Heineken Volga Brewery. Brewery "Volga"

1. Volga brewery brands include 44 positions, including Heineken, Three Bears, Zlaty Bazant, Okhota, Amstel Premium Pilsener, Doctor Diesel, Okskoe, Rusich.

I chose the most interesting volume distribution figures:
Okskoe 30%
Hunting 25%
Heineken 8%
Amstel 2%
Bochkarev 1%

2.

3.

4. The technology of making beer has not changed much over many centuries of existence. Only the equipment on which it is produced has changed. To create beer, you need only four components: malt, water, hops and yeast. The silo block of the brewery will contain 13,000 tons of malt and barley.

5. I will single out 6 stages of beer production. Show started from the fourth, so no photos.
The first is malt. The main ingredient in beer is malt, which is germinated barley. It is processed before use.

The second is rubbing. Depending on the recipe, at the beginning of the direct preparation of beer, a mash is prepared - a mixture of crushed grain products. When mixed with water, a slurry is obtained, which has a sweetish taste. The mass is stirred, the mash is heated to certain temperatures to obtain a special environment for fermentation.

The third is filtering. After the end of the mashing process, the mash is filtered. This is necessary in order to get rid of the remnants of the steamed grain, which are no longer involved in the preparation of beer. To do this, use vats with sieves at the bottom. The filtered liquid is called wort.

6. The fourth stage is cooking.
Next, the mass enters the wort kettle, in which the boiling process takes place. The wort is brewed for 1-2 hours, and during this time hops and other necessary ingredients are added to the liquid, giving the flavor and aroma characteristic of beer.
The brewhouse of the brewery has two brewhouses of 350 hl/brew and one brewhouse of 1000 hl/brew. The productivity of the brewhouse is 5.1 million hl. in year.

7.

8. Fifth - fermentation.
Under the influence of yeast added to the chilled aerated wort, fermentation occurs, in which the simplest sugars are converted into alcohol. Then it goes to one of the tanks. The temperature and time of the process depend on what yeast was given and what kind of beer they want to get - top or bottom fermentation.

9. Tank capacity HORAPs 427,000 hl. Technical capacity 4.6 million hl. in year.

10. The sixth stage is filtration.
Unfiltered beer is not transparent, as it contains yeast and protein, so the finished beer is filtered before bottling. From the fermentation compartment, the beer is fed to the filter, clarified, then carbon dioxide is added to it and sent to the storage tank - forfas. The exception is unfiltered varieties.
The Volga brewery has two filtration lines, the technical capacity of which is 5.8 million hl. in year.

11. Safety is taken very seriously in the factory. Each employee wears special shoes, vest, ear plugs. All tracks with zebras and safe zones.

12. Plastic bottles of 1.5 and 2.5 liters are inflated from such a blank using molds.

13. The seventh stage is the last - bottling.
The bottling process includes container preparation (washing and sterilization), beer pasteurization, bottling. To evenly fill the container and prevent foaming, the bottle is filled with carbon dioxide.

14.

15.

16. Sticking labels.

17. Line of plastic bottles.
1.5l - 25000 bph, 2.5l - 15000 bph, 6 types of containers, 11 assortment positions.

18. Packing in boxes and bags.

19. Check for marriage.

20. Oksky has the largest production volume - 30%.

21.

22. The number of employees of the Volga brewery as of January 1, 2013 is 278 people.

23. Counting the number of products produced before packing.

24.

25. Wherever you look, there is a warehouse everywhere. The warehouse holds 3 million hl. in year.

26.

27. Bottle line - 50,000 b/h, 7 types of containers, 14 assortment positions.

28.

29. There is also a keg (barrel) line at the brewery, which pours 120 kph, but it was not shown.

30.

31. From each batch of manufactured products, a couple of copies are sent to the laboratory for examination.

32.

33. Matthäus Dietworst. It was he who was the head of the Volga brewery for a long time and made a significant contribution to the reconstruction and modernization project. But on September 16, Salima Bekoeva became the director.

34. The tour ended with a tasting of Oksky, Heineken, Amstel and Zlaty Bazant. In my opinion, Amstel won both in taste and smell.

Thanks to HEINEKEN Russia for the opportunity to look at the production.

