E-Malt.com News article: USA, VA & NC: Devils Backbone Brewing Co. to expand distribution to Triad

Devils Backbone Brewing Co., a craft brewery that's grown to Virginia's largest within the last seven years, will be taking over taps around Triad’s restaurants and bars to celebrate extending distribution into North Carolina, Triad Business Journal reported on August 7.

The brewery, based in Roseland in western Virginia with its production brewery in Lexington, Va., has signed on with Greensboro-based R.H. Barringer Distributing Co. as well as Craft Central, the craft beer division of Caffey Distributing Co., to bring its beers to the Triad and Charlotte markets.

Those are among six distribution agreements around North Carolina for the brewery, which hit 45,000 barrels last year and is on pace to top 65,000 barrels by the end of this year.

"Our problem throughout the history of the company has always been one of never having enough beer," said Steve Crandall, who founded the brewery in 2008 with his wife, Heidi. "North Carolina is going to sop up a lot of our beer."

The brewpub was planned to anchor a 100-acre mixed-used development that Crandall, a builder, was planning, but then the recession hit.

"A funny thing happened — the real estate market crashed and the beer took off," Crandall said. "At some point we knew we had a great product and that more people were interested."

The continued growth of the Devils Backbone Basecamp Brewpub in Roseland led to the construction of the Outpost Brewery and Taproom in 2011.

The production brewery will expand to an annual operating capacity of 120,000 barrels in October, with a bump up to 150,000 barrels in February, Crandall said. Capacity could eventually be built out to about 250,000 barrels.

Recently, the brewery added The Meadows at the brewpub, which is an outdoor venue with German beer tables, campfire pits and a woodfired grill.

“North Carolina seemed a natural area for expansion for Devils Backbone Brewing,” Crandall said. "North Carolina is just a great craft beer state, and thought we we'd have a good chance to be a part of it," Crandall said.

Devils Backbone Brewing has a range of bottled and canned beer including its Vienna Lager, Eight Point IPA, Schwartz Bier black lager, Dark Abby, which is a Belgian-inspired dubbel-style ale, and Turbo Cougar, a blond bock.

The name comes from the name for a ridge and rock outcropping along the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.


12 August, 2015