Big Grove Brewing is about to get a little bigger.
The Iowa City, Iowa-based craft brewery announced it has broken ground on an expansion project that will increase its capacity by 50% next year. “The Hop Lot” will add nearly 42,000 sq. ft. of production space at a former Goodwill Distribution Center in Iowa City, giving the brewery another facility in its hometown.
“Having our beer delivered across Iowa requires regular, daily visits from trucks and trailers to our brewery,” director of brewing Andy Joynt said in a press release. “Our parking lot at the Iowa City Brewery & Taproom isn’t ideal for this type of traffic and this new location is better suited to keep the beer moving. And most importantly, this expansion allows us a much-needed increase in brewery production space to help avoid out-of-stock shelves.”
The Hop Lot, a solely production-focused facility with no public taproom, will add 68,000 barrels of capacity. It is expected to employ 20 production workers when it opens, according to the release.
Big Grove produced 23,849 barrels of beer in 2022, up +21% from 2021, according to the May/June issue of the Brewers Association’s (BA) New Brewer. The brewery – which also operates taprooms in Des Moines, Solon and Cedar Rapids – was the nation’s 116th largest craft brewery by volume last year up from 150th in 2021.
The additional volume from the Hop Lot is expected to bump Big Grove into the 100 largest craft brewers, a spokesperson told Brewbound.
Big Grove became the best-selling craft brand in Iowa in June 2023 when it nudged Molson Coors-owned Blue Moon out of the top spot, the spokesperson said.
With the Hop Lot producing Big Grove’s year-round offerings Citrus Surfer and the Eddy and Jam Sour families, other Big Grove facilities will be able to focus on limited releases and innovation.
“The added production capacity allows restoring the existing Iowa City Taproom footprint to a more manageable and maneuverable space,” Joynt said. “The project enables Big Grove to bring back limited time-honored favorites like Color TV and Into the Woods, while also opening us up to crafting more of the experimental brews that we’ve been craving.”
Last year, Big Grove unveiled a new 12,720 sq. ft. R&D facility and taproom in Des Moines