Rollout plan for getting a historic brewery on track for climate neutrality

Bastian Leikeim recently got to spend some time in Denver, Colorado, where he was a jury member for the World Beer Cup, the biggest beer-tasting competition on the planet. A great experience for him, as he tells us: “Getting away from everyday business and swapping views and ideas with colleagues from all over the world, that was a nice change of pace. There’s simply nothing better than talking about beer.” Well, since early May he has again been seeing to everyday business in Altenburg, Thuringia, in a building that is listed on Germany’s register for the preservation of historic monuments. Leikeim comes from a Franconian family of brewers. In the early 1990s, his father bought and refurbished the brewery building in Altenburg. “He’s always been out and about, looking at old breweries, and this one is really something special,” says Leikeim who runs the operations here today. The Art Nouveau-style building dates back to 1913 when it housed one of Europe’s most modern brewhouses. It was built by Theodor Ganzenmüller, a professor at the Bavarian Academy for Agriculture and Brewing Science in Weihenstephan and a legend among brewers. 

Today, the company has a payroll of 50 and brews around 100,000 hectolitres of beer per year that is filled into swing-stopper bottles. All the raw materials required are sourced from the surrounding region, even the hops, because the Elbe-Saale hop-growing area is right round the corner. Everyone here is proud of the multiple awards their beers have won, chief among them those for the Altenburger Premium Pils. “We’ve meanwhile become the brewery in Central Germany that has received the biggest number of international accolades,” says a gratified Bastian Leikeim. Altenburger Brauerei frequently adds seasonal specialties to its product portfolio. One of its most recent successes is the low-alcohol Sommerhell (a refreshing pale lager for summertime). “Our brewmasters really excelled themselves with that one,” emphasises Leikeim, and adds: “At eleven degrees Plato, the beer still has quite a full-bodied flavour but an abv of only 3.5 per cent.” 

From steam boiler to climate transition plan 

As beautiful as the listed building surely is, it complicates any innovation, refurbishment and conversion. When the steam boiler was up for replacement, the brewery asked Krones to plan the project. The teams of both companies have known each other from earlier bottling hall jobs, and above all through the brewery’s sister company Leikeim in Franconia, whose entire systems technology was supplied by Krones. So the initial factory-planning consultancy job gradually turned into developing a climate transition plan. “What it boiled down to for us was that firstly we needed Krones’ expertise for the upcoming steam-boiler investment and secondly it made definite sense to also get more in-depth advice in regard to energy management. We’d learned from like-minded breweries that for them a climate transition plan had proved to be a good tool to start with,” says Leikeim. What ultimately tipped the scales was a government-grant programme aimed at providing federal funding for energy and resource efficiency in the economy. 

Now that the result has been presented to him, Bastian Leikeim is very satisfied, even though the project cost him a lot of time: “The climate transition plan has proved very helpful for us three times over – firstly it has revealed many small levers we can pull immediately. Secondly we know which major measures we’ll now be tackling and thirdly we have a roadmap for future investments.” He is also impressed by the sheer number of practical measures the concept has spawned: “You see, it’s not just big things but also minor details you don’t even stop to think about that the experts were able to spot, looking at the whole matter from an outsider’s perspective.” 

The climate transition plan has proved very helpful for us three times over – firstly it has revealed many small levers we can pull immediately. Secondly we know which major measures we’ll now be tackling and thirdly we have a roadmap for future investments. Bastian LeikeimManaging Director of Altenburger Brauerei

Unravelling the energy flows

Krones’ sustainability-consultancy team represented by Norbert Ottmann and Jonas Mayer drew up the climate transition plan within the framework laid down in the government-grant programme. “It goes without saying that our consultancy work was based on the grant guidelines. For example, we only incorporated such measures that corresponded to the programme’s specifications,” says Norbert Ottmann. The stipulations laid down for this project were these: the company’s stated commitment to the goal of achieving greenhouse gas neutrality by 2045, and laying down a ten-year goal with an emission reduction of at least 40 per cent as from the project’s start. It was necessary to analyse the as-is status and to draw up a greenhouse gas footprint, plus a practical action plan for achieving the ten-year goal and a description of how the climate targets were to be firmly established in the company. 

Greenhouse gas emissions are essentially the result of energy consumption. The only exception here is the flushing gas CO₂ that is used in breweries to expel oxygen from all pipes and containers, a process that causes emissions. The greenhouse gas footprint includes emissions from Scope 1 and Scope 2. Scope 1 emissions are produced directly on the company’s premises by burning gas and fuels and by CO₂ flushing. Scope 2 emissions result from outsourcing heat and power. 

The key questions posed in the as-is analysis were these: How much energy, and how much heat and refrigeration, is consumed where? And how much of each is lost where? In order to answer these questions, the Krones team started by looking at the brewery’s data and interviewing its specialists. To supplement the results thus obtained, the team used their own instruments to take measurements at additional places and to check further parameters. “After all, we’re industry insiders and as such familiar with each and every part of the process chain – brewing, filling, utilities. So we know exactly where measurements must be taken, and how, and that gives us an accurate and meaningful picture of the as-is status,” says Jonas Mayer. 

