As the craft-brewing industry matured, many scrappy ad-hoc breweries built from dairy tanks and determination evolved into “industry standard,” multi-vessel brewhouses with high efficiencies and proven workflows.
There’s a sentiment taught in brewing schools and reiterated by mash-paddle vets that small brewing systems aren’t worth the trouble. While conventional wisdom is a “convention” for a reason—it’s time-tested and has proven effective—not every small brewery must hew to it. Meanwhile, the argument that you should go ahead and buy bigger because your brewery is surely going to grow doesn’t hold the same weight it did a decade ago.
And sometimes, you gotta mash into the vessels you have.