Co-Op Brewery Strikes Gold with Serving Beer Tanks

The Challenge

In 2014, the members of Together We’re Bitter Co-operative Brewing (TWB) had an idea to bring a quirky craft brewery to the heart of Kitchener, Ontario. There were a lot of considerations, like financing, location and equipment. The team knew they needed to buy an entire brewing system to get this project off the ground. The mystery was, “Where would they find a workable system on their budget?” A mystery that would be solved in a very surprising way.

First the funding. Money came from co-op team member investments and an encouraging Kickstarter campaign that raised more than $16,000 dollars. Then the search for the right space shifted into high gear.

But location quickly became a challenge. When the first space they imagined didn’t manifest, the group reworked their start-up plan and moved forward with an industrial building they found near downtown Kitchener. Now the equipment.

Two of the co-op member/owners, Rob Shorney and Culum Canally, searched diligently, looking at trade pubs, searching online and reaching out to other breweries. One day Rob got a Tweet from a friend showing a Kijiji ad for a “brewery” sitting in storage up the road in Mississauga.

When they arrived at the storage unit, they were pleasantly surprised to find an entire, intact quality brew system! There was a brewhouse, three fermenters, a liquor tank, a grain mill and six tanks that Rob thought were horizontal bright tanks.

The equipment that had been sitting in storage had originally been purchased for a brewery install in Croatia, but somehow ended up in the hands of a father-son team in Mississauga, Canada. The team bought the whole system for a song and moved it back to their warehouse in Kitchener.

The Journey

After months of concepting, pipe fitting, and welding, the pieces of the brewing system began to come together. The most unique part of that system was those horizontal tanks, which the team discovered were made by the Paul Mueller Company based in Springfield, Missouri. And they weren’t just any horizontal tanks, but serving beer tanks that could be used directly in the taproom! This wasn’t antiquated technology, but actually cutting-edge technology. These serving beer tanks with bag liners are being used all over Europe, and the TWB team would learn they were the first ones to use them in North America.

The Solution

Rob contacted Paul Mueller Company and spoke with Gregg Shirey, Director of Business Development. Gregg explained the tanks actually hold high-strength bag liners. It was a self-cooled, begin-tank system. Paul Mueller Company quickly expedited an initial inventory of 264.2 gallon (1,000 liter) bags to TWB. At first, Culum worried the bags would not hold 264.2 gallons (1,000 liters) of liquid under significant pressure.

Together, We’re Bitter set aside a large amount of their budget for a cold room and keg storage. They found they could practically eliminate the cold room and the kegs with the serving beer tanks and inline system. Beer can be precisely temperature-controlled and served directly from the tank. This was revolutionary!

The Results

Rob said customers also love to see how the taps in the serving room are hooked up directly to the tanks. They perceive their beer as being fresher, and it is! It’s one less step from the tank to the pint.

The tanks have allowed TWB to start considering expansion. The co-op has already begun hiring more workers because of the growth it is experiencing and anticipating.

He is thrilled they found these unique beer tanks for sale in their equipment search, but Rob is even more excited about the partnership they gained with Paul Mueller Company.