E-Malt.com News article: USA, CA: Lagunitas Brewing Company to build one of the biggest breweries in the country in Azusa

One of Northern California's largest and most important craft breweries is setting down major roots in Los Angeles. Lagunitas Brewing Company, from Petaluma, Calif. announced via its owner's Twitter account this week that its third production brewery is currently being built in Azusa, Petaluma, LA Weekly reported on June 24.

Not only that, but the size and capacity of the new Lagunitas Brewery will rival some of the largest craft breweries in the country. According to owner Tony Magee, the Azusa facility is 178,000 square-feet of new construction and the brewery will open with an initial capacity of around 420,000 barrels per year, making it seven times larger than Golden Road Brewing, which is currently the largest production brewery in Los Angeles County.

The built-out capacity for the space is 1 million barrels, which would make the one-time beer desert of L.A. home to a craft brewery the same size as Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in Chico.

"This brewery will serve L.A. and the whole Southland, of course, but it is a nice place from which to get fresher beer to the whole Southwest and even the Gulf Coast," Magee told the L.A. Weekly. Someday, he says, they might begin distribution to Mexico as well.

Today, there are more than 30 breweries in L.A. County and several more from outside L.A. that are expanding into the area.

"L.A. is on fire now and the scene is as vibrant and exciting as any," Magee says, "maybe even more so than most."

Lagunitas' Azusa brewery will be similar in scale and operation to their Chicago brewery, which opened last April. The addition of L.A.'s initial capacity would make them larger than Stone Brewery, Firestone Walker Brewery, Dogfish Head and Bell's Brewing combined.

All this is still at least a few years away, though. Magee says the facility (which doesn't yet have an address as it's in a new commercial development site) won't be up and brewing until early 2017.


26 June, 2015