Since the construction of the large new production plant was still ongoing, the capacity to produce this size of tank in Poland was limited. So although the tanks were designed by our engineers in Poland, they were actually fabricated in the Netherlands. This meant that the tanks had to be loaded onto the back of two large trucks and transported the 1,100 kilometres or so in convoy to the Tyskie brewery (Tyskie Browary Książęce) in Poland.
Customer specifications
The Kompania Piwowarska brewing group contacted Gpi with a request to produce two new Bright Beer Tanks (BBT) which allow beer to be stored at temperatures of between -2 and 5°C for 72 hours at variable ambient temperatures of between -27 and 30°C. The company brews its beer according to strict formulas and tank design is an essential part of this. Standards imposed by the Asahi Group Holdings, the brewery’s parent company, provided the frame of reference for the design and the fabrication of the two beer tanks.
Gpi was able to meet these specifications and was ultimately awarded the contract to design and produce the two BBTs. The tanks have an overall capacity of 2,000 hectolitres, which equates to around 600,000(!) 33cl bottles of Tyskie. The tanks are 20.5 metres in height and have a diameter of 4.2 metres. The surface roughness (Ra) of the tanks is up to 0.6 μM.
Gpi was involved throughout, from the design and production stages to the transport and assembly activities on the customer’s site. The tanks were transported by road from our production site in Lopik to the brewery in Poland, a total distance of around 1,100 kilometres.
