It’s been more than a year since Avery Brewing purchased the 5.6 acre parcel of land in Boulder, Colo. that will soon be its new home and on Tuesday, the company announced that construction of a new brewery has finally begun.
By this time next year, the 20-year-old craft beer company will finally be able to move into a $27 million, 96,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art brewing facility.
The new space, located at 4910 Nautilus Court, will feature an expanded tap room, restaurant, outdoor beer garden and gift shop. Avery said its initial production capacity will double to about 100,000 barrels and the facility could eventually produce upwards of 500,000 barrels per year.
“Will we ever get that big? I don’t know, but this isn’t just about expansion,” said co-founder Adam Avery. “This is about making great beer. We could have done a lot to speed things up. The easier path would have been to take little steps, maybe move the brewery to a less expensive city and into an existing building. We could have accepted outside investment too. Dad and I didn’t want any of that. We wanted to make a much bigger leap. We wanted to be in Boulder. We wanted to remain family-owned.”
According to a press release, construction will happen in phases. Phase one of the project will include “the brewery, production offices, the first set of fermentation tanks, truck docks, grain silos, an expanded restaurant, a gift shop and the majority of landscaping and parking,” a press release said.
The second and third phases of the new brewery buildout will include the completion of a full restaurant, full gift shop, administrative offices, additional fermentation tanks and an expanded packaging area.
The entire project is expected to cost $27.4 million and will be financed through a combination of $5 million in available cash flow and $22.4 million in loans from the Colorado Business Bank and Citywide Banks.
Avery said it produced 50,000 barrels in 2013, up from about 41,000 in 2012.