USA, CO: Telluridge Brewing adds new equipment to expand output by this summer

Patrons of Telluride Brewing Company can look forward to more beer being available in the summer of 2016, The Daily Planet reported on April 15.

The company has added three new 45-barrel fermentation tanks, which will increase its fermentation capacity by about 65 percent. Incorporating limitations later in the production line, this translates to a 45 percent increase in overall capacity.

According to Chris Fish, chief brewing officer and proprietor, this marks a considerable increase.

“Before, we could make about 8,000 barrels of beer; now we could probably do over 12,000 barrels,” Fish said.

A barrel contains 31 gallons of beer, so this means a 124,000-gallon increase in capacity.

Telluride Brewing Company was forged from a partnership between Fish and Tommy Thacher, two close friends who were passionate about beer and dreamed of opening a brewery. Fish, the brewmaster, gained acclaim when his beers won gold and bronze medals at the Great American Beer Festival.

In May 2011, they teamed up with local real estate broker Brian Gavin and local graphic artist John Lehman to found Telluride Brewing Company. Since then, their brews have enjoyed notable success, including three gold medals for their Face Down Brown.

According to Fish, the coming summer will likely entail sufficient demand to exhaust its newly enhanced capacity.

“Pretty much any time we do one of these expansions, we max it out right away… It’s beer season,” Fish said.

The company will add a fifth can to its lineup as well, Whacked Out Wheat, which won a silver medal at the 2015 Great American Beer Festival in the American-style Wheat Beer category.

“This will be our lightest beer offering in a can,” Fish said.

The expansion does not involve any addition to the physical space Telluride Brewing Company occupies, just the installation of new equipment and the disposal of the old.

Local consumption has been an important factor in the brewery’s success.

“Most of our beer is still sold in southwest Colorado, and it really makes this thing run,” Fish said.
The expansion took about a week to complete, and the company was closed for two weeks. The tasting room will reopen Monday, April 18.

Fish said that the expansion was part of an effort to keep up with an increasingly competitive market for breweries in Colorado.

“We’re really struggling to keep up — we’re still only distributing statewide. It’s crazy what’s happening in Colorado: We’ve got 400 breweries in the state. There’s still definitely room to grow, so we’re stoked to be growing,” Fish said.

17 April, 2016