When we occupied our current brewery site in 1994, we had four 100-barrel fermenters and two bright beer storage tanks for final production staging. The strategy was to add more fermenters as need dictated, and that approach has served us well. Over the years, we’ve added six 200-barrel fermenters and a 150, more than tripling our fermentation capacity. We’ve also had to add two more bright beer tanks to keep up with the growing demand for North Coast beers.

It doesn’t seem possible that we’re at a point where we will be moving into a second generation for some of our equipment. But, in addition to two new 500-barrel fermenters and a new 500-barrel bright beer tank (we’ll actually have to chop a hole in the roof to accommodate these monsters), we will be replacing our boiler, our brew kettle and our hot liquor tank with new energy-efficient equipment in the coming months.

Tough to run a rally here now

Plans also call for a reconfiguration of the refrigerated storage areas for hops and finished beer and a modification of the bottling line. The brewery’s retail store will be relocated across the street and their old vacated area will be converted to much needed office space.

This is an exciting point in the brewery’s history as we bring this expanded production capacity on line. This will allow us to pursue more new product directions and explore possibilities we’ve been thinking about that represent real innovations in the brewing world. Stay tuned.