CUCC members visited the Gösser Brauerei at Göss (just outside
+Leoben) for what is believed to be the first time on 26th July 2004 and
+excellent hospitality was received. Here are some pictures from
+the brewery tour;
+click the pictures for larger versions (640x480).
+
+
The brewery produces 40,000 crates of Gösser per day, but is
+remarkably quiet and spotlessly clean.
+Brewing occurs 24 hours
+a day in three 8-hour shifts, for five days a week. The left-hand
+picture shows the entrance, whilst in the
+centre picture we see the large tower holding the malt silos. The
+final picture shows the mash house, with the entrance below the clock.
In the mash house, the malt is ground to grist on an upper level and
+then mixed with hot brewing liquor (known as water to the layman) from
+the local spring in the
+mash tuns. Here it remains for two and a half hours, before it is transferred
+to the lauter tuns where the liquid part, known as wort, is extracted.
+After this, the wort is boiled for an hour with hops in the brew kettles.
+Then, it is passed through a whirlpool to separate solid matter.
+
+
As far as we could tell, no additives such as sugars are used in the
+brewing process. This is pleasing, especially for a brewery of its size.
+
+
These pictures show mash and lauter tuns (not sure which ones are
+which) together with the computerised control system. In the centre photo
+we see the tubes through which hops are transported from the upper level
+into the brewing kettles (not seen in the photographs).
After whirlpooling, the wort is crash-cooled via a heat exchanger which
+in turn provides hot water (sorry, liquor) for the rest of the process.
+Then it is mixed with yeast and transferred into conical fermentation tanks,
+seen in the photo on the left below. After fermentation, the beer is
+filtered in the equipment shown in the remaining two photos.
In addition to filling nitro-kegs, Gösser bottle not only
+their own beer but also that of other breweries. When we visited,
+Puntigamer was being bottled as seen in the photos below. The right-hand
+photo shows the machine which puts bottles into crates.
+You can also see a movie (10Mb).
Some other photos from around the brewery: on the left, a system of
+pipework which seemed to be used for receiving or dispatching beer to
+tankers; in the centre, some storage tanks; and on the right, an old
+lager cask.
We came away with the impression of the brewery being particularly
+efficient: the solid matter remaining from the mashing and boiling is
+burnt (providing 25% of the energy for the plant) and the carbon dioxide
+from fermentation is harnessed for use in bottling.
Many thanks must go to Dipl. Ing. Andreas Werner, the Gösser
+Braumeister, together with
+Frau Schneeweis and our tour guide for the sponsorship and
+an excellent day out.
+
+
+