USA, WA: Naked City Brewing opens second location on Camano Island

Naked City Brewing founder Don Webb has always enjoyed island time. Visiting his wife’s sister’s summer house on Camano Island over occasional three-day weekends, Webb would sit in the sun, drink a beer and relax.

“I love how the island feels like a world away, but is a quick drive from Seattle,” Webb said in an interview to The Daily Herald. “It’s nice to have a place that feels familiar but is so different from the city.”

So when Webb and his brewing partner Bryan Miller started thinking about expanding to a second location, Camano Island kept coming to mind. During the week-end of April 22-23, after two years of working on a deal to secure a space and eventually moving in, Naked City Brewing opened its second location at Terry’s Corner on Camano Island.

Naked City Brewing has been one of the most celebrated Seattle breweries since it opened its Greenwood location in 2008. Over the eight-plus years, Naked City’s success has allowed it to expand its space a number of times, including knocking out a wall and taking over an adjoining space and adding a beer garden in their parking lot. But expansion of its Seattle’s location had reached its end, leaving Webb and Miller looking outside of Seattle.

Part of the decision to look for more retail space is the changing economics of the craft beer industry. As more breweries enter the market and shelf space becomes tighter, Webb said they decided to invest in more on-premise sales.

Another aspect of that is the fact Naked City doesn’t bottle much of its beer. Webb said the brewery brings in canning or bottling machines for one-offs like the recent collaboration with Cash Brewing, Can in Black, or the brewery’s most infamous beer, The Big Lebrewski. Currently, Naked City sells 60 percent of its beer on site, with that moving to 80 percent in the summer, according to Webb.

“If we moved to close to 100-percent sales of our beer on the retail side with the opening of the Camano location, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Webb said.

Naked City will continue to brew most of its beer at its Greenwood location, with some of it contracted out to other breweries like Everett’s Lazy Boy Brewing and Mount Vernon’s Farmstrong Brewing. Webb said that the brewery’s brewhouse, which consists of four 10-barrel fermenters, a 15-barrel fermenter, and two 15-barrel brite tanks, produced 750 barrels of beer last year and could hit 1,000 this year. (For comparison, Scuttlebutt Brewing produced 8,000 barrels in 2016.)

Two years ago, Jeff Ericson, owner of Camano Island Coffee, approached Webb about the possibility of an opening at one of the properties he manages at Terry’s Corner. At that time, Webb and Miller weren’t ready to jump to a second location. But when Ericson, who has a family connection with Webb by marriage, asked again last year, the two jumped.

“Bryan and I came up and looked at the space and it just seemed right this time,” Webb said. “Jeff really sold us.”

But before they put ink to paper, Webb said the two had questions, especially surrounding two beer-related retail businesses that had operated on the island but recently left. Mukilteo’s Diamond Knot Brewing opened a second location on Camano Island in 2010, before it closed in late 2014, and The Collective on Tap, a Woodinville-based taproom, had a location in the space that Naked City occupies now. The Collective on Tap left the island last year.

“We talked to (Diamond Knot Vice President of Brewing Operations) Pat Ringe and Kat Turcotte (co-owner of The Collective on Tap) as part of our due diligence. They both liked it out here and did fairly well on the island,” said Webb, who added that both businesses left the island for other issues than lack of business. “We’re confident that we can make it work here.”

Naked City Camano plans to have the same family-friendly atmosphere of the Greenwood location. The food menu will be similar as well. Chef Tessa Roberts has created a menu focusing on pub fare that will also focus on fresh produce from the island and meat from Del Fox, a butcher in Stanwood.

04 May, 2017