Into the Bottles and Kegs

The final step, of course, is to put the beer in the package. This typically happens 2 weeks after the batch was first started in the Brewhouse.

The beer is given an over-night rest.  Quality control testing is done after the carbonation is added in the bright beer tank. Once carbonated, the beer is ready to be packaged and is sent to either our Bottling Room or Racker (the keg-filling machine).

To help guarantee that you enjoy the freshest tasting Harpoon, we do a number of things to reduce oxidization of the beer, which causes that spoiled or “skunked” taste and smell. The key during both bottling and racking is to prevent air, which causes beer to oxidize, from coming in contact with the beer.  To ensure quality at this stage, we even top our bottles with special oxygen-absorbing caps. We also use brown-glass bottles that protect our beer from damaging sunlight exposure (which otherwise can generate the "skunky" aroma often found in clear- or green-bottled brews).

Our state of the art bottling line can fill 250 bottles per minute and up to 3200 cases per day.  Our Racker (keg-filling machine) fills a 13.2 gallon keg every 60 seconds.  We fill about 270 kegs per day.

1 Batches = 1 Tank of beer

1 Batch of beer = 120 bbl (~3800 gallons)

1 Batch = 1600 cases (38,400) or 270 kegs