Computerized Brewery Can Make 15 Different Beers at Same Time : Suds Making Goes High Tech at New Milwaukee Plant

The big Schlitz and Blatz breweries that made Milwaukee famous stand empty, but the city moved a step closer last week to regaining its reputation as a leading suds maker: The high-tech Val Blatz Brewery held its grand opening.

The sparkling $6-million, three-story plant, a project of G. Heileman Brewing Co. of La Crosse, Wis., went from inception to reality in just nine months.

Of the many specialized brands of beer the company plans, just two are being produced so far: Blatz Old Heidelberg Private Stock and Culmbacher Imperial Dark Beer. Heileman owns the rights to the Blatz label.

“With the history and heritage of Milwaukee as the beer capital of the world, it’s only natural that we should build here,” Russell G. Cleary, president of Heileman, told a news conference in the second-floor hospitality room that overlooks a busy downtown freeway. “It’s the finest state-of-the-art brewing facility in America and probably of the world.”

“We’re negotiating with European brewers to produce their beers here,” Cleary said.

The brewery currently employs only between 12 and 14 people, largely because of its computerized operation and the fact that it produces only draft beer. Cleary said that elsewhere most brewery workers are employed in the packaging of bottles and cans.

Current output of the new brewery, developed by Robert Morton DG Ltd. of England, is at the rate of 25,000 barrels annually, but its capacity is 75,000.

Beer sales in the United States have been down, Cleary said, but not in the import side of the business. It now costs $20 to $25 just to ship a keg over to Europe and back. That, plus a declining dollar abroad, makes it more sensible to produce European beers under contract in this country.

John Isherwood, senior vice president of operations, described the plant as the most flexible in the world.

“We can brew more types of beers, and modify the process at any stage. We can handle five different strains of yeast and know of no other plant in the world that can do that,” Isherwood said.

The new brewery is capable of producing 15 different beers at one time, all under computer control. That includes a non-alcoholic beer, if the company so desires. The 15 stainless steel tanks rise from the floor almost to the ceiling of a central three-story room.

The brew house, where the malt and corn grits join the brewing process, is a white-painted room next to the hospitality room. The main attendant is a computer in a cabinet against one wall. A sign near the computer said it is “now programmed for four different profiles for each vessel, readily expandable.”

The Schlitz brewery closed in 1981 when the company was sold to Stroh Brewery Co. of Detroit. The Pabst plant was sold in 1985 to California investor Paul Kalmanovitz and continues to produce beer here, as does Miller Brewing Co., which is owned by Philip Morris Cos.

Mayor Henry Maier appeared at the news conference and said that “big things are brewing on Milwaukee’s business front.”

In response to questions about whether the small number of employees would have any significant effect on jobs, Maier said it was important to consider the overall economic effect.

“It means the dollars flowing out of this enterprise will mean dollars flowing back into Milwaukee. The future is high tech,” he said.

Cleary said that depending on demand, the new brewery could easily be doubled in size and go to canning and bottling, in which case employment would rise to 40 or 45 people.

He said the facility was named after Val Blatz, founder of the original Blatz brewery in Milwaukee, because he was an innovator.

“In fact, he originated the slogan, ‘The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous,’ ” Cleary said. “It was sold to Schlitz in 1894 for $5,000. We’d be glad to buy it back anytime at that price.”