Craft Breweries are Facing Tough Decisions Amid a Nationwide CO2 Shortage

For folks interested in reading more about the specific issue of Nighy Shift Brewing deciding to shut down production (they will still have a pilot brewing system) at their brewery there is an ongoing thread in the Northeast forum:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...moves-majority-of-production-off-site.668146/

The last post in the above thread (as I am making this post) is from Rob Burns (one of the owners of Night Shift):

“Right now, with the information we have it is hopefully only a 30-60 day supply shortage. I don't have a crystal ball - but I don't believe it will be a year long issue. The ammonia plants fire back up in the fall and winter.”

Based upon the above statement it reads like the CO2 shortage is transitory (the ‘it’ word of 2021?).

Cheers!

 

I saw this and it bummed me out

 

Yards is doing a real ale fest where there a ton of cask beers. I didn't pay attention to the newsletter in full so I do not have the exact number.

 

When is this occurring?

Cheers!

 

Although so-called "craft brewers" love to throw the word around, I'm not so sure that the process of collecting CO2 during fermentation and then injecting it into beer later is really "innovative" since it was developed well over a century ago and has been commonly used since then.

 

Jack I forwarded an email to you I received directly from Yards. Cheers

November 13th of this year at noon

 

Any update on the CO2 shortage from several months ago?

I'm wondering because today I saw something about carbon sequestration at an ethanol plant, which is a fermentation process, and made me wonder why they don't sell the CO2 to brewers instead.... But maybe the "crisis" has passed?

 

From the Food Logistics article linked above:

“Investing for the long term

Finally, for the brewing industry specifically, the ideal long-term solution would be to invest in CO2 recycling equipment, which would make it possible to rely less heavily on third-party supplies since you’re essentially recreating your own supply. The challenge with this solution is that it would be very expensive in the short term and therefore may not make business sense for startup breweries that only make very small batches. However, companies that have been around for several years and are experiencing steady growth would do well to at least consider this option. Ultimately, this would be the best long-term solution because even secondary and tertiary suppliers can suddenly become unavailable in a large-scale disruption. But it does require forgoing some short-term profits now since such technology can easily cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

As discussed above, installing CO2 recovery systems at breweries may not be economically feasible for small(er) craft breweries it seems like this could be a wise investment for some of the larger, established breweries. It would be interesting to know whether some of these larger, distributing breweries have installed CO2 recovery systems, or plan to, recently.

Cheers!

@SierraTerence @erway @springdalebeer @Urk1127 @honkey

 

You wonder how bad this could get until breweries begin to bottle-condition more to avoid co2 issues. Can make their own...

Obviously doing so would present its own set of issues and higher costs of bottling materials and production.

 

This is kind of what I was thinking. Instead of breweries investing in the expensive CO2 recovery systems, how much cost/effort/learning would be needed for breweries to start spunding and krausening?

 

And you can add the need for additional warehouse space to house those bottles for the bottle conditioning process which typically takes 2 weeks of conditioning time.

Given that the geek portion of the craft beer market seems to demand cans these days, there is that business consideration as well.

Cheers!

 

I'd also be curious to know what the base knowledge around the technique of bottle conditioning is these days. Is it something every pro brewer knows how to do these days or is it a generally arcane technique that only brewers with certain experience/training would be able to implement without assistance?

 

Bottle Conditioning is not hard or arcane.

Plenty of today’s craft brewers started off as homebrewers and bottle conditioning is the typical manner of how beer is carbonated when homebrewers first start off homebrewing. Some homebrewers will later decide to keg their beers since they find the hand bottling process to be tedious.

Later today I will be bottling a batch of Bohemian Pilsner. I will add some sugar to the beer and then bottle the beer. I will place those bottles in a warm (room temperature) place and two weeks later they will be carbonated.

I suspect that for smaller breweries the aspect of needing ‘extra’ space to store those bottles for the two weeks it takes for carbonation to occur could be an rental/lease expense they can’t afford.

Cheers!

P.S. I am personally a fan of bottle conditioning since it provides a superior mouthfeel (for my palate).

 

Yeah when I thought about it a bit more, I don' think this would be a trend unless it was really forced by drastic c02 shortages, given the additional production time alone. Still, it would be an option.

Beer geeks will chase another trend soon, we've seen them come and go. Personally I think bottles are visually more appealing than an aluminum vessel.

 

It would be an adjustment for beer drinkers too- imagine the shock on people's faces who are not used to having yeast in their cans/ bottles?