New Holland Brewing

At New Holland Brewing Co. in Holland, Michigan they like to say that “Each bottle of our craft beer and artisan spirits captures a flavor, a harvest, a season, a moment in time.”  Their award-winning beers prove their artisan spirit is appreciated by the beer loving public; however it is a “moment in time” this past winter that proved most challenging.  New Holland’s original, 1950s era, Huppmann, 50-BBL Lauter Tun broke down and was deemed to be beyond repair.  With commitments to customers and consumers alike, it was time to get REALLY creative!

The owners of New Holland brought their situation to Sprinkman, who took the opportunity to be creative in their own right.  The current lead time to design and manufacture a replacement Lauter Tun was six months, but Sprinkman came up with a short-term fix:  a recently built 30-BBL Lauter Tun could be diverted to New Holland to use in the interim.  This collapsed the downtime from several months to a couple of weeks!     Sprinkman Lauter Tuns have quickly climbed the ranks as one of the best performing in the industry.  Starting with the correct width, the right collection ports and proprietary milled false bottom, it’s not uncommon for Sprinkman customers to see a lauter efficiency of +94%.  Ironically, a Sprinkman standard 30 BBL Lauter was much wider than the old 50 BBL that was replaced and at 10’ wide, served as a wonderful stop-gap until the new 12’, 50 BBL lauter was built.  NHBC was still able to collect 50 BBL’s of wort and keep their production moving while using the 30 BBL unit.

New Holland received their new Sprinkman 50-BBL Lauter Tun earlier this month.  It was swapped out with the loaner vessel and in no time they were back to brewing full batches of Dragon’s Milk Bourbon Barrel Stout and other crowd favorites!