The barrel’s tapped!
It’s that time of year again, when they all come streaming back to the famous Wiesn meadow in Munich. Continue reading
More than six million people are expected to visit this year’s Oktoberfest between 21 September and 6 October. The majority of them will be hosted in the 17 large and 21 medium-sized beer tents, mostly with a large tankard in their hand. No fewer than 7.5 million litres of the best were served up by six different Munich breweries last year to slake the thirsty throats of the keen festivalgoers. Hundreds of barmen and barmaids are on hand to ensure that the beer doesn’t stop flowing, backed up by Kuhn Special Steel.
Two-for-one: beer and cleaning
In various brewing processes, the beer flows through double-seat valves with centrifugally cast core elements. These form part of the valve assemblies and pipe systems. The special feature of double-seat valves is their dual-flow system, which allows beer to run along pipes in one direction, while they are being cleaned in the opposite direction at the same time. This means that the beer can flow along the pipes – just like at the Oktoberfest – without interruption.
The all-round purity law
Things that run on a 24-hour cycle need to be very robust, so the valves concerned are highly resistant to both wear and corrosion. German beer does not just have to comply with the country’s famous Reinheitsgebot purity law; it also has to be completely clean. Components supplied by Kuhn Special Steel easily meet the correspondingly strict hygiene criteria of the food and beverage sector.
Oktoberfest visitors can therefore be sure that the pumps won’t run dry, and that they will be able to enjoy only the very best from the barrels being served. The rather high price of those tankards, at €10.80 to €11.80 each, is not due to the fail-safe serving system, by the way. The festival bars charge what they can get away with. After all, an Oktoberfest without beer is like fish without chips or a hotdog without mustard.