US, WA: Black Raven Brewing spreading its wings

Black Raven Brewing celebrated its 2nd Anniversary last Saturday. More than 1,300 people attended the “Flock Party” and sampled some amazing beers, ranging from the brewery’s regular line-up to some very rare birds, Seattle PI reported on May, 12.

Since its inception, Black Raven Brewing has needed to expand. When the long anticipated taproom opened two years ago, it was immediately too small. As soon as Black Raven introduced beers like Trickster IPA and its big brother Wisdom Seeker, the demand was so strong they could not produce enough. In the blink of an eye, the upstart brewery earned a reputation for barrel-aged and other specialty brews—beers generally produced in batches too small to meet demand. These are very good problems for a young brewery to have.

The brewery’s tasting room is about to get bigger (again), plans are being drawn-up to add a barrel room, and a brand-new brewhouse is in the works. All this to meet existing demand and facilitate expected growth.

As if that isn’t enough, Black Raven will soon add a small bottling line. Bottles of Black Raven’s specialty beers will be available at the taproom only. They do not have immediate plans to bottle any of the regular beers. Nigel Slater, Sales Manager at Black Raven, tells us that the labels are going to be beautiful. These will be highly coveted bottles, no doubt.

The new brewery will very likely be offsite. Beaux Bowman, owner at Black Raven, says that he is currently looking at bids for a 30-barrel brewhouse and 60-barrel conditioners. He is committed to staying in Redmond, but doesn’t think it possible to squeeze the new, larger brewery into the existing location—the available space for expansion is finite.

Black Raven plans to use the existing brewery as the specialty brewery. The new brewery will most likely be a production-only facility.

13 May, 2011