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Kettles in a modern Trappist brewery

A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant.[1] The commercial brewing of beer has taken place since at least 2500 BC;[2] in ancient Mesopotamia, brewers derived social sanction and divine protection from the goddess Ninkasi.[3][4] Brewing was initially a cottage industry, with production taking place at home; by the ninth century monasteries and farms would produce beer on a larger scale, selling the excess; and by the eleventh and twelfth centuries larger, dedicated breweries with eight to ten workers were being built.[5]



See also: History of beer
The Alulu beer receipt records a purchase of "best" beer from an ancient Sumerian brewery, c. 2050 BC[2]

Beer may have been known in Neolithic Europe [6] and was mainly brewed on a domestic scale.[7] In some form, it can be traced back almost 5000 years to Mesopotamian writings describing daily rations of beer and bread to workers. Before the rise of production breweries, the production of beer took place at home and was the domain of women, as baking and brewing were seen as "women's work".


19th century brewery installations

Breweries, as production facilities reserved for making beer, did not emerge until monasteries and other Christian institutions started producing beer not only for their own consumption but also to use as payment. This industrialization of brewing shifted the responsibility of making beer to men. The oldest, still functional, brewery in the world is believed to be the German state-owned Weihenstephan brewery in the city of Freising, Bavaria. It can trace its history back to 1040 AD.[8] The nearby Weltenburg Abbey brewery, can trace back its beer-brewing tradition to at least 1050 AD.[citation needed] The Žatec brewery in the Czech Republic claims it can prove that it paid a beer tax in 1004 AD.[citation needed] Early breweries were almost always built on multiple stories, with equipment on higher floors used earlier in the production process, so that gravity could assist with the transfer of product from one stage to the next. This layout often is preserved in breweries today, but mechanical pumps allow more flexibility in brewery design. Early breweries typically used large copper vats in the brewhouse, and fermentation and packaging took place in lined wooden containers. Such breweries were common until the Industrial Revolution, when better materials became available, and scientific advances led to a better understanding of the brewing process. Today, almost all brewery equipment is made of stainless steel. During the Industrial Revolution, the production of beer moved from artisanal manufacture to industrial manufacture, and domestic manufacture ceased to be significant by the end of the 19th century.[9]

Major technological advances[edit]

A 16th-century brewery




The modern brewery[edit]

Brewery in Hurbanovo, Slovakia

Breweries today are made predominantly of stainless steel, although vessels often have a decorative copper cladding for a nostalgic look. Stainless steel has many favourable characteristics that make it a well-suited material for brewing equipment. It imparts no flavour in beer, it reacts with very few chemicals, which means almost any cleaning solution can be used on it (concentrated chlorine [bleach] being a notable exception) and it is very sturdy. Sturdiness is important, as most tanks in the brewery have positive pressure applied to them as a matter of course, and it is not unusual that a vacuum will be formed incidentally during cleaning.



Brewing process[edit]

Main article: Brewing



Boiling the wort ensures its sterility, helping to prevent contamination with undesirable microbes. During the boil, hops are added, which contribute aroma and flavour compounds to the beer, especially their characteristic bitterness. Along with the heat of the boil, they cause proteins in the wort to coagulate and the pH of the wort to fall, and they inhibit the later growth of certain bacteria. Finally, the vapours produced during the boil volatilize off-flavours, including dimethyl sulfide precursors. The boil must be conducted so that it is even and intense. The boil lasts between 60 and 120 minutes, depending on its intensity, the hop addition schedule, and volume of wort the brewer expects to evaporate.

Royal Brewery in Manchester, UK, with steel fermentation vessels




When the sugars in the fermenting beer have been almost completely digested, the fermentation process slows and the yeast cells begin to die and settle at the bottom of the tank. At this stage, especially if the beer is cooled to around freezing, most of the remaining live yeast cells will quickly become dormant and settle, along with the heavier protein chains, due simply to gravity and molecular dehydration. Conditioning can occur in fermentation tanks with cooling jackets. If the whole fermentation cellar is cooled, conditioning must be done in separate tanks in a separate cellar. Some beers are conditioned only lightly, or not at all. An active yeast culture from an ongoing batch may be added to the next boil after a slight chilling in order to produce fresh and highly palatable beer in mass quantity.


Filtering the beer stabilizes flavour and gives it a polished, shiny look. It is an optional process. Many craft brewers simply remove the coagulated and settled solids and forgo active filtration. In localities where a tax assessment is collected by government pursuant to local laws, any additional filtration may be done using an active filtering system, the filtered product finally passing into a calibrated vessel for measurement just after any cold conditioning and prior to final packaging where the beer is put into the containers for shipment or sale. The container may be a bottle, can, of keg, cask or bulk tank.


