The thought of being asked to help construct a brewery would bring tears of joy to some contractors we know. For Vancouver plumber Barry Murray, owner of Neighbourhood Plumbing, the opportunity was a no-brainer.
“I was pretty excited,” he said.
If you take a walk down the historic Brewery Creek in Vancouver, B.C., you’ll find a rustic building within the arts community that formerly housed Doering & Marstrand Brewing Co. and then the Vancouver Brewery in the early 1900s. Since that time the facility has been used for a variety of non-brewing businesses, but the building was recently transformed back to its roots – or hops and grains, if you prefer – and the Main Street Brewing Company (MSB) was born.
Although the company was officially founded in 2010, MSB did not have a brewery until this year because owners couldn’t find a facility they deemed appropriate. In the meantime, they had Russell Brewing produce their recipes during their search for the right venue.
After finding the right location, construction began on the brewery’s new home in the summer of 2013 and was completed in May 2014. MSB now has a 10,000-sq.-ft. facility that features a tasting lounge, brewery and basement, and is equipped with four fermenters. There is also room for expansion. The company currently brews its four year-round beers at the facility, as well as a unique monthly offering.
With diverse piping needs, everything from potable water to glycol solutions, the brewery’s owners decided to use a newer piping option, polypropylene-random (PP-R), when specifying the plumbing.
According to MSB’s brewer Jack Bensley, the system was selected for its non-toxic and corrosion-resistant properties and its inherent R-value on the cold water – which eliminated the need for insulation on the brewery’s hot and cold water pipes.
Over the course of the project, approximately 400 feet of PP-R pipe was installed, ranging from 1/2” to 1-1/2” sizes. The piping installations include cold water supplied to the brew house, some hot water piping, glycol supply and return, and reclamation of warm water from heat exchangers which is returned to the hot liquor (brewing water) tank for reuse.
“For the most part, it’s all high up in the air, hung up on a track system,” explains Murray.
After the installation was complete, the pipe was inspected for leaks, and Murray was proud to report that the system did not experience a single leak during the testing period.
“We had the plumbing inspector come in and had it up to 200 psi and not a drop,” adds Bensley.
Pipes in action
The brewing process starts with the supply water being filtered through an activated-carbon water filter and then transported through 1-1/2” piping. After the malt is taken through the mill and converted into grist, it’s transferred into the mash tun and hydrated with water supplied by 1/2” cold water lines and 1-1/2” hot water piping, so the mashing can take place.
After the resulting mash is complete, the liquid (wort) is strained from the grains, and transferred to the brew kettle. Wort is boiled in the steam-fired brew kettle, where 3/4” pipe connects to the condensate stack, the boiler feed tank, and the automatic boiler blowdown tank. Afterwards, 1-1/2” pipe transports the glycol and cold water to the two-stage heat exchanger to cool the wort once the boil is over.
For the glycol application, 1-1/2” headers and 3/4” drops are tied in to supply the fermenters and conditioning tanks. Additionally, the glycol-cooled fan unit in the keg fridge is connected with 3/4” piping.
Doing a jig at the brewery
Barry Murray had not worked with PP-R piping before taking on the job at MSB, so he received training from Peter Way of Hy-Line Sales and Jeff Pickell of EMCO.
For Murray, one of the trickiest parts of being a first-time user of the PP-R piping was learning the best methods for aligning the pipe.
“You’re taking two melted products and trying to stick them together in a hurry, and make them in perfect alignment. It’s not something that works out by eye that well,” he said. “I found the lines on the pipes and colour-coded pipe helps a lot, but you really need to do a little bit of planning and make some sort of jig up. Pre-planning will make for a smoother insulation.”
Making jigs is exactly what Murray and his team did, and he found that solved his alignment issues.
Brewery by the numbers
• 16 – Types of brews available annually
• 4 – Number of fermenters
• 64 fl. oz. – The most popular size of growler
• 60 – Seating capacity at MSB’s tasting lounge
• 400 feet – Amount of PP-R piping used in construction of brewery
Written by Sara Lutz and Andrew Snook
Photos by Jimmy Jeong
