In the Paulaner marquee at the Oktoberfest venue, technology from Siemens keeps the beer cool, with no waiting. Tanks of beer on one side, thirsty guests on the other: To ensure the beer is drawn cool and fresh every time, the Paulaner Brewery must achieve a perfect balance between temperature, fill levels, and CO₂ content. Here’s how they did it.
A total of about eight million liters of beer is consumed every year, and visitors expect to get their drinks nice and cool every time, and quickly.
But because no cooling system is used for environmental reasons, the beer that’s left over in the tanks when the day’s serving is complete starts to warm up. The temperature in the system comprising the tank and the loop line increases by up to 2°C per day.
That’s why these parameters must also be taken into account when the tanks are topped up each day. Uploading all operational data to the Cloud via MindSphere reveals both the volumes consumed and the amounts left in the tanks. This valuable information can then be used to establish the exact amount needed to refill the tanks.
We have only 16 days each year to identify faults or processes requiring improvement and then fix them before next year.
Uwe Daebel, Brewing Engineer, Paulaner Brauerei Group
Since 2010, an underground loop line has supplied the Paulaner marquee with beer from three tanks, each with a capacity of 28,000 liters. The line is tapped at four corners of the tent to deliver the beer to where it will be drawn.
Thanks to the centralized tank system, the tanker can fill the system from a single location. Previously, the tanks were set up individually in the marquee, and so the tanker had to stop repeatedly to fill each one separately with beer.
Now it takes just 35 minutes to fill one tank. If all three are empty, the entire filling process will take only about 100 minutes, instead of about seven hours. Just how much has to be topped up is calculated using a clever solution consisting of IoT components and software from Siemens. The Bräurosl and Hacker-Pschorr marquees have now also adopted this solution.
How does beer get to the Cloud?
In its system containers, Paulaner Brewery uses Simatic controllers and Scalance network components that have proven themselves at the Oktoberfest – and at the brewery itself.
The data generated while the system is in operation is also recorded by a Siemens solution: MindSphere, the Cloud-based, open IoT operating system, gathers and works this data up before making it available to Daebel and his colleagues as helpful information. On a Tablet, Smartphone, or laptop, for example, running the “Performance Insight” MindSphere application.
Although beer is the main interest for Oktoberfest visitors, particular information is of fundamental importance for the marquee operators. Because the tanks are filled daily, the operators must know as accurately as possible how much beer has been sold. It must therefore be possible to quickly read off the relevant information about volume, temperature, and pressure in the lines at any time – provided by a secure and reliable network.
Providing clarity
The “Performance Insight” MindSphere application for mobile devices and laptop PCs gives beer tent hosts and restaurateurs access to all the information they need at a glance, wherever they are.
Once the data gathered using MindSphere has been worked up, it helps hosts to maintain an overview at all times and identify potential problems at an early stage.
Performance Insight displays all the relevant information graphically in an ideal and easy-to-follow form, so users can draw the necessary conclusions and make the right decisions.
If the pressure in the loop line falls below a specific threshold value, for example, Performance Insight makes the task of locating and rectifying the fault much faster. Previously, employees received alerts by SMS on their mobile devices. The “Simatic Notifier” MindSphere application offers an alternative that can provide more relevant information than an SMS.
For me, data is of fundamental importance. I need to be able to read off the volume, pressure, and temperature of the beer easily.
Thomas Roiderer, Hacker-Pschorr marquee host
Photography: Siemens/Paulaner
