Program Book - Master Brewers Association of the Americas

Technical Session Abstracts & Biographies
Technical Session I: Packaging
Moderator: Jeffrey Tito, Miller Brewing Company, Pottsville, PA
Jeff Tito graduated from West Virginia University in 1986 with a
B.S. degree in economics. He began his brewing career at the Rolling
Rock Brewery in the apprentice program of the Latrobe, PA, facility
while still in college. After college he moved to the Stroh Brewery in
Allentown, PA, as a brewing supervisor, then to Pittsburgh Brewing,
where he started as a packaging supervisor and eventually became
the assistant brewmaster. Jeff left for D. G. Yuengling in 1995 to
accept the assistant brewmaster position there. After working
for Coca Cola as a packaging manager in their Twinsburg, OH,
facility he joined Miller Brewing Company in Eden, NC, as the
assistant packaging manager in 2004. In 2005 Jeff was promoted to
packaging manager at the Albany, GA, brewery, until 2007 when he
accepted his current position as brewing manager. Jeff is the MBAA
Board of Governors representative for MBAA District Southeast,
a member of the MBAA Technical and Long Range Planning
Committees, and has coauthored a paper for the MBAA Technical
Quarterly.
O-1
A flush a day keeps the bugs away
HEINZ DAUTH (1), Johannes Tippmann (1), Karl Sommer (1)
(1) Technische Universität München, Center of Life Sciences,
Weihenstephan, Germany
The understanding of the necessity of cleaning but lack of practice
is a quite common game in selling draft beer. Without any doubt,
hygiene is a crucial parameter for sales success in the draft beer
scene. But the obvious question is, how much care is essentially
needed and furthermore which care is leading to a sufficient
level of quality? Instead of an unverified assumption, scientific
investigations are needed to answer these questions. If we take a
closer look at the cleaning process for draft beer equipment there
are three major areas—the beer line, the coupler and the tap. In
addition we find some country-specific auxiliaries such as fob stops,
pumps etc. This presentation discusses the impact of tap cleaning
on the microbiological situation for the tap itself and for the whole
dispensing system. In other words—is tap care worth the effort?
Practical investigations have been carried out with the following
experimental design: A test rig consisting of five beer lines identical
in length, diameter, construction and mountings was used. All the
beer lines were equipped with the same tap design. The beer used
for the trials was a German lager beer. In cases of tap care a tap-ball
was deployed. One series of tests ran for six weeks and was repeated
three times to meet statistical requirements. Concerning the tap
care five different parameters were determined: Tap 1, treated daily
with water; Tap 2, treated daily with disinfectant; Tap 3, treated with
disinfectant once a week after line cleaning; Tap 4, no tap treatment
after line cleaning. The total equipment is cleaned chemically on a
weekly basis. As a control, Tap 5 was used without a regular cleaning
interval to demonstrate the prompt contamination found without
a regular cleaning cycle. Once a week two samples from each line
were taken and tested for microbial load by plate count (cfu). The
first sample indicates the microbiological situation at the tap and
the following sample represents the beer line behind the tap or
rather the situation of the dispensing system. Daily cleaning of the
tap with water or disinfectant shows significant reduction of the
microbiological load at the tap but most interesting also for the
beer line behind the tap. As early as three weeks there are definite
variations in the bio film found on the tap wall. In comparison
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to the standard weekly cleaning procedure with tap treatment
the reduction of microbiological load due to daily treatment
is dramatic. In summary it has to be concluded that tap care
improves considerably the whole microbiological situation of a beer
dispensing system and gives all outlets with high quality standard a
competitive advantage in selling draft beer.
Dr.-Ing. Heinz Dauth was born in 1964. Dauth graduated as an
engineer for food technology and biotechnology from the Technische
Universität München–Weihenstephan in 1993. Afterward Dauth
was appointed as a scientific researcher at the Chair of Process
Engineering (Prof. Dr.-Ing. K. Sommer) in Weihenstephan, TU
München. He completed his doctoral thesis in 1999 in the field of
mechanical process engineering. Since 2003, Dauth has been a
scientific assistant and university lecturer at the Chair of Process
Engineering (Prof. Sommer), TU München. His main research
interests are bulk solids technology, dispensing technology, process
engineering for specific problems in the food and beverage industries,
and the formation of foam and stability of bubbles under the
influence of different gases and mixtures of gases dissolved in the
liquid. He is also responsible for the industrial cooperation program
of the institute. Dauth is also working as an assistant professor at the
Weihenstephan University of Applied Sciences, lecturing on process
engineering.
O-2
Review on recent developments in dispense hygiene
KARIN PAWLOWSKY (1), Stephen Livens (1)
(1) BRI, Nutfield, United Kingdom
Brand loyalty is of the utmost importance to the brewer and
nowhere more so than with draft dispense. Despite the perception
of keg beer as the most stable packaging format, delivering beer of
consistent and characteristic quality from the brewery gate, there is
no guarantee that it will reach the consumer’s glass unblemished!
Inappropriate beer dispense can significantly damage beer
quality, leading to a loss of business, not to mention the brewer’s
reputation. Perhaps the greatest risk to dispense quality is the use of
microbiologically contaminated dispense equipment. The early 90s
established the foundations of much of our current understanding
of microbiological colonization of surfaces, particularly in the
brewery but also within the dispense system, and in particular
our understanding of biofilm development. This begins when a
conditioning layer, consisting of organic material from the beer,
forms on the line surface. Bacteria settle on the conditioning layer
and produce extracellular polysaccharides which form a highly
protective ‘slime’ coating. Beer spoilage bacteria and yeast are now
also able to attach to this sticky surface. The physical ‘shedding’ of
particles from the mature biofilm then ensures its further spread
throughout the dispense system. The worst location in terms of
biofilm formation and dispense system contamination is usually
identified at the dispense tap, where environmental conditions are
more favorable for a wider range of microbiological contaminants.
BRI and others have recovered a diverse number of viable, nonbrewing
related microorganisms, not usually capable of survival
in beer, directly from tap spouts. This raises particular concerns at
sites where beer and food are served in close proximity and in the UK
has led to the publication of technical guidelines from the British
Beer and Pub Association recommending that, in order to limit
the potential for cross contamination, appropriate food hygiene
practices should be closely followed in outlets serving both beer and
food. To limit the risk of beer quality deteriorating during dispense,