. That growth only shows signs of accelerating, with the market projected to grow to USD 300 billion over the next decade.  

What’s behind that growing market? Consumers, including more and more women, want new and unique tastes and local products. There is also a preference for quality over quantity where consumers are limiting their consumption and even turning to non-alcoholic options but, when they do drink, they look for better-quality beer. 

These trends and changing demands lead to a thirst for craft beers, defined by organizations like The Brewers Association as beer from brewers who produce fewer than 6 million barrels annually.

The Pressure Is On  

But with a rapidly growing and increasingly competitive market, the pressure is on craft brewers to keep and even increase their market share. This translates into several different challenges for their business and their production, with craft beer producers looking to:  

1. Maintain and even increase product taste and quality 
2. Increase production of clear beer 
3. Increase product stability and shelf life 
4. Increase production capacity and save time 
5. Increase flexibility to produce multiple beer styles, e.g., IPA, pilsner, light, and dark 
6. Reduce total cost 
7. Demonstrate sustainability   

Flexible and scalable filtration can provide the solution to meet these challenges, securing the taste and quality of craft beers even at lower volumes, as well as meeting the need for filtration in the hotel, retail, and catering channels. 

Flexible, Scalable, and Cost-Effective Filtration 

With the right filtration system as part of your craft beer process, you are well-equipped to maintain the taste, quality, and stability of your product, successfully scale up production, and | or introduce new beers.

Save Time and Increase Production Capacity 

Equipment with high filtration area and regeneration efficiency delivers many production benefits: 

• Microbreweries and small craft beer producers can process at least 10 to 40 hL per day (85-341 bbl) 
• For larger producers, uninterrupted filtration of 100 hL or more at flow rates of 25–40 hL/hour (212-341 bbl) for lager  
• Clogging problems that stop production are eliminated 
• Up to 50% reduction in stabilization time, one of the most time-consuming steps

Add Flexibility for Multiple Craft Beer Types   

Different products require different separation technologies for clarification, such as decantation over time, centrifugation, Kieselguhr filters, sheet filters, and filter cartridges. 

The cost of separate equipment isn’t feasible for smaller craft beer producers. However, flexible filtration products with multiple filter types can help you improve efficiency and scale up production.

Lower Total Production Costs 

The right filtration technology helps increase throughput and reliability while reducing downtime from issues like filter sheet clogging, breaking, and oxidation. Robust cartridge structures and wide chemical compatibility for all materials lead to higher efficiency and lower total costs per batch, even after multiple chemical regeneration and back-flushing cycles. Plus, the right filtration solution can replace Kieselguhr equipment to significantly lower total costs and simplify the filtration.

Increase Product Stability and Quality 

As production volumes increase, it can be hard to control issues like microbiological contamination, hop creep (refermentation), oxidation, and alterations from pasteurization or preservatives. These can all affect the taste, aroma, appearance, and quality of your craft beer, and the stability and reliability of your production. But with the proper prefilter and final membrane filters, you can ensure that beer is free of yeast cells and even bacterial populations, extending shelf life and your geographic reach to supply new consumers.

Maintain the Taste Difference 

The right filtration process will not interfere with the taste or quality of your beer, thanks to inert materials like stainless steel filtration systems and all-polypropylene filter media. A closed filtration system also allows for CO2 oversaturation to prevent oxidation risk, and reduced maturation time avoids hop creep and refermentation.

Create a Sustainable Production Process 

The environmental impact of beer is increasingly important to consumers. With the proper filtration setup, you can reduce the impact via a feed pump with inverter and calorie recovery through heat exchangers on the clean-in-place (CIP) system, reduce water consumption for efficient cleaning and regeneration using back-flushing with pulsation, and lower energy consumption and noise levels.

The Solution? Jumbo Star Filtration 

Meeting the unique filtration needs of microbreweries and craft beer producers, Sartorius offers the Jumbo Star solution, with many pore sizes available to comply with your different beer types. 

The Jumbo Star Filtration System is a closed system to replace sheet filters, Kieselguhr filters, and (optionally) centrifugation. The disadvantages of sheet filters are that, being open systems, they are sensitive to oxidation and loss of liquid, and require recycling of the first filtration volume.  

The main disadvantages of Kieselguhr filters are the complexity of use, the human health risk associated with the manipulation of powders, and the environmental question of what to do with the filter material after use.  

The disadvantages of the centrifuge are the high investment cost, high energy cost, high noise, and the variability of the final beer clarity, which depends on the inlet turbidity of the beer. These difficulties are overcome using Jumbo Star cartridges.  

The Jumbo Star Technology provides an affordable, flexible, and scalable filtration solution to help you scale up production to meet new and higher demands, as well as improve efficiency and lower costs in your existing process. All while maintaining the unique taste, color, and quality of your craft beer: 

• Flexible solutions: large retention rate portfolio (from 20 µm to 0.45 µm) 
• Scalable filtration surface: from 7 m² to 28 m² 
• Scalable | number of filtration stages: from 1 to 3 stages 
• Low investment compared to a centrifugation and pasteurization process 
• Limited energy consumption  
• Optimization of the stabilization time allows a higher number of runs, resulting in a higher annual production capacity, which is particularly important during the high season | summertime. 
• Adjustment of the brightness of the craft beer upon request retention rates (either 8, 5, or 3 µm) 
• The clarification step impacts the lifetime because all contaminants are removed, creating a more stable final craft beer after bottling, meaning a longer shelf life 
• Clarification does not impact the original taste of the craft beer 

“It’s very simple using a filter cartridge — compared to the Kieselguhr filter, it felt like leaving the Middle Ages! The Jumbo Star is easier to maintain and filtrate, with very good results: good filtration quality and little beer loss.” 

Cédric Mouly, Master Brewer, La Brasserie des Monts d’Auvergne 

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Contact us — and get a real-life demo  

To find out more about how Jumbo Star systems for craft beer filtration can help you meet consumer demand and your production needs, do not hesitate to contact our Field Application Specialists.  

You can also request a demo session at your brewery to see Jumbo Star equipment in action and witness how the optimal filtration sequence can improve your production process and capabilities.