Which are the best places to fine-tune? 

The most important items in the company’s carbon footprint are typical for breweries of this size in Germany: The biggest amount is caused by burning gas for generating steam and hot water, and in part for heating. Emissions from outsourced electricity come second, followed by emissions from purchased CO₂ – the grant programme involved here estimates one ton of emissions per ton of CO₂ used. The smallest item is emissions from the diesel engines of the forklift trucks on the company’s premises. The CO₂ released during fermentation also contributes to the brewery’s carbon footprint, but since that is caused by the process itself, it cannot be changed. 

Generally speaking, what are the best places to fine-tune in order to reduce a brewery’s emissions? First and foremost is energy supply. “In-house energy recirculation systems for recovering heat are immensely rewarding,” says Norbert Ottmann. Next comes CO₂ supply because in actual fact breweries don’t really have to outsource that gas since enough of it is released during fermentation. Investing in a recovery system, however, has so far only been worthwhile for breweries with an annual beer output of several hundred thousand hectolitres. But there have been supply bottlenecks ever since the 2022 energy crisis, and that has turned CO₂ recovery into an interesting option for relatively small breweries as well. Also and especially because some vendors meanwhile offer economically viable solutions for the medium to small output range. 

Above and beyond this, it often makes sense to generate electricity in-house, for example in a photovoltaic array or by using biogas in a combined heat and power plant, and to change the vehicle fleet over to e-mobility. But the general maxim is: “We always start by implementing the quick wins, that is to say those features that can be turned into effective reality fast. All the measures that follow increasingly require more and more time and resources,” says Norbert Ottmann. The sequence in which the individual measures are tackled is based on a complex assessment, which takes into account the goals specified, investment costs and return on investment, the availability of the relevant technologies, plus any upcoming modernisation jobs or other long-term plans that the brewery has. 

Rollout plan to achieve climate neutrality 

And what do things actually look like at Altenburger Brauerei? The as-is analysis resulted in 20 different measures, all of which together can render the brewery’s operations climate neutral. They range from fast-track action like returning an existing free-cooling system to service so that it can support the refrigeration system or adapting a line control system by means of larger, individual investments like a CO₂ recovery system or an expanded photovoltaic array right through to converting the existing set-up into a low-temperature brewery in the long term. 

Just as with the additional measurements mentioned above, the team of consultants were again able to tap into their process expertise for identifying and assessing the various options available. Jonas Mayer gives an example: “At Altenburger Brauerei, there was a refrigeration system whose waste heat was being used even though its temperature was unfavourable for the overall process. In such a case, it is in fact better not to use the waste heat.” Yet another example is the whirlpool, which removes turbid matter from the hot wort that is then cooled down with iced water. After that, the water heated up in the process is re-used as a heat source or as warm brewing liquor. A possible option here was to insulate the whirlpool, thus ensuring that the wort is even hotter when it enters the cooler, which in turn means even more heat can be recovered. 

Four measures reduce emissions by 40 per cent 

Altenburger Brauerei can reach its ten-year goal, which is a 40-per-cent emission reduction, with just four measures: by recovering CO₂, by changing its lift trucks over to e-mobility, by expanding the photovoltaic array on the brewery’s roof, and by modifying its brewhouse for more energy efficiency. This last step is the most elaborate one. It includes changing some processes over from steam to hot water supply, installing an energy storage tank and recovering heat. But it will enable the brewery to save about 1,000 megawatt hours of heat and 30 megawatt hours of electricity. The first few measures are already being tackled in Altenburg, with some consideration given to CO₂ recovery. That item really came as a surprise for Bastian Leikeim, as he tells us: “I wouldn’t have thought it would be such a powerful factor.” 

Probably the most important insight gained from the climate transition plan is the fact that the brewery will, contrary to initial plans, not purchase a new steam boiler for the time being. Instead, it will retrofit the existing boiler, thus extending its useful life and buying valuable time to see how the ever-changing energy supply situation plays out. The brewery’s boss outlines the major concerns currently preoccupying him and his guild: “We’d tie ourselves down for the next ten to twenty years with whatever we opt for today in terms of heat supply. In order to assure our company’s future economic viability, we must know what energy source we will have at our disposal over that period. Will that continue to be natural gas? Or will green hydrogen be available to us? And if so, at what prices? Or should we opt for electricity? But in that case we’d need an electricity price that can be calculated on a long-term basis.” 

All in all, Leikeim is glad to have opted for the climate transition plan: “We now have a good overview of upcoming investments and can start tackling the first jobs straight away.” He thinks that was no doubt partly attributable to the good cooperation with the Krones team: “We really felt we were in good hands with Krones. Their team worked tirelessly, and we’ve reaped huge benefits from their expert knowledge. The people here on site pointed out to us a great many different things and thus also focussed our technicians’ attention on some issues waiting to be tackled.”