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Filler, Seamer Lets Contract Brewer Keep D.O. Low

To contract craft brewer The Brutalist and its owner King State Beer, dissolved oxygen is four-letter word. A new filler and seamer combo keeps D.O. low and the beer quality high, while paperboard multipacks help to make an impact on the shelf.

From left, Aric Parker and Pete Lewis of King State and The Brutalist, Tegan Foster and Amanda King of Hawthorne Bottle Shoppe, and Vinny Giusto of King State and the Brutalist.
From left, Aric Parker and Pete Lewis of King State and The Brutalist, Tegan Foster and Amanda King of Hawthorne Bottle Shoppe, and Vinny Giusto of King State and the Brutalist.

The Brutalist is a 3,500-barrel/year collaborative contract brewing facility in St. Petersburg, Fla., headed by Aric Parker of King State Beer. The Brutalist has its own line of branded of brews that it sells out of its taproom, Temple of Beer. And as a contract brewer, it sells brewing and packaging capacity to high-end craft brewers looking to scale with the help of higher-volume professional equipment. Meanwhile, King State Beer—the beer-brewing arm of a King State operation that’s also known as a coffee roaster, coffee cold-brewer, and breakfast and cocktail bar—owns The Brutalist Brewery and in a sense is its own biggest customer with its line of branded King State Beer varieties. Perhaps this unique arrangement makes for a tangled web of stakeholders, but it’s hard to complain when the result is innovative, artisanal craft brew under an evolving variety of banners, brands, and titles.

“King State’s lineup has our lagers and more traditional styles, with the occasional sour. The Brutalist tends toward on-trend brews like hazy IPAs or pastry stouts, and we have the freedom to take it wherever we want. And finally, our contractors are mostly smaller breweries or sophisticated home brewers that are willing to pay a premium to grow their footprint or up their production,” Parker says, disambiguating the three primary constituencies of King State, Brutalist, and contract work. The Pneumatic Scale Angelus CB50C counter-pressure filler and seamer combo (right) runs quickly and accurately with low D.O. pickup.The Pneumatic Scale Angelus CB50C counter-pressure filler and seamer combo (right) runs quickly and accurately with low D.O. pickup.

As he built out the brewery’s new canning line in June of 2022, Parker began with the filler/seamer, working backward from there. After some extensive comparison shopping, he landed on a 50-can/min CB50C integrated counter-pressure in-line filler and seamer from Pneumatic Scale Angelus (PSA), a BW Packaging company.

“I selected the PSA for the counter-pressure functionality in particular, and I think of the Angelus seamer as the industry best,” he says. “At first, I saw some other competitors’ counter-pressure fillers and I wasn’t particularly impressed. But then a friend dragged me to another brewery where I saw the PSA in action, and I met PSA at the Craft Brewers Conference soon after. By then, I definitely knew that that’s the one I wanted—especially for the price, too. We’re in the teens for dissolved oxygen [parts per billion]—usually sub-ten. PSA has been amazing. I love that line.”Depalletized brightstock cans travel through a twist rinser into a filler and seamer, prior to date coding, labeling, and paperboard multipacking.Depalletized brightstock cans travel through a twist rinser into a filler and seamer, prior to date coding, labeling, and paperboard multipacking.

The packaging line

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