Brewing companies[edit]

Yuengling Brewery, a regional brewery in Pottsville, Pennsylvania

Brewing companies range widely in the volume and variety of beer produced, ranging from small breweries, such as Ringwood Brewery, to massive multinational conglomerates, like SABMiller in London or Anheuser-Busch InBev, that produce hundreds of millions of barrels annually. There are organizations that assist the development of brewing, such as the Siebel Institute of Technology in the USA and the Institute of Brewing and Distilling in the UK. In 2012 the four largest brewing companies (Anheuser-Busch InBev, SABMiller, Heineken International, and Carlsberg Group) controlled 50% of the market[10] The biggest brewery in the world is the Belgian-Brazilian company Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Some commonly used descriptions of breweries are:

  • Microbrewery – A late-20th-century name for a small brewery. The term started to be supplanted with craft brewer at the start of the 21st century.[citation needed]
  • Farm brewery – A farm brewery, or farmhouse brewery, is a brewery that primarily brews its beer on a farm. Crops and other ingredients grown on the farm, such as barley, wheat, rye, hops, herbs, spices, and fruits are used in the beers brewed. A farmhouse brewery is similar in concept to a vineyard growing grapes to make wine at the vineyard.[11]
  • Macrobrewery or Megabrewery – Terms for a brewery, too large or economically diversified to be a microbrewery, which sometimes carry a negative connotation.

Contract brewing[edit]

Contract brewing –When one brewery hires another brewery to produce its beer. The contracting brewer generally handles all of the beer's marketing, sales, and distribution, while leaving the brewing and packaging to the producer-brewery (which confusingly may also be referred to as a contract brewer). Often the contract brewing is performed when a small brewery can not supply enough beer to meet demands and contracts with a larger brewery to help alleviate their supply issues. Some breweries do not own a brewing facility, these contract brewers have been criticized by traditional brewing companies for avoiding the costs associated with a physical brewery.[12]

Gypsy brewing[edit]

Gypsy brewing usually falls under the category of contract brewing. Gypsy breweries generally do not have their own equipment or premises. They operate on a temporary or itinerant basis out of the facilities of another brewery, generally making "one-off" special occasion beers.[13] The trend of gypsy brewing spread early in Scandinavia.[14] Their beers, and collaborations later spread to America and Australia.[15] Gypsy brewers typically use facilities of larger makers with excess capacity.[15][15]

Prominent examples include Pretty Things, Stillwater Artisanal Ales, Gunbarrel Brewing Company, Mikkeller and Evil Twin.[16] For example, the "legendary"[17] One of Mikkeller's founders, Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, has travelled around the world between 2006 and 2010, brewing more than 200 different beers at other breweries.[18]

Head brewer/brewmaster[edit]

The head brewer (UK) or brewmaster (USA) is in charge of the production of beer. The major breweries employ engineers with a chemistry/Biotechnology background.

Brewmasters may have had a formal education in the subject from institutions such as the Siebel Institute of Technology, VLB Berlin, Heriot-Watt University, American Brewers Guild,[19] University of California at Davis, University of Wisconsin,[19] Olds College[20] or Niagara College.[21] They may hold membership in professional organisations such as the Brewers Association, Master Brewers Association, American Society of Brewing Chemists, the Institute of Brewing and Distilling,[22] and the Society of Independent Brewers. Depending on a brewery's size, a brewer may need anywhere from five to fifteen years of professional experience before becoming a brewmaster;[19]

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Jens Gammelgaard (2013). The Global Brewery Industry. Edward Elgar Publishing. p. 52. 
  2. ^ a b "World's oldest beer receipt? – Free Online Library". Retrieved 8 May 2010. 
  3. ^ Susan Pollock, Ancient Mesopotamia,1999:102-103.
  4. ^ Hartman, L. F. and Oppenheim, A. L., (1950) "On Beer and Brewing Techniques in Ancient Mesopotamia," Supplement to the Journal of the American Oriental Society, 10. Retrieved 2013-09-20.
  5. ^ Thomas F. Glick; et al. (27 Jan 2014). Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine. Routledge. p. 102. 
  7. ^ [2] Dreher Breweries, Beer-history
  8. ^ "Indulge in the Bavarian Weiss",, Michael Jackson, September 2, 1998.
  11. ^ "Class 8M Farm Brewery License". 
  13. ^ Noel, Josh (March 14, 2012). "A long road to realizing their pipe dream". Chicago Tribune. 
  14. ^ Smith, James (May 15, 2012). "Refreshing taste of diplomacy". The Age. 
  15. ^ a b c O'Neill, Claire (August 14, 2010). "'Gypsy Brewer' Spreads Craft Beer Gospel". National Public Radio. 
  16. ^ Risen, Clay (October 20, 2010). "The Innovative 'Gypsy Brewers' Shaking Up the Beer World". The Atlantic. 
  17. ^ Nichols, Lee (March 16, 2013). "Handicapping Local Craft Brews". Austin Chronicle. 
  18. ^ Miller, Norman (March 28, 2012). "The Beer Nut: Mikkeller brews beer on the run". 
  19. ^ a b c "How to Become a Brewmaster - Professional Brewer". Retrieved 2012-02-19. 
  20. ^ "Brewmaster & Brewery Operations Management". 1999-02-22. Retrieved 2014-08-12. 
  21. ^ "Canada". Brewers' Guardian. 25 July 2011. Retrieved 2012-02-19. 
  22. ^ "Brewmaster". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2012-02-19. 

Further reading[edit]