USA, MI: Wolverine State Brewing Company doubles production capacity and plans to increase distribution

Ann Arbor-based Wolverine State Brewing Company just finished a 6,000-square-foot expansion of its production facility and as a result will now be able to increase the amount of beer it produces and distributes each year, MLive.com reported on April 19.

Oliver Roberts, the brewmaster for Wolverine State Brewing Co., said the expansion will allow the company to get more of its product in glasses around the state because they'll increase production from 2,300 barrels a year to 4,700.

"It gives us the ability to do is take some of the smaller batch beer that's only available in the tap room and expand it out to other bars that are looking for more variety in our beer," Roberts said.

An example of that is the popular Massacre lager produced by the company on a limited basis each year. Roberts said the company typically sells out of the beer before they even brew it because they can only make so much of it at once. This year, they'll be able to produce 33 percent more of that beer and in turn, hope they can provide it to more customers.

Plans to expand the production facility were first announced last year.

The expanded production will also give the company the ability to produce more of its most popular year-round beers without impacting the ability to create more of the small-batch beers that are also in demand.

Producing more of the popular beers is an important step, especially because Wolverine has agreed to terms with Kroger to have two of its beers in nearly every Kroger store in the state.

The company has also reached a new distribution agreement that will expand Wolverine into the Grand Rapids area, along with the Lansing, Flint and Jackson markets.

The expansion in the Ann Arbor facility also included increasing the size of the kitchen. While the original plan was to revamp the menu when the new kitchen opened, but Roberts said those plans have changed.

"We had planned a revamped menu for the spring, but we wanted to hold off. Business has been really good for the last three months, so we're going to keep running as is," Roberts said.

Instead, the menu will have some additions made, but nothing will be disappearing from the menu right away. New items include sharable items and from-scratch sides for the menu. Mac and cheese, baked beans and soft baked pretzels are some of the items Roberts mentioned.

The company will also be hiring at least three new people to work in the brewing and kitchen areas. Roberts said it's exciting to know there's enough work to be done that the company can hire a handful of new people.

"We wanted to push ourselves to the max with the people we have, but we need more people," he said.

21 April, 2016