A bright beer tank is the last vessel the beer touches before packaging, so it has to do two jobs at once: hold pressure and hold temperature. We build these as vertical or horizontal cylinders with a dished bottom, a glycol jacket on the shell and often on the bottom head, and a fully welded stainless shell. Carbonation is normally finished inside this tank, which is why the working pressure rating matters more than the nominal volume on the drawing.

Fabrication details that show up later

Most breweries order 304 stainless for standard ales and lagers. We switch to 316L when the cellar runs sour beer, salted styles, or an aggressive acid CIP cycle, since chloride pitting shows up first on polished interior surfaces near the bottom weld seam. Interiors are finished to Ra ≤ 0.8 µm on request; a 2B finish is enough for tanks that see regular caustic and acid cleaning. Insulation is 80–100 mm PU foam under a stainless cladding, and that thickness is chosen from your cellar ambient temperature and glycol supply temperature, not from a catalog default.

Jackets are dimple or channel type, rated to 3 bar. A tank without a properly sized jacket will pull down slowly and short-cycle your chiller. We size cooling area from batch volume, desired pull-down time, and glycol inlet temperature, then confirm the pressure test and passivation before shipping.

Typical specification

Questions we get before quoting

Do I need a cone bottom? For bright beer, a shallow dished bottom drains better and takes less vertical space. Cones belong on unitanks where yeast cropping matters.

How is CIP handled? A rotating spray ball on the top manway plus a bottom drain is standard. Confirm your pump can deliver the flow and pressure the ball needs, otherwise you get shadowed areas on the shell.

Can it double as a serving tank? Yes, if the pressure rating and carbonation stone placement suit dispense pressure. Tell us the dispense method early.

Small brewpubs usually run 10–20 hL with a single jacket zone and a shared chiller. Regional breweries need multiple zones, larger cooling area, and a tank that can take a full CIP cycle without long downtime. Send us your batch size, beer type, tank count and available floor space, and we will recommend the volume, jacket area and configuration.