Quite often I find my self in Fairfield, CA for business. I try to make it out to some of the local attractions when I’m there. Fairfield is home to one of the smaller beer factories for Budweiser Beer. If you’ve been to Autodesk University and had a Budweiser chances are it came from this factory. The factory conducts tours for the public.
Inside the factory is large tanks in which grains are turned into alcohol. Not only do they explain the process on how beer is made the structure from a Civil Engineering perspective is interesting.
There are large columns and cross bracing holding the building up in case of a seismic event. In fact there is twice the amount of steel in the structure compared to the other factories.
The factory has some open space because they installed a fancier bottling system. I don’t remember the specifics, but it can bottle more beer then the factory can produce and takes up about 1/2 the space as the old equipment. The little circles are drainage inlets.
The tour is interesting and at the end or the beginning of the tour you can sample two beverages of your choice or all the soda you can drink. Also provided is pretzels. Worth the stop even if you don’t drink beer. If you love Budweiser commercials there’s even a television screen showing a variety of current and historic commercials.
No comments:
Post a Comment