Laval Brewery & Winery Flooring Built for the Pour
Fermentation tanks, hot caustic CIP cycles, wort spills, and daily washdowns put concrete floors through punishment most slabs never see. Laval Concrete specs and installs chemical-resistant urethane and epoxy systems, sloped to trench drains, with the grip and durability production floors require. Free written estimate on every project.
Why Brewery & Winery Concrete Floors Need a Different Approach
Walk into a Laval brewery on washdown morning and you'll see exactly why the floor spec matters: hot caustic solution running across the slab from tank cleaning, wort residue near the kettle, and standing water collecting wherever the concrete isn't pitched correctly. Off-the-shelf polished commercial concrete or a basic coating fails in that environment within a season. The concrete itself survives, but the coating blisters, the seams open, and the floor becomes a hygiene problem.
The fix isn't one product applied everywhere. Production zones around fermenters and bright tanks need urethane cement (typically 4-6mm, hand-troweled) because it handles both the acid from wort and the thermal shock of hot washdown hitting a cold slab. Zones with lighter exposure, a packaging line or a dry storage area, can take a chemical-resistant epoxy instead. Tasting rooms and bar counters are a third category: the chemical load drops sharply, so a polished concrete slab or a decorative coated floor fits the brand look without over-engineering the spec.
Laval Concrete maps each zone before quoting. The estimate breaks out system type, thickness, and drain work by area so the operator knows exactly what goes where and why. See related work under food-grade epoxy flooring, which shares the same chemical-resistance logic.
Recent work
From site visit to handoff
How Brewery Floor Installation Sequences in Laval
On-site zone assessment
Before any product is specified, we walk the production floor with the brewer or winery operator. We note where CIP chemicals run, where wort or must contacts the slab, where hot washdown hits cold concrete, and where foot traffic is the only real load. Each zone gets its own system call based on what actually happens there.
Slab prep and drain rough-in
The existing concrete slab is diamond-ground to the profile the coating system requires. Old coatings, oils, and surface contaminants come off completely. Cracks are repaired with a compatible filler, and trench drain channels are cut and formed with the engineered slope built into the concrete before any coating goes down.
System installation by zone
High-exposure production areas receive urethane cement applied in a hand-troweled system with integral cove base up the wall face. Moderate-exposure zones get a broadcast-aggregate chemical-resistant epoxy. Each system is installed to its own cure window before the adjacent zone begins, keeping the transitions clean and the bond solid.
Drain tie-in, finish, and cure
Trench drain grates are set flush with the finished floor surface, slope is verified across the production area, and the coating is allowed to reach full chemical resistance before washdown equipment returns. Tasting room and bar finishes are scheduled separately so production downtime stays as short as possible.
Drainage engineering
Sloped Slab and Trench Drains: Stamped Concrete Isn't the Answer Here
Decorative options like stamped concrete belong in tasting rooms and taproom entries, not on a production floor where washdown volume is the governing design factor. A brewery CIP cycle can push dozens of litres per minute across the slab. Point drains stall under that load; water backs up, dwell time on the coating increases, and chemical attack accelerates. Trench drains running the width of the production zone are the only practical answer.
The trench drain layout and the floor slope are designed together as one system, not added as an afterthought. Concrete is placed or re-graded to pitch consistently toward the trench, the drain body is set at the correct elevation, and the chemical-resistant coating bridges the joint between slab and drain body without a gap that could trap organic material. The result is a floor that sheds washdown water in seconds rather than minutes, which is the single biggest factor in how long the coating system lasts.
For operators planning a new build or a full gut-renovation, this work coordinates with concrete pumping for slab placement and with equipment pad work for tank bases and compressor footings. All of it can be scoped in a single written estimate.
Chemical resistance, trench drains, urethane cement systems and tasting-room finishes.
Because of the chemical exposure. Wort acidity, hot caustic CIP cleaning chemicals, tannic acid in winery operations, and constant wet conditions all degrade standard epoxy. The right brewery floor is a urethane cement or specialized chemical-resistant epoxy system rated for those exposures.
For the production floor, yes, urethane cement handles thermal shock (hot wash on cold floor) and chemical exposure better. Epoxy can work in zones with moderate exposure and proper spec. We pick based on the actual zone exposure, not a default.
For any real brewery production floor, yes. Point drains cannot move the washdown volume; water pools, exposure prolongs, and the system fails sooner. Trench drains across the zone capture and move water fast.
Tasting and bar zones get a different system because the chemical exposure is dramatically lower. Polished concrete or a coated floor is typical there, matched to the brand look. Both systems install in the same project but as separate zones.
Production floor: typically a week or more depending on size, plus cure before returning to service. Tasting and bar zones add a few more days. The schedule is built around your production downtime needs.
Client reviews
What Laval Operations Say About Their Brewery & Winery Floors
Production floor with urethane cement system rated for our CIP chemicals. Three years of brewing, no degradation, washdown cycles work. The trench drains made it possible.
Z. Y2
Brewery Owner, Laval
★★★★★
Acid resistance for wine production zone, polished concrete in the tasting room. Two different systems, clean transition at the doorway. Both have held perfectly.
Y. K2
Winery Operations, Montreal
★★★★★
They specced for our actual chemical exposure, not the cheapest option. Production floor is solid, no soft spots, no failed seams. Worth the right spec.
Q. M2
Microbrewery Founder, Terrebonne
★★★★★
Trench drains across the production area changed our washdown game. Water leaves in seconds instead of pooling. The floor stays sharp because exposure is short.
X. M2
Cidery Director, Longueuil
From the blog
Concrete Guides & Articles
Practical reading on planning, finishes and caring for concrete in Laval.
Describe your production zones, the chemicals your cleaning cycles use, and whether you have a tasting room or bar area. Laval Concrete will spec each zone separately and put the full scope in writing before any work begins.
