Progress is a funny thing.  I recently read a blurb in a local newspaper about a new brewery opening in Springfield, MO.  This is the town I call home and the brewery I am proud to work for is called Springfield Brewing Company.  Our brewery set up is pretty sweet and we have an automated brewhouse that gives us the ability to define what we want to do in the brewhouse and our control logic coupled with in-line instruments and automated valves follows the routines we enter into our control system.  If we enter something stupid in our control system the automation does what it is programmed to do.  Automation in breweries has not eliminated the human element from brewing and brewers are still required to brew even when automated systems are used; a pretty basic observation.  This is no different than fancy calculators replacing long hand math and the fanciest calculator does not mean that the user does not need to understand math, although many math students of today are lulled into ignorance when using calculators.

 The article that sparked my interest was about a new brewery going into town that has purchased a totally manual brewing system from an out-of-business brewpub.  The author of the article implied that manual brewing equipment produces beer with more “character” than beer brewed using automation.  This strikes me as pretty funny considering that automated equipment is something that growing craft brewers strive towards because automation is a tool that helps brewers do our thing.  Many homebrewers also like to add automation because in addition to helping with the brewing process, automation is just cool.  Fundamentally brewers are gear heads and really get into the nuances of brewing technology.

 I know that I have a chip on my shoulder about this topic and am using my blog to vent my frustrations.  But blogs are a great forum for such opinions.  Even though those special and impossibly tight looking swimsuits are credited to reducing drag on swimmers, those who wear them are still great athletes.  Now if Michael Phelps were swimming slower than Mark Spitz, for example, then one may conclude that Phelps is not the swimmer that Spitz once was.  But that’s not the case, and in breweries using automation, great beers that are consistently great are being brewed all over the world.  Many of the brewing problems commonly tackled on an ongoing basis less than 20 years ago are now a thing of the past.

 So the next time you take a brewery tour at some a brewery with awesome automation, like New Belgium, Boulevard, Sierra Nevada, Harpoon, New Glarus, etc, etc, don’t bag on this great modern technology.  Rather look at all the details of brewing that are given more attention because the brewers are not busy raking out spent grains by hand or manually turning valves that, thanks to modern automation, are being controlled to do what the brewer has pre-determined should be done.