USA, WA: Backwoods Brewing Company moving its brewing facility to larger location

Backwoods Brewing Company will be moving its brewing facility to the port of Skamania, on the Stevenson, WA waterfront. The move, which will take place in January, 2016 is exclusively for the production side of the company, as the Backwoods Brew Pub will remain at its current location, in Carson, WA, Brewbound.com reported on November 25.

The principal reason for the move is the need for more space. Their current facility in Carson is approximately 2000 sq ft., whereas the new space they’ll be moving into is 8000 sq ft. In addition, the new building will offer higher ceilings (approximately 24 ft), a custom drainage system, and custom electrical. Some of the immediate benefits are the ability to house their own canning line, add taller fermentors, store product more easily and have dedicated offices. The original brewery has been growing beyond the means of the building it currently occupies, and this added space will allow for increased efficiency and higher volume of output.

“We’ve experienced steady growth, especially in the last year, and we need a space that will accommodate that growth, with room for more expansion in the future,” said Kevin Waters, Brewmaster at Backwoods. “Having our own canning line in house, as well as bigger (80 bbl) fermentors, will help us with our turn-around time on beer and give us more freedom to work with the market’s growing demand.”

Tom Waters, brother of Kevin, and Head Brewer at Backwoods, added “This new facility is going to be prepped for a commercial brewery before we actually move in it, which is awesome. Our current building used to be a grocery store, so every time we added equipment, we had to knock out walls, dig out the floor, re-wire and re-pipe everything. It gets real old real quick! We won’t have that issue with the new space in Stevenson.”

Just an hour east of the Portland/Vancouver area, Backwoods was established in 2012 by the Waters family as a single barrel brewpub. It has grown since, moving to a 7-barrel, and now a 20 barrel system that it currently brews on. Their distribution serves all of Washington, NW Oregon and Boise, ID, including grocery stores such as Zupans, Whole Foods, New Seasons, Total Wine and most recently Fred Meyer. The brewery put out approximately 2200 barrels in 2014, and is projected to put out 5000-6000 barrels in 2015. It employs approximately 30 people.

02 December, 2015