WUSTL SAB Interns

Last Sunday the third intern, Rudy, arrived here. We were able to start getting him up to speed on the way the program is working and get to the store to get our food with him without having to go too late. After this week w're officially half way through our time in South Africa. This week I really started getting into my projects, working on a report on the brewery's compliance with company policies, my calculations for the potential upgrade to the CHP plant, and doing the prep work for the repair of a heat exchanger in the boiler room. I've also been shadowing Myron around the plant has he takes care of various  problems around the plant. So I'm getting a lot of great industry experience between the work I'm doing and getting to watch the more advanced stuff Myron does. This Saturday we went to the Pretoria National Botanical Garden and walked around, getting to see the waterfall and the various gardens. We had a bunch of fun walking around and seeing all the...

On Monday we arrived at the Rosslyn plant and were introduced to our mentors. My mentor for the CIPs is Monique, as she specializes in brewing. She briefly explained the brewing process that takes place at the plant. Interestingly, AB InBev uses locally grown hops from South Africa as oppose to importing from elsewhere. This practice is considered rare because hops are usually made in countries that are farther away from the equator and therefore have colder and longer winters. They also use locally grown barley that is used for all their beers except Bud. Another fun fact that I did not know before was the difference between a lager and an ale. During the fermentation process, if the yeast floats to the top it is an ale and if the yeast sinks to the bottom it is considered a lager. Finally, we got a tour through the packaging and bottling process of the final products.  For my project, I’ve been assigned to improve the CIP system in the racking lines. The racking line is the s...

This week we moved to the Rosslyn plant in Pretoria. So last Sunday Nozomi and I got driven over to our new place to stay, Utopia Guesthouse. Its been really great, the breakfast is delicious and we get vouchers for dinner every day at a restaurant next door. The people here are really great and have been very accommodating.  My bedroom at Utopia Guesthouse This week I met the group of people Im working with at the brewery. My main contact, Myron is in charge of the engine room at the brewery which is where Ill be working, Nozomi's host Monique works with CIPs in Brewing and gave us a tour of the brew houses in the plant, giving us a brief overview of the brewing process from the collection of the raw materials all the way through shipping the beer off to the packaging department. Then Terrance, another employee we're working with, gave us the run down of Inbev's management strategy and then gave us a step by step walk through of the packaging process, showing us e...

I arrived in South Africa Friday before last and it took a few days before I didn't have to take a nap in the middle of the day. Inbev put us up in this place called the Muco Guesthouse which was a great little place to stay with very friendly people among both the staff and the guests. It was walking distance from Rivonia Village, a little mall area with food and shopping. Inbev got us tickets to Castle Lite Unlocks on Monday, which had food, drinks, and performances by various artists, as well as a few interviews with the artists. It was really fun and I got to try two different cocktails made with Castle Lite (A mojito and a ginger twist), as well as a regular Castle Lite draught. We had a ton of fun and there were a bunch of people there. During our first week, we were stationed at one of the offices in Sandton, and given a variety of different resources to begin studying for our projects. On Wednesday, we went to a different office and got to participate in some budget mee...

After arriving last Friday, I took a couple days to get used to the time zone. On Monday we attended Castle Lite Unlocks, a music festival hosted by AB InBev. We were able to see many performances from dancers and singers from South Africa. It was a great turnout and really proved that Castle Lite is one of the brands of beer on the rise.  Our first week of work was at the Ab InBev offices. While I wasn’t really given the prompt of my project, I learned what it will be on. My main focus will be on the Clean In Place (CIP) process of the beer brewing. While beer brewing is obviously the most important aspect to the company, the equipment such as pipes must also be cleaned in between brewing to avoid potential contamination. The CIP process allows for cleaning of equipment without dismantling the system, but also wastes time, energy, and water. My prediction is that my project will be working on optimizing the CIP process at the Rosslyn plant. Additionally, the offices have a ...