E-Malt.com News article: Canada, AB: Calgary-based Wild Rose opens new production brewery

A new era officially began on February 26 for Calgary-based Wild Rose Brewery with the opening of its new production facility. The new brewery will increase the company’s capacity to make beer by four times the current level as it moves to meet a growing demand in the craft beer market, according to Calgary Herald.

“We have to get used to saying yes to our customers because we’ve become accustomed to saying sorry we don’t have the capacity. That’s no longer an issue now as we have the capacity to grow the business. It’s pretty exciting,” said Bill McKenzie, president and chief executive of Wild Rose.

The facility, which is just under 40,000 square feet, will allow the company to brew the equivalent of 80,000 kegs of beer each year - a huge increase from the previous 20,000-keg capacity.

“We have space allotted for future development but we’ve opened it up simply as a production facility. Probably a special events/banquet type of room. We’re still looking to relocate our Taproom,” said McKenzie.

The current Taproom will have to eventually move to make room for commercial development at the site.

McKenzie said 90 per cent of the company’s products will be brewed out of the new facility. It will use the Currie Barracks location to brew some of its speciality brands and will continue to do that as long as it’s there.

The new facility has 16 brewing tanks with three tanks at Currie Barracks.

“The Currie Barracks location is going to be an innovation place for us. The products that we are creating there are being tagged and sold to our tap rooms. And if any of those products end up being something we want to package into bottles then we’ll move that over to the new brewery. As it stands now, that’s kind of like our research and development area,” added McKenzie.

“We’re not going to grow it overnight. We’re going to grow it very organically, very strategically and within the next five years we’ll get to that capacity.”

McKenzie said the company’s main goal is to make good, quality craft beer.

At the same time that the new facility has opened, Wild Rose has also re-packaged and re-branded its products as well as added two new brands.

“We have so much new going with Wild Rose. There’s so much excitement with our brands. We thought here’s an opportunity for us to get a new look and feel. We really want to differentiate ourselves from the marketplace just by being very Albertan, very edgy. And really not taking ourselves too seriously. Let’s have some fun. That’s the sense we’re trying to communicate with the new branding,” said McKenzie.

The two new brands are Natural Born Keller and Electric Avenue Golden Lager.


28 February, 2014