Russian River's New Brewery Opens in Windsor This Week

“A 75-barrel brewhouse, 12 new conical fermentors, six open top fermentation tanks, a 13 foot square coolship, and several oak foeders will enable the company to grow its annual production from approximately 17,000 barrels to 35,000 barrels and potentially as high as 75,000 in the future.”

As a big fan of Russian River beers I am very happy to read this news. From my personal perspective more Russian River beer = better.

Cheers to Natalie and Vinnie Cilurzo for making this happen!!!!!

 

Damn that place looks state of the art and just beautiful! Next vacation out west it's on the list!

 

This sounds eerily familiar... Smuttynose purchased a 17 acre parcel, built a state of the art LEED certified brewery with a 75,000 BBL maximum capacity, with a restaurant and other amenities...

Hopefully RR has a better business plan and enjoys continued success. Yes - everyone will say Russian River makes better beer, but in the New England area Smutty was an iconic, albeit "tame", brand.

 

Ship more Pliny to Colorado and I'll do my part to help pay for it.

 

Larry,

From the article:

“…the couple was able to realize this goal on their own terms.”

And:

“I think a lot of people will be surprised when they see how big the brewery is, but we did it independently,” he adds. “It wasn’t by bringing on an equity partner or by expanding distribution.”

My understanding is that Smuttynose ‘overbuilt’ (i.e., a LEED facility) and took on lots of debt.

My guess from the above is that Natalie and Vinnie Cilurzo took a differing business approach in creating this new, expanded facility.

Getting heavily in debt and bringing on partners exposes a business to lots of pressures.

Cheers!

P.S. And yes, Russian River beers are notably ‘better’ than Smuttynose beers.

 

One of my all time favorite breweries, Vinnie has claimed many times he didnt want to expand due to fear of decreased quality. I just hope this doesn't come to fruition, that being said it will be great to have more access to RR

 

Agreed - from the read it certainly looks structured differently. In my opinion, the Smutty facility was not overbuilt - they really should have installed a can line which they had more than enough space to add I don't think the blame can be pointed to LEED certification. Their LEED additions seemed pretty tame compared to some I have seen and actually should have helped with the bottom line, at least by what I learned there (assuming they were speaking the truth). They did take on a ton of debt up there in New Hampshire and were wildly optimistic about their total cost to build - just a series of poor decisions as we've discussed before.

Just struck me as "wow - I've seen these numbers (almost exactly) before"...

 

Looks very similar to the new location and expansion at Avery in CO a few years ago. That's been working out very well for them. Hope it goes the same for RR.

 

Well, I've not seen actual numbers, but I'd say the demand for RR beers has been higher over the years than it was/has been for Smuttynose. How high is the demand for RR? Well, it's high enough that if you are a retailer in their distribution footprint and they find out you are not keeping beers such as Pliny refrigerated as asked by the brewery you won't get any more to offer for sale.

 

Have they posted details on hours? I am in CA next month and trying to see if I can fit this in.

 

I believe they intend to have the same hours as Santa Rosa: Open daily 11am to midnight.

UPDATE: Windsor is open daily 11am to 10pm.

 

Man, I didn't realize the new location was opening so soon. I might have to go out there and check it out this Thursday. Looks really awesome, and I am glad it is finally done. Might be worth trying to go to PtY release at the Windsor location.

 

It's on!!!! Can't wait to crush some 2019 Younger without a 4 hour wait.

 

I wish them the best. I was on business about a month ago out the the bay area and drove up to Santa Rosa to visit. On a Wed. evening at 6pm I couldn't even get a seat in brewpub at downtown so the bigger facility will be much better. Got some Bling Pig, Pliny and Happy Hops to go (along with assortment of sours). Something seemed quite off with all of the 3 hop forward beers. Even my friends whom have had Pliny many times in the past and I've shared with said something seemed way off with these beers (it wasn't even tasting like a mediocre IPA which is quite scary). I'm hoping that I just got a bad batch and problem is now fixed.

 

I'll never forget jumping into the craft scene in 2009 and always hearing about this brew called Pliny the Younger. I was able to get a trade for some and it truly was an epiphany moment. The only other time I can recall that type of moment was having my first Hill Farmstead at Prohibition Pig back in 2012.

A few years later, I flew out to California to climb the Half Dome for work. The next day, nothing was sweeter than making the drive to Russian River and having Pliny on site. In these times of the pursuit of New England Juice, I can happily say I appreciate what Russian River means to me from almost a decade ago. I'm very happy for their team and look forward to getting back out there someday!

 

I feel exactly the same way!

I enjoy drinking the 'new' style of Hazy/Juicy IPA but I also greatly appreciate the hoppy beers (e.g., Pliny the Elder) of Russian River. Ten years from now I will still be a fan of a beer like Pliny the Elder. Will I still be enthusiastic about Hazy/Juicy IPAs ten years from now?

I would be remiss in mentioning that I am also a big fan of the Russian River Belgian style beers.

Oh, and I have heretofore only had one draft pint of STS Pils but I really enjoyed drinking that beer. Hopefully STS Pils will be more readily available once this expanded brewery really gets going.

Cheers!

 

If only it were Windsor Ontario

 

Such a great point Jack. In a decade, which breweries will still be in our minds as the best of the best and favorites? Similar to how Russian River always comes mind even though I have a hard time accessing them. Cheers Brother!

 

I am fortunate that Russian River beers are available in the Philly area:

• Draft: Blind Pig, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Younger
• Bottles: bottled Belgian Ales

Hopefully with the new, expanded brewery we will obtain more frequent deliveries and perhaps expanded portfolio of products.

Cheers!