New Pumps Improve Efficiency, Reliability at Brewery

Grundfos helped craft brewer upgrade its ammonia and evaporative cooling systems

newbelgium_grundfos — Courtesy of Grundfos

**CASCADE SYSTEM:** New Belgium Brewery’s VJ Hartman takes a look at the Grundfos pumps with MLE motors, which are set up in a cascade system.

To meet growing demand while maintaining its commitment to sustainability, New Belgium Brewery, a Fort Collins, Colorado-based craft brewery, faced significant challenges with its aging infrastructure. They reached out to a local Grundfos distribution partner, Denver Industrial Pumps, for advice on upgrading their cooling system to increase efficiency and reliability. Denver Industrial worked with Grundfos to select a solution with an integrated variable-frequency drive (VFD) and industry-leading energy efficiency.

The Situation

New Belgium Brewery is one of the largest craft breweries in the U.S., renowned for its flagship beer, Fat Tire Amber Ale. It is also highly committed to sustainability, upholding strong environmental and social standards, minimizing waste, conserving water, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Although the brewery continually invested in cutting-edge technologies, its ammonia and evaporative cooling systems -- essential for regulating temperatures during brewing -- relied on outdated, inefficient, and difficult-to-maintain pumps. With their original pumps discontinued and production demands at an all-time high, New Belgium Brewery needed a reliable solution to modernize its systems and minimize disruptions.

Denver Industrial recommended Grundfos NBSE end-suction pumps powered by a Grundfos MLE motor with an integrated VFD, as it was an intelligent solution that adapts pump speed according to demand to achieve significant energy savings. However, New Belgium was unaware of the capabilities of VFD solutions and was just seeking a reliable upgrade to improve system efficiency and uptime. They were skeptical about the ability of MLE to manage controls without the support of a dedicated programmable logic controller (PLC), which is usually required to provide insight into what is always going on in the plant.

To address these concerns, the Grundfos team demonstrated the cascade function and multi-master control for redundant backup with the Grundfos MLE, an integrated VFD and permanent magnet IE5 motor, which is more energy efficient than regular motors. The demonstration convinced New Belgium Brewery’s IT team, and the maintenance manager was impressed by the simplicity of the MLE motor intelligence, insights, and controllability, as well as the ease of maintenance offered by the NBSE pumps, where seals can be changed quickly on-site.

The Solution

With the brewery team on board, four pumps were ordered, and a single-day switchover was scheduled. The installation crew completed piping in the morning, followed by programming and commissioning in the afternoon with support from Grundfos and the local partner.

Compared to traditional installations that require communication cables running back to the PLC from each pump, the cascade functionality of the Grundfos MLE eliminates lengthy cable runs. The setup requires only one wire with three conductors and a daisy-chained communication wire between the four pumps. Programming the cascade operation for all four pumps took just 30 minutes.

Looking for quick answers on air conditioning, heating and refrigeration topics? Try Ask ACHR NEWS, our new smart AI search tool. Ask ACHR NEWS

Once operational, the system demonstrated seamless performance during flow rate tests. The brewery achieved 100% capacity with three NBSE pumps, leaving the fourth as a redundant backup. Additionally, redundant master controls and pressure sensors ensured fail-safe operation, reducing downtime risks.

“We've seen challenges over the years with equipment growing old and not finding the correct replacement parts,” said VJ Hartman, maintenance technical specialist at New Belgium Brewery. “We're running a series of new Grundfos pumps with VFDs in our cooling system for ammonia on our evaporative coolers, and we haven't needed to rent chillers for the whole year and saved upwards of $30,000 a month just on that for the rental.”

New Belgium Brewery’s new system has run smoothly since August 2024 and resulted in:

Increased efficiency: the brewery now achieves full capacity with fewer pumps, saving energy and reducing maintenance, contributing to their sustainability goals;
Simplified maintenance and operations: The NBSE pump design allows for faster seal replacements, minimizing downtime for repair and maintenance. The elimination of the PLC system also reduces the complexity of managing the cooling system, requiring no third-party components as the built-in PID controller handles all the logic;
Redundancy and reliability: Redundant controls and master pumps ensure uninterrupted operations; and
Cost savings: The new system eliminated the need for rental chillers, resulting in significant savings during peak temperatures. Simplified system controls have also reduced operational costs.

This upgrade also aligned with New Belgium’s overarching goals of reducing its carbon footprint, conserving water, and improving operational efficiency. Beyond cooling systems, the brewery is exploring other areas for potential upgrades, including boiler feed pumps, acid dosing systems, and CO₂ recovery.