The brewery in Nizhny Novgorod was supposed to appear in 1942, but World War II prevented it, then restoration work and the first brewing took place only in 1959. Development, increase in capacity, but in 2004 the brewery became part of the HEINEKEN company and became the second enterprise in Russia after the plant in St. Petersburg. A global modernization and reconstruction has begun. How the appearance of the plant was changing, I watched for 5 years from my windows. This summer I managed to visit inside the brewery and see everything: how, what and how.

1. Volga brewery brands include 44 positions, including Heineken, Three Bears, Zlaty Bazant, Okhota, Amstel Premium Pilsener, Doctor Diesel, Okskoe, Rusich.

I chose the most interesting volume distribution figures:
Okskoe 30%
Hunting 25%
Heineken 8%
Amstel 2%
Bochkarev 1%

2.

3.

4. The technology of making beer has not changed much over many centuries of existence. Only the equipment on which it is produced has changed. To create beer, you need only four components: malt, water, hops and yeast. The silo block of the brewery will contain 13,000 tons of malt and barley.

5. I will single out 6 stages of beer production. Show started from the fourth, so no photos.
The first is malt. The main ingredient in beer is malt, which is germinated barley. It is processed before use.

The second is rubbing. Depending on the recipe, at the beginning of the direct preparation of beer, a mash is prepared - a mixture of crushed grain products. When mixed with water, a slurry is obtained, which has a sweetish taste. The mass is stirred, the mash is heated to certain temperatures to obtain a special environment for fermentation.

The third is filtering. After the end of the mashing process, the mash is filtered. This is necessary in order to get rid of the remnants of the steamed grain, which are no longer involved in the preparation of beer. To do this, use vats with sieves at the bottom. The filtered liquid is called wort.

6. The fourth stage is cooking.
Next, the mass enters the wort kettle, in which the boiling process takes place. The wort is brewed for 1-2 hours, and during this time hops and other necessary ingredients are added to the liquid, giving the flavor and aroma characteristic of beer.
The brewhouse of the brewery has two brewhouses of 350 hl/brew and one brewhouse of 1000 hl/brew. The productivity of the brewhouse is 5.1 million hl. in year.

7.

8. Fifth - fermentation.
Under the influence of yeast added to the chilled aerated wort, fermentation occurs, in which the simplest sugars are converted into alcohol. Then it goes to one of the tanks. The temperature and time of the process depend on what kind of yeast has been given and what kind of beer you want to get - top or bottom fermentation.

9. Tank capacity HORAPs 427,000 hl. Technical capacity 4.6 million hl. in year.

10. The sixth stage is filtration.
Unfiltered beer is not transparent, as it contains yeast and protein, so the finished beer is filtered before bottling. From the fermentation section, the beer is fed to the filter, clarified, then carbon dioxide is added to it and sent to the storage tank - forfas. The exception is unfiltered varieties.
The Volga brewery has two filtration lines, the technical capacity of which is 5.8 million hl. in year.

11. Safety is taken very seriously in the factory. Each employee wears special shoes, vest, ear plugs. All tracks with zebras and safe zones.

12. Plastic bottles of 1.5 and 2.5 liters are inflated from such a blank using molds.

13. The seventh stage is the last - bottling.
The bottling process includes container preparation (washing and sterilization), beer pasteurization, bottling. To evenly fill the container and prevent foaming, the bottle is filled with carbon dioxide.

14.

15.

16. Sticking labels.

17. Line of plastic bottles.
1.5l - 25000 bph, 2.5l - 15000 bph, 6 types of containers, 11 assortment positions.

18. Packing in boxes and bags.

19. Check for marriage.

20. Oksky has the largest production volume - 30%.

21.

22. The number of employees of the Volga brewery as of January 1, 2013 is 278 people.

23. Counting the number of products produced before packing.

24.

25. Wherever you look, there is a warehouse everywhere. The warehouse holds 3 million hl. in year.

26.

27. Bottle line - 50,000 b/h, 7 types of containers, 14 assortment items.

28.

29. There is also a keg (barrel) line at the brewery, which pours 120 kph, but it was not shown.

30.

31. From each batch of manufactured products, a couple of copies are sent to the laboratory for examination.

32.

33. Matthäus Dietworst. It was he who was the head of the Volga brewery for a long time and made a significant contribution to the reconstruction and modernization project. But on September 16, Salima Bekoeva became the director.

34. The tour ended with a tasting of Oksky, Heineken, Amstel and Zlaty Bazant. In my opinion, Amstel won both in taste and smell.

Thanks to HEINEKEN Russia for the opportunity to look at the production.

