Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying:
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts. And beer.”
What he said.
I like beer. I mean what’s not to like? I like the appearance, the aroma, the flavor, I even like the people that bring me my beer. Though I try to add them to our Christmas card list every year, my wife politely declines as she insists it would be awkward. But, the real fact here is these brewers are wonderful people doing wonderful things.
If you’ve ever driven up to the North Shore in Minnesota, you’ve been close to Castle Danger Brewery. They have a taproom in Two Harbors alongside a brewery production facility that helps keep the rest of the state supplied with their “dangerously good ale.” For the second consecutive year, Castle Danger has been voted Star Tribune’s Minnesota Beer Bracket Champion.
Frank Zappa once said, “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of football team or some nuclear weapons, but in the very least you need a beer.”
And you can’t have beer without gas. For those that don’t know, you need carbon dioxide (CO2) and oxygen (O2) to make beer. Minneapolis Oxygen became acquainted with Castle Danger back in the days when they brewed just three barrels at a time. Early on, they were using gas cylinders for their beer production. As the business grew, Castle Danger’s founder and owner Clint MacFarlane said, “I needed more and more cylinders to get me through the week.”
At first, Castle Danger went on a delivery schedule which freed up more time for making beer. As the brewery’s production continued to increase, we suggested a better alternative to cylinder delivery: MO2 SmartSupplyTM. To ensure an uninterrupted gas supply, we installed micro-bulk storage tanks with gas lines to get the gas where it was needed.
If you’re thinking, “That’s genius,” you’re right. And here’s why:
- Safety: No more moving high pressure cylinders.
- Efficiency: No more lost residual gas in returned cylinders.
- Cost-effectiveness: Less waste, less labor & lower maintenance costs=saving money.
- Increased productivity: Eliminates downtime from cylinder change outs.
- Happy bean counters: More efficient accounting and ordering.
- Less stressful: Minimum inventory maintenance and no lost tanks.
- More productive: Labor force can focus on more important tasks.
- Easy: Tank telemetry monitors levels and automatically reorders.
- Feng shui: Efficient and better use of production space.
Clint foresees continued growth for Castle Danger and expects production to be over 30,000 barrels in 2019. At Minneapolis Oxygen, we like to call this a customer success story. You can read more about this one, as well as others by going here. While you do that, I’m going to relax and have a cold one. Is there a draft in here?
