Taihu Brewery synergises creativity and science

Taihu Brewery likes to surprise the market with innovative approaches, such as tea-flavoured beers or sours with smoked Taiwanese plum. “We at Taihu Brewery are extremely adventurous and creative. When it comes to developing recipes and designing labels, for many of our beers we take inspiration from Asian culture,” explains Peter Huang, one of the firm’s original founders and currently the general manager. But for the brewing process itself, by contrast, the craft brewers adopt a stringently scientific approach: “Our brewery is like a laboratory, in which we rigorously test every step, every altered ingredient, and keep detailed records. Our paramount goal is to continually improve our beers. We never brew the same beer twice: sometimes we alter the fermentation temperature, sometimes we use new hop varieties. You see, we never regard anything as perfect, we’re always striving to become even better,” he explains.

Peter Huang, general manager, Taihu Brewery

For these trials and small brews, Taihu has installed a Steinecker MicroCube. With its size of ten hectolitres, it’s ideally suited for trying out new combinations, and these beers are subsequently tested for popularity in one of the firm’s own six taprooms in Taipeh. If a recipe proves successful, Taihu can then use its CombiCube B in the brewhouse to make batch sizes of up to 50 hectolitres.

Pure coincidence

The brewery was using a MicroCube from the very first day – but the choice of this model was more or less coincidental. Originally, Taihu got in touch with Krones only for the bottling kit. “We thought we’d be able to manage the brewing ourselves, since we have very experienced staff in the brewhouse, particularly. But when it came to the bottling operation, we wanted to be on the safe side, in order to create a stable, long-shelf-life product of consistently high quality. And for this purpose we needed a state-of-the-art line, which definitely had to come from Krones,” explains Peter Huang. “During these meetings, we then found that for brewing operations, too, Krones offers solutions for the small output range – and it can safely be said: the salespeople from Freising were very persuasive. A short time later, we ordered the MicroCube, and then immediately began planning a second, larger brewery centred around the CombiCube B.”

Besides the brewing equipment from Steinecker, the brewery ordered the bottling kit as well: a filler-closer block from Kosme, scheduled for commissioning in 2019. “We’re currently filling our beers on a semi-automatic line, mostly in cans. This year, we intend to put more bottles on the market,” says Mr Huang.

For experimental beers and small brew sizes, the team of Head Brewer Winnie Hsu work with a Steinecker MicroCube.

 Sufficient capacity for more brews

Taihu produced the first brew in the CombiCube B during April 2018. Initially, the output was running at about 1,000 hectolitres per month. “But we definitely have quite a bit of capacity in reserve: with the equipment installed, we could easily produce five times as much,” says Peter Huang. And even though Taihu is not yet running at full capacity, the boss is very satisfied with the brewhouse’s performance: “During the commissioning phase, there were a few challenges we had to master, but since everything’s been properly adjusted, the line has been running superbly. We attached major importance to high efficiency and flexibility, enabling us to upsize the output at need, thanks to shorter brewing times – and that’s precisely what the CombiCube makes possible. We’re really very satisfied.”

But it’s not only with the equipment, but above all on the interpersonal level as well that Krones has scored highly with Peter Huang. Because particularly as a newcomer, Taihu has felt itself to be in good hands: “We’re a small brewery without a large engineering department at our backs. So in technical questions, especially, we really needed the support that Krones provided,” explains Peter Huang. “And we were never made to feel we were working together with a huge internationally operating machinery manufacturer: even as a small brewery, we and our concerns were always taken seriously,” he emphasises. “The entire team is fantastic. Starting with the salespeople and then the project managers, all the way through to the service technicians, everyone always found time for us. All of them are very approachable and friendly – and nevertheless tackle things with precisely the professionalism you would expect from a company like this. Krones is precision and professionalism – without pretentiousness.”

Bucking the trend

Although the brewery itself is still young, there’s a team behind it simply overflowing with experience and passion: Winnie Hsu, Taihu possesses a Head Brewer who’s already clocked up more than eleven years of experience in the craft beer business: “We’ve been incredibly fortunate to find such a brilliant team. Winnie is probably the only brewer in Taiwan with such lengthy professional experience in craft brewing, and she brought quite a few other superbly competent people with her. But in our sales, design and marketing teams, too, we have unbelievably talented, highly motivated staff,” says the proud proprietor. More than 90 people are meanwhile employed at the Taihu Brewery, of whom approximately half are responsible for beer sales.

Unusually for a Taiwanese company, the hierarchies are extremely flattened: “Here, each individual’s own interests are paramount. We don’t want to put anyone into predefined roles, we want to help them find what’s right for them,” explains Mr Huang. This broad horizon is also manifest when you look at the staffing structure: “Here at Taihu, the proportion of women is extremely high. Brewhouse, Finances, Sales – our entire management team consists of women. We're a progressive company, and support many social causes that our team believes in, for instance the LGBT movement. Last year we launched a beer whose proceeds go to the homo-, bi- and transsexual community here in Taipei.”

Perhaps it’s precisely this daring to be different that’s the key to Taihu’s success. What’s beyond doubt is that the firm intends to continue causing a stir on the beer market with precisely this concept, not only in Taiwan, but also in China, Hong Kong, Japan or perhaps even the USA. “We want to consolidate our brand and in future focus on exports as well. My dream would be a greenfield brewery with a 250,000-hectolitre brewhouse from Steinecker and a bottling line from Krones – both of them fully automated, of course,” to Mr Huang. “But no matter what the future holds in store for us: having fun is always the top priority.”