Brewery Lighting
Every brewery wants to create the perfect beer or ale that consumers will enjoy. From sensitive hops to various types of barley, a brewmaster has a wide range of responsibilities to ensure everything runs smoothly. Having the appropriate lighting installed can determine whether the bath of beer being produced will be a success or failure. Just like other application types that store perishables, breweries require a unique lighting setup. Regardless of whether you currently have a brewery that is operational, or if your in the planning stages of building one from scratch, implementing the right type of lighting fixtures can help you master your craft. We've put together some recommendations and ideas for brewery lighting below that will get you started on the right path.
Most people have their own preference when it comes to the temperature of their beer. However, when it comes to the process of brewing beer, lighting fixtures that produce excess heat can have an adverse affect. For example, lighting fixtures that use incandescent bulbs generate excess heat during operation, causing the temperature of the entire brewing facility to increase, which could possibly lead to your batch being subpar or wrong altogether. We recommend going with fixtures that have lower heat emissions like fluorescent or LED. Although fluorescent fixtures operate at a lower temperature than incandescent models, they are being slowly phased out, it will become difficult to find replacement bulbs and ballasts down the road to keep them operational. Even though LED fixtures cost more upfront, they pay for themselves since in the long run due to the fact they are the most efficient and longest lasting solution available.
Tracking the progress of how a batch of beer is changing color during the brewing process is highly important. For instance, lighting fixtures that provide too much of a warm or bluish color of light a brew will appear darker or lighter than it actually is, which would cause the brewing process to become a complete disaster. One of the ways to avoid this problem altogether is to choose lighting fixtures with a color temperature between 3500K and 4000K, which would provide a more neutral color of light.
Sometimes a forgotten or overlooked factor is UV (ultra-violet) rays from a natural light. Incorporating as much natural light as possible is great for a variety of applications, but not for a brewery. In fact, its the complete opposite. For a brewery, keeping as much natural light from entering the facility needs to be a high-priority, since hops and barley are extremely sensitive to UV rays. Even though fluorescent and LED technologies generate a small amount of UV rays, it is nothing like what is generated by natural sunlight. That's why an artificial lighting solution needs to be the main source of illumination when it comes to a brewery.
Now that all the important factors that need to be taken into account for brewery lighting have been covered, lets move on to what kind of fixtures are the most appropriate. Since the environment in a brewery needs to remain clean and contamination free at all times, lighting fixtures need to be consistently washed down. That means, these fixtures would need to be able to withstand high pressure water and rigorous wash-downs on a daily basis. We recommend choosing LED lighting fixtures that are vapor tight, which would provide your brewery with a sustainable, efficient and long-lasting solution.
