Gas company grows on popularity of craft beer
Weiler Welding, a Moraine-based specialty gas company, does business with almost every brewery in the region.
to know what they need for all these different beers, then they can rely on our sales guys,” said Jim Weiler, company vice president.
This is on top of Weiler working with bars, restaurants, wineries and even starting to sell nitrogen to coffee shops like Ghostlight for the latest trend of nitro cold brew coffee, which pours and tastes somewhat like a Guiness. There’s a specific difference between drinks, with even Coke and Diet Coke getting different carbon dioxide blends.
The third-generation family business that dates back to 1920, now just off Interstate 75, invested about $4 million into a new fill station and gas lab that let the business do more work in house. The automation and new software it added at the new fill plant, which opened in May 2014, let it control its costs, turn around orders faster, and blend gases in-house for specific orders.
“We’re a small company that’s competing here with billion dollar companies, so we have to invest so when we go up to compete against them, we can be as good or better. We like to think we’re better,” Weiler said.
It also gave them the capability to go from just dabbling in beverage gases to having a dedicated beverage division for customers like craft breweries looking for specialty blends of carbon dioxide and nitrogen.
For the craft beer industry, brewers require specific gas blends for specific flavors and styles.
“The beer industry has