E-Malt.com News article: US, VA: Blue Mountain Brewery to expand to brew organic and more ‘specialty’ end beers as from next year

One of Nelson County’s award-winning breweries is planning to expand its production facilities next year, starting with an organic brewery and barrel house in Colleen near U.S. 29, NelsonCountyTimes.com reported on May, 6.

Blue Mountain Brewery, of Afton, has chosen the Colleen Business Park as the site for its new 10,000-square-foot facility to produce 10 lines of the brewery’s beer.

Steve Carter, the administrator for Nelson County, said the expansion will create at least 50 new jobs in Nelson.

“The decision to locate in the Colleen Business Park is an exciting one for the company and for the county,” Carter said.

Taylor Smack, one of the owners of Blue Mountain Brewery, said via a news release that they have had their eyes on this site for the past few years.

“The water in this region is an integral part of the success of our brewery process,” Smack said. “I had talked with Central Virginia Electric Cooperative about locating a brewery here as far back as 2004. The site never left my mind as very ideal and we’re thrilled to finally be making a production brewery in Colleen a reality.”

CVEC is the owner of the land in the Colleen Business Park and partners with the Nelson County Economic Development Authority to market the property to businesses.

Blue Mountain Brewery first opened its doors in 2007 in Afton and is currently in the process of adding on to its original building for additional room.

The new facility, Blue Mountain Barrel House and Organic Brewery, will be a production-only facility where the beers will be kegged or bottled and undergo natural refermentation, Smack said. The beers produced will be certified organic and will tend toward the more “specialty” end of Blue Mountain Brewery’s beer spectrum.

According to the release, the facility is slated to start production in January of 2012 and will have a capacity of 2,500 to 5,000 barrels per year.

Smack also announced a second project for the Colleen site of a large production brewery, a building that will be anywhere from 40,000 to 60,000 square feet, that will focus on the production of Blue Mountain Brewery’s current bottled beer lines.

Smack said this production facility will help fill the large amount of orders for Blue Mountain’s beer that the brewery cannot currently fill. It will also help the brewery expand their beers into out-of-state markets, he said.

The eventual capacity for this brewery will be 50,000 barrels annually, according to the release.

Unlike Blue Mountain Brewery’s current location in Afton, there will not be a restaurant area at the new facilities in Colleen. There will be tasting areas at both facilities, and customers will be able to fill growlers or buy beers for off-site consumption at each facility.

Blue Mountain Brewery’s announcement comes just two months after Roseland-based Devils Backbone Brewing opened a new site in Rockbridge County, saying Nelson County’s Colleen Business Park could not accommodate the wastewater the brewery would have generated.

Smack said the facilities Blue Mountain Brewery will build share a pre-treatment facility that will use "aerobic treatment and anaerobic digestion" to reduce the level of brewery effluent strength to meet the standards of the service authority.

At the April 28 Nelson County Board of Supervisors meeting, supervisors voted unanimously to direct staff to negotiate incentives for the business to locate at the Colleen Business Park. Those incentives have not been finalized.


06 May, 2011