Quick Dips

Building Better Beer

Pioneer brewers Morton Coutts and John Beck were recently awarded the New Zealand Distinguished Biotechnologist Award for their contribution to the development of biotechnology.

Both men were instrumental in the establishment of continuous beer fermentation, which began on a commercial scale in the mid 50s, Coutts working for DB and Beck for NZ Breweries. The normal process of brewing beer is by batch -- the raw materials, such as hops, are added at the beginning and the beer is harvested at the end. But with the continuous fermentation process, the brew is regularly replenished with raw materials, and beer is continually harvested -- saving on labour, time and equipment.

Coutts took over most of the business operations of his family's brewery in 1918 at the age of 15, and in the 1930s he began to branch out from what he had been taught. A few years after chemist John Beck had joined NZ Breweries' laboratory staff in 1953, the company entered into an agreement with DB, allowing it to use technology that was integral to continuous fermentation.

A pilot plant in Auckland was the next step, and by the 1960s, 80% of New Zealand Breweries' beer was made using continuous fermentation.

"When people question whether (continuous fermentation) is successful or not, the volume output and quality just indicates that it was very successful," Beck says.

New Zealand Breweries closed its last continuous fermentation plant in early 1989. Progress in stainless steel fabrication technology and hygiene systems meant that very large batch fermenters could economically compete with continuous fermenters.