Asahi Installs Large Outdoor Fermentation and Lagering Tanks

In March 1965, Asahi installed outdoor fermentation and storage tanks at its Nishinomiya, Azumabashi, and Hakata plants in Japan. These large vertical vessels represented a practical step away from fermentation and lagering tanks housed in extensive refrigerated cellars. Asahi’s design used a sloping bottom for yeast collection; it should not be treated as identical to the steep conical bottom of every later cylindroconical fermenter. The wider postwar transition depended on advances in stainless-steel fabrication, insulated vessels, cooling jackets, pressure management, and process control. Clean-in-place methods circulated cleaning solutions through tanks and pipework without dismantling them, making large closed systems easier to maintain hygienically. These developments turned earlier enclosed-vessel concepts, including Nathan’s, into workable industrial systems and helped breweries expand capacity outdoors.