Watch: Bell’s Brewery discusses its new mbt Brautechnik pilot brewhouse

We reported last year that Gusmer Enterprises would start distributing another cool German beer brand called mbt Brautechnik GmbH. With headquarters in the beer nirvana of Bavaria, Germany, mbt Brautechnik has a reputation for building high-quality solutions for small- to mid-sized brewers, specializing in a full range of brewhouse equipment.

One of the brand’s first big projects in the United States was building a 12-bbl pilot system for one of America’s most famous craft beer companies — Bell’s Brewery. In these two videos, John Mallett (above), director of brewing operations at Bell’s, and Lowrens Wilschut (below), pilot brewhouse lead brewer, walk us through this beautiful new pilot system.

“It’s a crucial piece of our innovation program,” says Mallett about the brewhouse meant to emulate Bell’s larger 100- and 50-bbl systems, “and allows us to brew a lot of really interesting beers and then scale up pretty quickly.”

The Bell’s crew actually turned to big German manufacturers like Krones/Steinecker and GEA/Huppmann to build this specific pilot system but then got referred to mbt — as the company specializes in equipment that is on a smaller scale with customization of special features being a priority — like Bell’s deep tube boiler that’s installed on this system. In these two videos (produced by American mbt distributor Gusmer), Mallet and Wilschut praise the brewhouse’s open architecture for maintenance, standard components, scaled-down size and ability to work seamlessly with Bell’s brewing automation software ProLeiT. Learn more above.