Morton W. Coutts
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Morton W. Coutts (1904 - June 2004) was a New Zealand brewer who revolutionised the worldwide beer industry when he invented the continuous fermentation method.
Coutts was only 15-years-old when he first took over the family brewing business after World War I and by the 1960s had made several advances to the ancient art of beer brewing. Working for Dominion Breweries in the 1950s he discovered a new way to brew which sped up the process by as much as 15 weeks to 18 hours.
Morton Coutts had brewing in his blood. His grandfather, Frederick Joseph Kühtze (1833-1901), brewed beer for the goldminers in Otago before moving to Palmerston North to start his own brewery in 1900. His son, William Joseph Kühtze, inherited the business and shifted it to Taihape to supply beer to the men working in timber milling and bush clearing in the area.
He changed the family name during World War I to the more English and less German sounding Coutts. William Coutts became sick and was permanently disabled during the worldwide flu pandemic in 1918 and so son Morton took over the business.
Morton Coutts was continually trying to find methods to improve brewery practices and he came up with what is now known as the continuous fermentation process. During the continuous brewing process raw materials are added to one end of the system and beer is continuously withdrawn from the other. The standard system for brewing beer had ingredients put in together and then after a period of time the brewed beer is removed and bottled altogether and at the same time.