Nitrogen Generation System Upgrade Helped a Pacific Northwest Brewery Save Thousands and Increase Production Efficiency

About Reuben's Brews

Reuben's Brews is a family-owned and independent craft brewery in Seattle, WA. They started as an award-winning home brewery in 2010 and quickly grew into several production facilities and taprooms. In 2012 they opened their commercial brewery, and in 2015 opened another that surpassed their 5-year gold in 5 weeks.

"I describe it as a rocket ship ride. The support from our community, the love for our beer, has been tremendous and it's pulled us along very fast to the point where we have this production facility today." — Matt Lutton

They have a strong commitment to their local community and started a philanthropic foundation, Reuben's Brews Foundation, geared towards raising money for local non-profits.

Their values are integral not only to the business and how they engage with their community, but how they brew their beer as well. Their 4 pillars include:

1. Breadth — they want to brew all styles of beer, well
2. Brew by the glass backwards — how do they want it to taste, with quality being utmost important
3. Balanced & Drinkable — verified through blind tasting competitions so they know they are doing it right
4. Guided experience — helping people through their beer experience and letting them know why the pillars are so important

Needless to say, quality is extremely important to their process and product, and with the rate at which Reuben's Brews was growing, they needed compressed air and nitrogen generation systems that could keep up.

Brewery Demands Larger System Requirements

The switch to canning meant investing in a faster canning line. Reuben's Brews had been using Co2 for canning, blanketing, and purging cans and kegs. With rising Co2 costs, they were spending thousands per month, and with the addition of a new high-performing canning line, this expense was bound to go up.

"Co2 was an increasingly difficult resource to get, and trying to increase the amount of Co2 wasn't supportive of a high-quality and fast canning line." — Khris Lloyd

Nitrogen Gas Generator Solution

They started searching for a supplier and found Rogers. They originally reached out because they wanted to work with someone local they could trust that could provide the sales, service and support they needed.

"You knew the food industry really well and had ample engineers and technicians to give me all of the answers to my questions that I had, because I really knew very little about how it worked at the time." — Khris Lloyd

A Rogers sales rep sat with them to understand their process requirements and provide a complete, on-site system solution, including a Parker Nitrogen gas generator, desiccant dryer, and air receivers and filters. They upsized to a Rogers K-Series KR air compressor as well, to accommodate the influx in demand on the supply side, while maintaining high efficiency. The system installed will also provide enough air and nitrogen gas to meet their supply demands as they continue to grow.

“One of the pieces that made this process a lot easier for me, our rep knew what she was talking about, and she could speak directly to a lot of the questions I had, whereas the other reps I was working with during the RFP process, often would have to get back to me or have another one of their technicians follow up with me. The fact that the rep had that knowledge and could answer me right on the spot and really kind of guide that process where we needed it to be to make sure everything worked, was very comforting and made the whole process a lot easier.” – Khris Lloyd

Working with Rogers

In addition to production efficiencies and Co2 savings, Rogers was able to provide Reuben's Brews with First American Financing, which further reduced their out-of-pocket expenses. Monthly costs towards the entire on-site Nitrogen generator package were cut down to almost a third of their previous monthly expense.

“Looking at the ROI we figured in almost less than a year it would pay for itself, which is pretty phenomenal. And even now, looking back at the data, we’ve seen a pretty substantial drop in our Co2 usage because we're using nitrogen for essentially all of our processes in the brewery.” – Khris Lloyd

Reason to Celebrate

Reuben's Brews recently celebrated their 10-year anniversary and will continue to be a pinnacle in the Seattle beer community. Visit their taproom in Seattle, WA, or visit their website to find their brews locally.

Cheers!