Ziemann builds the world's largest brewery in Mexico

Since it was founded 156 years ago, Ziemann has built breweries all over the world. But its current project is a first -- constructing the world's largest brewery in the middle of the Mexican desert, 60 kilometers from the nearest source of usable water. The plant belongs to Grupo Modelo, best known for its Corona label, and is located close to the border to the United States, which is exactly where most of the beer will be flowing. Patrick Benning went to have a look. ---------------------------------------------------------- It's just one quarter of the top of a vat, and this is just the first storey of the building. The cautious foreman is in permanent contact with this team. Both the machinery and their loads are a bit bigger than Armin Daiss, Ziemann foreman, is used to on his building sites: "Careful, please! OK! Fine!" Even the foreman has trouble finding his way around the huge future brewhouse: "The buffer tank …Wort copper …And at the back the whirlpool …The whirlpool is where the dregs are removed. The beer is injecting from the side, and the rotation deposits the dregs in the middle." We examine a gallery of brewing facilities on Armin Daiss’s computer. "I'm looking for a picture … Here ...", Armin Daiss shows us. "That's how it'll look later …Breweries really are something special. It's the quality. Some of the seams are X-rayed and ground smooth. Here you can't even see a joint. The standard is extremely high." Super-sized vats and tanks for the largest brewery in the world – crafted by hand. Usually, Ziemann has the containers imported straight from Germany. But in this case, the scale really presents a problem. These elements are two meters high. A finished storage tank is as big as a one-family house. Ziemann spokesman Jörg Rositzke is paying a visit. Even for a company like his with 150 years of experience in the business, this large-scale order from Mexico represents a very prestigious project - as well as a logistical challenge. The project has a very special schedule: "The 3-D illustrations give you a very good picture of the brewery's evolution. We're now in stage two – ten million hectoliters. That's the brewhouse, behind the cold block area ...When brewing starts, we'll be working on the second phase …Phase two and 20 million hectoliters. The brewhouse is now double the size - so is the number of tanks. Then there's the final stage with 30 million hectoliters a year. This is how the world's biggest brewery will look when we're finished." This had previously been a rather quiet and dry corner of Coahuila state in northern Mexico. The brewery site is just 15 kilometers from Piedras Negras – and not much farther to the Texas border. This will put the American market on the doorstep of Grupo Modelo - makers of top-selling Mexican beer brand "Corona". The water for the brewing process has to be brought 60 kilometers via pipeline - just one of the many challenges facing Armin Daiss and his Mexican colleagues. Ziemann does over 90 percent of its business outside Germany, a lot of it here in Mexico. Armin Daiß: "I've been to other countries. But I've known these guys for 12 years. You could say we've grown up in these breweries …" Other beer producers have their breweries spread across the globe. Corona, however, HAS to be made in Mexico - It's a company principle and the reason why the world's biggest malt silos can be found here in Piedras Negras. The beer is set to started flowing by the end of 2009. Armin Daiß, Ziemann foreman: "It's so massive … all the way back there! There are car parks for trucks … all the way ... over there … where they're removing the gravel …" Even for an experienced foreman, it's a sprawling sight to behold.

DW-World | December 9, 2008

Tags:. .supersized. .usable. .buffer. .seams. .breweries