USA, WI: Biloba Brewing Co moving to a larger space in Brookfield

Brookfield’s Biloba Brewing Co., owned by the Lane family, is planning a move from its current home at 18720 Pleasant Street to a larger space at 2970 N. Brookfield Road, Brookfield Elm Grove Now reported on July 5.

Biloba brewer Gordon Lane said that the plans were part of his and his wife Jean's original hopes for the business.

"We wanted to do this before we even started," Gordon said.

Biloba Brewing Co. officially opened in April of 2014, but it was a smaller operation than the family had originally hoped for.

"We originally looked for a building for a 10-barrel system and we ended up in the building we're in and we could only use my 1.5-barrel homebrew system," Gordon Lane said. "So we've been looking around."

In addition to the increase in barrels that Biloba will be able to produce with the expansion, the company also is excited to be able to offer more space to its customers and guests.

"We have 2,000 square-feet of space, but we really don't because the space includes the hallway in the front and the back and bathrooms," Lane said.

He said the company only has approximately 1,000 square feet of space in its current home to allocate for the brewing area and tasting areas.

"The square footage of our (current) tasting room is probably 500 to 600 square feet," he said.

In the new building, Lane estimated that Biloba will have a total of around 1,500 square feet to use between its brewing area and tasting room. Most of the increase will be allocated to the tasting area.

"Right now, we're really constrained by capacity. This will give us the ability to do keg sales and also to do more bottling like we've done with limited releases," Lane said.

The company hopes to have the brewing equipment at its new home installed by the end of July with the tasting room finished soon after. A grand opening is tentatively planned for sometime after Labor Day.

The Lanes currently produce approximately 200 barrels of beer annually. With the new brewing system and larger space, the company hopes to be able to increase that to 2,000 within the next five years.

Biloba Brewing Co. is completely owned and operated by the Lane family, including Gordon, Jean and their two daughters, Kristen Giljohann and Kathryn Glomski.

"We're truly an indy brewery. We're independently owned, we have no investors except for us," Gordon Lane said. "We get to do what we want to do."

While excited for the growth that the expansion will offer, the Lanes are not in any mood to take a fast track toward changing their company's identity.

"Really our goal is to work within Brookfield and Elm Grove. We don't envision ever wanting to be a regional brewery, we want to stay smaller," Lane said.

"I would say we're different than almost all the other breweries out there," Lane said. "When we were looking around as a family to do a brewery somewhere, we looked at Waukesha and Menomonee Falls and everywhere in this area."

Eventually, Gordon, an Elm Grove native, and Jean, who grew up in Brookfield, decided to keep things close to home.

"If we're going to do something, let's make it close so that it's a community thing," Lane said.

The Biloba expansion will not include a widening of the company's food offerings for the time being, but the brewery will continue to offer Bavarian pretzels and cheese wedges.

"We're talking about if we're going to have pre-made pizzas," Lane said. "We've had a lot of people asking about that, but we don't want to put in a kitchen."

07 July, 2016