If you have been in the beer business long enough, you know those pictures: some flannel wearing, bearded, twenty-something-year-old, pulling a sample of beer, or looking at a beaker of wort, perfectly timed just for the right amount of likes on the ‘gram.

Until suddenly – BLAST! Nothing but utter chaos erupts, or as the kids say, “UGH! OMG! “ with all the frenzied faced emojis included.

Meanwhile, we brewers all know days spent wasting our time, scattering frantically, looking for that spanner used yesterday on the packaging line. All the while, glycol continues steadily spouting, spewing from a blown-out gasket during knockout, and we realize the cellar-person has dumped over the spent grain container in the most inconvenient spot.

In the beginning of my career, I learned two things that I feel are not expressed enough to novices in the brewing industry, and more often than not, lead to horrible practices and procedures.

1. “You’re just a glorified janitor.” (spoken by my first brewing mentor)

2. “Bored? Do this life affirming task – clean!” (a sign a friend of mine had hanging in his restaurant’s kitchen)

Could these “motivational” quotes be a bit too harsh? Maybe to some.

But let’s be honest – in reality, this job is tough, and most days are a test of stamina. Working in a brewery is a true test of the survival of the fittest – you need to weed out the weak from the strong.

I love visiting breweries, just like every other craft beer enthusiast does, but I would be lying if I said that when I visit each of them, I’m not immediately giving the entire place the once over (let’s face it – all brewers do it).

I don’t even necessarily mean the cleanliness of the production area. I’m also just as curious about the design of the space and always find myself asking “Why did [whomever] designed this do it this way?”.

“I can’t help myself from immediately honing in on any and all dirty spots, all of which scream extreme laziness to me”

I try to imagine what the daily work flow looks like. And ultimately, my investigative eye zones-in on how the overall cleanliness is.

Cleaning the outside of your tanks is a quick and easy step to help fight brewery contaminants

Nothing irritates me more than going into a brewery and being smacked in the face with an instant waft of stale, stagnant beer. That is big red flag number one. When on guided tours, I always inconspicuously look at the fermenters, as best as I can, and can’t help myself from immediately honing in on any and all dirty spots, all of which scream extreme laziness to me.

Some may think I’m over reacting, but from my perspective, if nobody took the extra time to do basic cleaning of their production facility,
especially if it’s open to the public, that shows me corners have likely been cut during the brewing process.

Obviously, there is much more to a clean brewery than just aesthetics. Keeping your brewery clean is an SOP that should be in place for safety, health, and to prevent microbiological contamination.

Here are a couple of good habits and best practices to employ in every brewery – and most critically, to be passed down to future brewers.

1. Keep that mill room clean.

The mill room might not be a place people see much of when on a brewery tour, but this area is especially important to maintain cleanliness. Grain dust is full of microbiological contaminants that will spoil your beer, along with being highly flammable.

If your mill room is not cleaned regularly, there is high risk of explosion. Just this past July, Coors Brewing in Colorado had a 16-story grain silo explode because of excess dust build up. Of course, as a huge commercial brewery, that was definitely a disaster of an extreme scale. However, no matter what size your brewery, the best thing to do to avoid this is to get in the habit of cleaning the mill room the second you’ve finished mashing in. Don’t worry! You have plenty of time while you wait on your mash conversion, or if you’re really lost on what to do, refer back to my life lesson number 2 (above).

2. Scrub outside your tanks

About to CIP a tank for your newest creation? Before any hot water touches that tank, give the outside of the tank a simple soap and water scrub from top to bottom. I even use a little toothbrush on the welds and places I can’t get my hands into. A 20bbl tank shouldn’t take a person more than 10 minutes to clean.

3. Clean out those drains

Keep your drains and floors clean! Perfectly flowing drains seem to be an elusive component that I’m starting to believe has either never existed or has been completely forgotten. Learning how well your drains flow and discovering dead spots where liquids of all kinds could collect is an incredibly important thing to recognize and properly maintenance.

If you’re flushing your drains and bleach solutions with a floor scrub, be careful that no bleach solution touches stainless steal.

Lastly. I’d like to talk about end-of-the-week clean-up. No matter how busy things get (yes, there are some exceptions), I always schedule my Fridays to be half-production days. This gives me and my team the necessary time to focus on cleaning in the afternoon. And hey, let’s be real! After a long work week, crank some tunes and enjoy some of your hard work by having a beer or two, while giving the brewery a hard scrub down.

Now you’ve concluded your work week and everything is ready and set for the new week ahead.

This is a solid path to maintaining your best and most confident PMA (positive mental attitude) to come in the next week and continue making great beer.

Cheers,

James