Walthers industrial tanks

Tanks

The outside tanks at the New Glarus Brewery in New Glarus, Wi. looked to me just like the tanks/silos that are in the Walthers plastic pellet kit. 3 years (took a tour of the new brewery) ago they were just stainless. Per Google Earth a few minutes ago they look painted now, but a tough image to catch. Not rail served, but in looking at other breweries (rail or not)when taking tours, you can find all kinds of outside tanks. Good luck and hunting on your brewery.

TomO

Silos and Tanks

It all depends on the size and output of the brewery. The larger national brands will have several large concrete or steel silos. Also depends on the recipe for the beer. Rice, malt, barley, and hops. When I work at Budwieser in the mid 90's, rice, malt and barley came in hoppers. SSW/ SP and UP had the rice. C&NW/ WC had the malt and barley. Hops came in reefer trucks. 

Hope this helps....

Great feedback guys I'll have

What era are you interested

What era are you interested in modeling? As others said, the modern era usually means very large industries.

In my version/era (late 60s), i got around 10-12 spots for cars on my brewery across two parallel tracks. Most are for outbounds shipping beer (RBL insulated boxcars). Other outbounds include spent grain (wort, in hoppers), and outbounds for broken bottles/scrap (gondolas). Inbounds are grain boxcars (2 spots) and packaging/bottling material (boxcars). Fresh beer would be shipped out in reefers and as others said, inbound hops would be also in reefers.

Kalmbach's book on industries along the tracks series (don't remember the # by hard) has a chapter on breweries that is very useful.

As for silos, if you choose to include them you could go for either steel or concrete i guess.

@Yannis

Yannis,

I am doing late 70s/ early 80s. I picked up the DPM Gold Whitewater Brewery Kit it may be smaller than I want (but I can make an industrial complex where all industries are brewing related). I went with this kit for a few reasons the details, the ability to customize it (each wall is 9 panels that can be put in any combo you want), and I liked how the freight car can pull into the building!

 ​

I will hunt the book down perhaps the library has it (they have many Kalmbach books and the entire state is in one system) and if not there's a great decent used book market online (abebooks.com)

-Dan

I too am wanting a brewery on

I too am wanting a brewery on my layout. I am going to go with a smaller type of brewery(think micro brewery). While it may not be entirely likely that a smaller micro brewery would receive rail traffic and distribute by rail, I have seen some local micro breweries grow from the back room to much larger multi-million dollar facilities that could certainly handle moderate amounts of rail traffic. While, at the same time, being of reasonable and realistic size on my layout mid 90's lay out. 

Awesome @Dtheobald

Long live the brewery layouts! If you need inspiration come to the other coast and visit Maine, we have over 80 breweries in the state, 30 of which are within a 30 mile drive of Portland, and 3 within walking distance from my house in South Portland!

-Dan

Bell's Brewery

Here in Kalamazoo Bell's original brewery is along side the Michigan Amtrak line but it's not rail served. Their larger manufacturing site is farther east along the Amtrak line but is not rail served either.  Grand Rapids, MI is calling itself the beer city with Founder's being the largest brewery and once again close to CSX but not rail served.

Miller in Milwaukee ships beer out in trucks though they did ship beer by rail about 10 years ago.

Robert

Possible inspiration...

The Coors operation in Golden CO is about as big an operation as they come.  Worth checking out for some ideas and they got their own fleet of switchers

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=395567

Brewery Tanks idea

At he La Crosse, Wisconsin Heileman Old Style brewery, stood the famous World's Largest Six-Pack:

https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/12028

Heileman's closed and later another concern took it over and re-labeled the six-pack to La Crosse Lager.  Story in the above linked article.

Nice choice Dan!It sure is a

Nice choice Dan!

It sure is a nice feature to have the indoor loading for the car. You can expand/add extra spots for other cars outside.

Breweries are indeed a great industry with a variety of cars (up to 8 different types!): Boxcars, Reefers, Insulated cars, Grain Boxcars and/or Covered Hoppers, Gondolas, Open Hoppers, and tank cars (for corn syrup if used). It is one of my key industries on my layout with a whole module (2'x4') dedicated to it.

Great Coors Switcher I could

Great Coors Switcher

I could totally see myself repainting an S1 to be Narragansett Branded...

“Made on honor... sold on

“Made on honor... sold on merit” painted on the switcher hood.  She’s gonna look great!

Prototypical Variety

The old Pabst brewery in Newark, NJ had a beer bottle on the roof …..

that explains....

Miller in Milwaukee shipped

Miller in Milwaukee shipped outbound product by rail until maybe 5 years ago.  RBLs in good shape are getting harder to find.  The cars looked like salvage on the outside, so as to not tip off what was inside.  The yardmaster would request that the Miller loads be spotted up in front of the office, so he could keep an eye on them.

