Batch, Not Continuous

Batch, Not ContinuousThe vat does not care about your quarterThere is a moment in every brewery tour when someone in the group, usually wearing a lanyard from a conference they are avoiding, asks the guide whether the fermentation could be sped up. The guide always smiles. It is a patient, well-rehearsed, slightly sad smile, because the guide has heard this question roughly nine thousand times and knows exactly what it means. It means I have been trained to believe that all durations are negotiable. They are not. Lager conditions cold for weeks because that is how long the yeast takes to clean up after itself. You cannot halve it by hiring a second brewer. You cannot halve it by hiring twelve. You cannot escalate to the yeast. There is no stakeholder alignment session that produces a faster ester profile. The tank contains a biological process with an irreducible duration, and the only thing your urgency changes is your mood. Corporate planning, meanwhile, is built almost entirely on…