The weather is now non-flying in Nizhny Novgorod, it is unpleasant to stay outside for a long time. Late autumn and winter are ideal times for various indoor excursions. Last Saturday I went behind the scenes of the Volga brewery. More precisely, this is how it was called earlier, and now the plant is a branch of the Heineken concern and the Volga brewery is proudly called.

Nizhny Novgorod has its own beer brands, such as Okskoe or Rusich, but at the moment the brewery brews not only them. I will not get ahead of myself and will tell about everything in order. The tour is organized by the Heineken concern itself and is completely free. Only you first need to sign up in a special form on the website (see at the end of the article).

The construction of the brewery began in 1938, but the first beer brewing took place only in 1959. The war interfered. There was no time for beer during the war years. Previously, malt and hops were stored in huge elevators on the territory of the plant, but now the corporation has considered that this is inefficient and raw materials are supplied to the plant by third parties. They didn't tell us where the barley comes from - it's a trade secret.

The conveyor is the last stage in production, and first……

Unexpectedly, the tour began with a safety briefing and testing. Everything is grown-up. We were given reflective vests, safety shoes and ear plugs. The group was warned that the territory of the plant is dangerous for injury, and extreme caution must be exercised. It is forbidden to photograph the production and this fact upset me the most. But what about the report?

In fact, we were allowed to take pictures, but only in specially designated places. There were only two of them.

The tour guide is an experienced worker. If I heard everything correctly, then our guide has been working at the plant for about 50 years as a microbiologist. Of course, she told us about the principles of beer brewing, what ingredients are used and we even tried malt and liquid bread.

There are 5 or 6 vats in the brewhouse (I don't remember exactly). In each of them, beer goes through some stage, always the same. That is, the process is continuous and the ingredients are constantly distilled from vat to vat (5-6 hours each).

These huge vats are very hot. The room is unbearably hot, almost like in a bath. Through the glass hatch, you can observe the process, but in fact, the entire cycle is monitored by automation and operators from a special room.

It was here that we gnawed the malt and tasted the “liquid bread”. This is not yet beer, but a kind of intermediate product. By the way, there is a specific smell in the room.

The next stage is the cold shop. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures of the premises. This is where the fermentation process takes place. I don’t know how many liters the huge vertical cylinders (jarapas) can hold, but it’s definitely not a little. The height of the harap is about 26 meters.

At this stage, there are some differences in the preparation of ordinary beer and Heineken beer. As the guide told us, special yeast is used for Heineken beer. Their structure is tender and collapses under pressure. Therefore, Heineken beer ferments not in harps, but in horizontal tanks and a little longer than the same Okskoe.

The conveyor is very noisy, here the whole group armed with earplugs.

Right in front of us, they poured and packaged the strong beer Okhota. The photos turned out to be blurry, because the tape with the cans is in constant motion. Each jar / bottle is first thoroughly washed, then the product is poured, packaged, pasteurized and assembled into pallets. It turns out that glass bottles cannot be reused, so there is no cycle of bottles in nature.

I was interested to know how cooking is planned, because the process is ongoing. And we were also told about this moment. The plant has a special planning department, which calculates the need for brewing a particular type of beer. Every Friday, a work plan for the following week is prepared.

Of course, the day was not in vain. During the tour, we were told a lot of interesting details both from the history of the plant and about the production process. I was surprised by the level of training: special clothing, shoes, a video lecture on safety. The security guard did not lag behind us the whole excursion. The level of safety at the production of the highest level.

So why does the concern need all this? For us, the tour was free, but for Heineken it was far from free. As our guide told us, the main purpose of the tour is to raise public awareness. Now there is a lot of gossip in the press that beer is brewed from concentrates, and alcohol is added for strength. This is not true. We ourselves saw the process of brewing beer, and for the fortress, by the way, they add sugar syrup, but not alcohol.

At the end of the tour, we were invited to a tasting of three types of beer and were even presented with a gift. It was damn nice.

As it turned out, such excursions are not held on a permanent basis. In Nizhny Novgorod, the action will last until December 12. Better sign up! And yet, you can take advantage of the situation and get to other breweries of the concern - in Yekaterinburg and Novosibirsk. There is also a branch of Heineken in St. Petersburg, but there are no entries for excursions now.

It is very interesting to visit the production and it is not necessary to love beer, you can just be curious. Now I'm thinking about what excursion to organize next time 🙂