Philter Brewing seduces with sustainability

With a busy summer ahead in the brewpub and an increase in production already on the horizon, we talk with Sam about her thoughts on industry trends such as sustainability, and how a centrifuge helps craft brewers like herself achieve their goals.

Sam Füss, Head Brewer, Philter Brewing inspects the beer separated with the Alfa Laval Brew 80

What’s Philter Brewing about?

Sam: I get asked about the name all the time. Some people think we have a person called Phil in the business! Actually, Philter is a name for a medieval elixir and quite often it was a love potion, and that’s our philosophy for our beers. We call it Seductively Beer.

We’re really happy to be open after what has been a challenging year with COVID. Our bar and venue have been open for four months now in the heartland of Australian brewing, and it’s wonderful to finally welcome people into our home.

How would you describe your beers?

I started my career over 20 years ago, and the appeal for me was to work with my hands, and work with raw ingredients to create the beautiful product that beer is.

At Philter, our beers are unique and known for their sessionability and drinkability. More focus on hop flavour and aroma as opposed to bitterness that often comes with a lot of styles of beers. Today we’re brewing our flagship XPA, a beautiful Australian pale ale that we’re renown for.

Why was a centrifuge amongst the first pieces of equipment when you set up the brewery?

I first heard about centrifuge technology probably 10 years ago, but at that stage, it wasn’t accessible to us in the craft industry. Now it’s an absolute game changer to what we do here in the brewery.

The centrifuge for craft breweries is extremely important. Not only from an environmental aspect but it allows us to control our product with regards to haze and other areas.

Another benefit of the Brew 80 is that we don’t have a massive power draw when it starts up and when it dumps. Also, not needing deaerated water is a massive benefit for a small brewery like ours.

We’ve also seen a reduction in noise compared with other units and the time it takes to drop the tanks. It’s a simple and easy to use unit that is easy to train our team on.

Another benefit is that we can start with the racking arm down which is highly unusual specially when you’re using such highly hopped beers. Don’t need to do too much hopping off so we don’t waste too much product before bringing it to the centrifuge.

Why is sustainability so important to you?

Sustainability is extremely important here for us at Philter. The environment that we live in and work in needs to be looked after, and the less impact we have as humans, the better. From the effluent to the products we use and the products we make we want to ensure that they are clean and healthy, not just for consumption, but also for the environment.

Some of the sustainability benefits of the centrifuge are that we have less waste going down the drain. On average we’re probably recovering 10 to 15% more product than using any other type of filtration system.

Why did you choose Alfa Laval?

We chose Alfa Laval as a supplier because of the awesome level of support that we received from the people there. Having local support for our equipment is an absolute priority. It means that when we have an issue – whether it’s an operator issue or an issue with the equipment – I can call the support team straight away and I’m guaranteed to get an answer.

Next for Philter Brewing is expansion, we’re already in the process of putting more fermenters in as we’re already running at 100% production. We’re planning to upgrade to a Brew 250 when we increase our capacity. That will allow us to recover even more product than we already do.

What is your best piece of advice for other brewers?

My recommendation for aspiring craft brewers is to choose your equipment wisely, don’t cut corners and make sure you get after-sales service. I absolutely recommend Alfa Laval to other craft brewers. They are amazing to work with and their engineers are always very helpful.

Philter Brewing is renown for its flagship XPA, a beautiful Australian pale ale.

Visit Philterbrewing.com for more information