Indoor loading of outbound product would almost be a necessity.  Security is of paramount importance, along with making sure the taxman got his cut.

What kind of beer would have rice in it, anyway?  I don't think that is in the classic description of beer.

Beer ingredient

The ingredients of a batch of Bud is malt, rice, water, hops and yeast. Rice adds a crispness to the taste.

Miller is water, barley malt, corn, yeast and hops.....

So you can use a lot of hoppers. Also Bud use to get a tanker car of CO2. Liquid Carbonic was the supplier in the 90's. Someone bought them out, and plain white tankers come into breweries now.

Even though CO2 is released from the yeast and captured during aging, more is sometimes needed

Late for the party

was hoping this thread was longer. 

Anyway I also am building a brewery on my layout.  In fact it is one of my main industry’s and source of revenue for my line.  It is called Bombshell Brewing and got its name after WW2.   It was one of the country’s first breweries but after prohibition business dropped dramatically.   Then the war came.  The During the war it was ran by the war department and under the cover of making beer they actually made bombs for planes in the Europe.   The brewers...... being mostly young single women would often package a few bottles in with the bombs.  For good luck and a little initiative to come home safe the girls would send a few risky photos.   The B17 pilots and crew loved getting these “Special” packages.   And these now Pinup girls become inspiration and become nose art.  

After the war a few B17 pilots wanted to visit this place that kept their spirits up and maybe meet these Bombshells that kept them in the fight.   To their disappointment they found the brewery empty and talk of demolishing it was being said.  

They then put their efforts together and bought the land and eventually reopened the brewery.   The new name was “Bombshell Brewing” in honor of its new history.   

Obviously my advertising will be heavily laden with Pinups.  My wife is the main spokes model since she herself is a Pinup model.  

She is the nose art on the brewery’s 44 toner “Jenni-Girl”.   I have since fixed the decals and made the engine glossy.    And she has actually had a charity beer made with her pic on the label at a brewery in Erie Pa.  

Putnam Brewing Company

I recently added a small brewery to my layout, named for my Wife's county of birth, Putnam County Ohio.  It's largely populated by Germans, and they like their beer!  (as do I !)  One town where some in-laws live, Glandorf, welcomes people on their town sign in both German and English. 

So my brewery is a tribute to my In-Laws.  It has no storage tanks yet, so I'm interested in this thread.  My theory is that this brewery is rail served since it's up in the Appalachian Mountains in WV to make use of the fresh spring water, and is difficult to access by road.  Where's the water source?  Well, there's an underground spring running RIGHT UNDERNEATH the brewery building!  Sshhh!

Pre-1920 era

I am modeling (mostly) 1900 through 1930. Before prohibition there were many small brewers.  All the tanks, bins, and storage were inside the building.  A simple brick building does fine for me.

Now in New England (1990 onwards) there are many small brewers - in the abandoned warehouses from the early 1900's.  Same brick buildings. The definition of irony.

So, I have several breweries and distributors in small brick buildings and larger brick flats.  I just change the name to bring it from 1900 to 2000.

IMO this is the best time to make or sample beer.  So many varieties.  And recently the number of different hops has expanded enormously.  It takes a while to create a different cultivar of any plant and grow enough to make it salable.

Modern brewery

My layout is set in the present (although not bleeding edge present like Eric Brooman), so my brewery is going to be fairly modern. If you look at modern breweries large enough to be rail served, many of the silos look just like any modern grain silo. Good examples are the rice silos at Coors, just east of Hwy 58 and McIntyre in Golden, CO and the malt silos at the main plant. Granted, the Coors facility is also its own malt house, so they keep more product on hand at the site. Otherwise, most of the relatively modern silos from Walthers Cornerstone would work, as mentioned (grain surge bin, plastic pellet facility, any of the ethanol plant silos).

In case anyone is wondering, I’ll be using the Walthers Cornerstone Milwaukee Beer and Ale building “unfolded” along the backdrop for the brewhouse and some of the modern shipping and warehouse buildings from Cornerstone and Rix to build the packaging and shipping areas, including a loadout for tank cars to be shipped to a separate packaging plant, similar to Coors. 

Mike in CO

Malting

What happens after the malting process?  Can those grains then be reloaded and shipped elsewhere?   In other words can I have a malt house process my new grains and the send the malted materials to the main brewery across town in rail cars?   

@ Northernsub

You should ask a home brewer.  

Actually malted barley is used in a lot of different products and regularly shipped.  I suspect rail and trucks carry a lot from the processing sites.

Good question.

Nick