USA, IL: Half Acre Brewery to expand and increase output

Few Chicago breweries have won over local beer drinkers as thoroughly as Half Acre, but that hasn't always been good for the brewery, Chicago Tribune reported on October, 10.

In August, for example, Half Acre put on sale 2,400 22-ounce bottles of a beer called Galactic — a double version of its much-loved Daisy Cutter pale ale. Those bottles sold out in hours, leading to grave disappointment among those who stood in line for naught.

The Half Acre guys remedied the shortage that afternoon by filling growlers for the frustrated masses. Now they are embarking on a more lasting solution: expansion. Half Acre has bought the building it rented and will grow into a section currently used as a chiropractor's office, brewery co-owner Matt Gallagher said.

Though Half Acre is only expanding by 1,300 square feet (from its current 10,000), the extra space and pending addition of more fermentation tanks will mean increased output next year by more than a third, Gallagher said. Eventually — and maybe not too long from now — production is expected to double to about 15,000 barrels per year, he said.

"With the tanks we have, we're at capacity," Gallagher said. "Even though we're not gaining much space, we're going to make better use of it and be more efficient."

The result, he said, will be "less inventory outages and more specialty beers." That means Half Acre's seasonal beers, like Big Hugs imperial coffee stout or Baume chocolate rye stout, will be on draft more widely throughout the city and longer on shelves.

"The goal is that we can expand the number of places that get the specialty beers and for those who do get it, they'll get enough so that it's not a one-time shot," he said.

Beer drinkers will start seeing the benefits of Half Acre's growth by mid-2012, he said.

Craft beer sales are so strong (up 11 percent in 2010 according to the Brewers Association) that breweries are routinely expanding or pulling out of states that they can't supply. Half Acre can't make enough beer even though it doesn't even distribute beyond the Chicago suburbs.

Gallagher said brewery ownership doesn't see growing much beyond its current building — and therefore the Chicago area — anytime soon.

"Who knows what will happen down the road," he said. "To be bigger than what we imagine now, we'd need a whole new facility. That would be whole new can of worms."

12 October, 2011