USA, PA & NC: Troegs Brewing Company expanding sales into North Carolina

Troegs Brewing Company in Hershey is undergoing more growth as it expands sales into North Carolina and secures warehouse space in Elizabethtown, pennlive.com reported on July 10.

Owner Chris Trogner said the North Carolina expansion is the first new market for the Hershey-based craft brewer in about five years.

Troegs' beer will be available by early September in select areas including Charlotte, Durham, Goldsboro, Greensboro, Raleigh, Wilmington and Winston-Salem.

Eventually the beer will be distributed throughout the state as Troegs scales up its production, Trogner said. The craft brewer installed eight new fermentation tanks in the past year to increase production.

Distribution in North Carolina stems from requests via email and social media sites such as Facebook as well as conversations with visitors at the brewery, Trogner said. The majority of those requests, he said, came from the Raleigh-Durham area.

Beer drinkers in North Carolina will find three year-round offerings - DreamWeaver Wheat, Perpetual IPA and Troegenator Double Bock – as well as seasonal beers such as Troegs' new fall, Hop Knife Harvest Ale. Troegs' Anthology variety packages will also will be distributed in North Carolina.

For now, Troegs is concentrating on expansion in the south but Trogner said eventually the brewery hopes to fill in distribution gaps in the northeast in states such as Connecticut and New Hampshire. Troegs sells in eight states including Washington, D.C.

In the meantime, Troegs has secured 55,000-square-feet of warehouse space in Elizabethtown to be used for storage, distribution and logistics, Trogner said.

The warehouse will be used to store cardboard packaging and miscellaneous brewing equipment which will make brewery operations more efficient, he said.

"For us, it's really about logistics and making things here at the brewery run smoothly," Trogner said.

11 July, 2014