Flexibility, digitalisation and a pale lager for the future

Wind is blowing over the brewery premises on a cold, sunny morning in January. The courtyard of Herforder Brauerei at Hiddenhausen in Eastern Westphalia is a hive of activity. Lorries arrive loaded with machines weighing quite a few tons. One by one, the machines are unloaded and then slowly lifted up by a crane, travelling above the courtyard until they finally come to rest on the building’s third floor. The new filler alone, a Modulfill with a diameter of 4.5 metres, poses quite a tricky challenge for the team. “To get it into the hall, we had to open an entire side wall,” recalls Henning Vormbrock, the bottling hall manager at Herforder Brauerei. So a makeshift wind barrier had to be installed. 

“Construction in existing buildings invariably poses challenges – and in our case especially,” says Henning Vormbrock. That’s because the brewery is not made up of one contiguous hall but an agglomeration of buildings erected in different years, with varying ceiling loads. “So it was impossible for us to use forklift trucks everywhere,” explains Vormbrock. Instead, many machines had to be manoeuvred to their places by means of heavy-duty rollers and lever hoists. Transporting the new bottle washer turned out to be particularly challenging since the floor in the area of its installation is at a gradient, thus ruling out heavy-duty rollers. The solution? Air cushions. “The bottle washer was pushed to its proper place on pneumatic lifting bags,” says the bottling hall manager. “It was quite spectacular.” 

Partnership with a proven track record 

Choosing the right line manufacturer was a strategic decision. “We took a long hard look at the market,” says Henning Vormbrock. In the end, there was one clear favourite: Krones. The company has for many years been working closely together not only with Herforder Brauerei, which belongs to the Haus Cramer Group, but also with other breweries of that group. “We can look back on a long tradition of excellent cooperation,” says Henning Vormbrock. It was this experience and not least Krones’ expertise and reliability that tipped the scales. With its new bottling line, Herforder Brauerei has opted for technology to the latest state of the art – and for a partner that will continue to support its future progress. 

Big investment in the future

The old bottling line had given three decades of reliable service. However, it became clear in 2020 that the time had come to replace it. “Its technology was quite simply past its prime,” says Henning Vormbrock. So opting to buy a new line was not only a matter of efficiency and flexibility. It has also served to future-proof the brewery’s operations. 

A project in this order of magnitude surely takes its time: at Herforder Brauerei a total of three years for planning it and one year for implementing it. Thanks to these meticulous preparations, erection went like clockwork. Both the old and the new line were then operated in parallel for a few months, with the new line running during the day and the old one at night until the latter was finally decommissioned in August 2024. When the day had come, the old line was given the farewell it deserved. “The very last pallet of Herforder Pils that was produced on it was not dispatched! No, all of us shared that beer at a small summer party,” says Henning Vormbrock with a wry grin. Mind you, quite a special piece of the new line’s puzzle was still missing at that time: the tunnel pasteuriser, which was not erected until the old line, which had been in exactly the area earmarked for the pasteuriser, had been completely removed. 

The new line has been up and running on a continuous basis since summer 2024. It is a turnkey line for returnable glass bottles rated at 50,000 bottles per hour and marks the beginning of a new era for Herforder Brauerei. The Haus Cramer Group has over the past few years invested around 20 million euros in the Hiddenhausen facility, which employs 90 staff. The funds were channelled into the new bottling line and also into two other large-scale projects: a new courtyard for empties offering space for 7,000 pallets, and a state-of-the-art mixing system with its own syrup room. All of that provides Herforder Brauerei with the best possible footing for further success in the years ahead. 

Auxiliary systems additionally make for more efficient machine change-overs. Whether for the filler, bottle washer or inspector: The requisite steps have been filed for each unit. The operators no longer have to change the machines over by hand, they can trigger the process digitally. “They don’t have to go to the machine concerned, nor do they have to memorise all the steps involved. That’s what I call real progress,” says an enthusiastic Henning Vormbrock. 

Digitalisation: a learning curve for everyone 

While Line Management is actively intervening in the process, the second solution primarily supplies the staff with valuable information. “Like a spider, the Analytics software hovers in the web of machines, detecting each and every movement in the web’s threads,” is Henning Vormbrock’s vivid description of this solution that provides actual data in real time for the first time – from machine outputs right through to energy consumption. Failure analyses that the forepersons previously had to put together manually in addition to all their other work are meanwhile created automatically. “We can now see exactly where there’s a hiccup and are able to systematically troubleshoot the machine in question,” says Henning Vormbrock. “At present, we’re busy evaluating the data step by step and drawing the right conclusions. That is a big, big help for us.” 

Rocketing from zero to one hundred in terms of digital control – that was a radical change for the brewery’s staff. “We used to have hardly any digital data at all and now all of a sudden we’ve got loads. We still have to learn how to deal with such data volumes,” admits Henning Vormbrock. But the options offered are enormous: “As soon as we manage to make purposeful use of the data provided, our jobs will be a whole lot easier than before.” To ensure that the full potential is translated into shop-floor reality, an IT team from Krones was present on site right from the start working to continually optimise the production processes while simultaneously teaching the operators how to deal with the new digital solutions directly at the brewery’s machines. 

A new era 

In the summer season, the new line runs at full capacity from Monday morning till Friday evening, and Henning Vormbrock is impressed. He is particularly taken with the Modulfill. “The machine can fill beverages with up to eleven grams of carbon dioxide like tonic water, for example. That is an extremely high filling pressure the filler must cope with. You definitely need top-quality technology for that,” he explains. 

The new line represents a milestone not only for Herforder Brauerei in Hiddenhausen but also for the entire Eastern Westphalia-Lippe region, not least in terms of sustainability, consuming as it does 20 to 30 per cent less energy and resources than its predecessor. It was ceremonially inaugurated on 12 February 2025. Around 60 guests followed the brewery’s invitation in order to fittingly celebrate the project. Catharina Cramer, the Haus Cramer Group’s owner, emphasised its significance: “Today has seen a landmark in the development of Herforder Brauerei because by investing in the equipment we’re now inaugurating, we’ve put our operations on a sustainable, future-viable footing, thus enabling us to flexibly respond to any future needs the dynamic beverage sector may have.” For Henning Vormbrock, the inauguration ceremony was not least a token of appreciation for the commitment of all the brewery’s staff and partners who have pulled together in order to see this huge project through to successful completion. And last but not least: The new bottling line is sending out a clear signal, succinctly encapsulated by Henning Vormbrock: “We’re back in the game, stronger than ever.”