Discussing a MAJOR brewhouse upgrade!

Nate Lanier just released a new video (see below) about the major upgrade that is taking place at Tree House Brewing. He has released a number of videos recently (I have posted about a couple/few) and I think all of these videos were done very, very well. I appreciate that he is willing to make this effort to share his brewing thoughts with the community.

Permit me to share an old story on the topic of upgrading a brewery. A loooong time ago I visited a good buddy who was living in Northern Virginia (a weekend visit) and on the Saturday he suggested we take a tour of Old Dominion Brewing (located in Ashburn, VA then). The tour guide was the owner, Jerry Bailey. During the tour he mentioned that his beers were in high demand and that they were operating 24/7 (7 days I believe). Somebody on the tour asked: “Why don’t you just expand the brewery?”. Jerry very carefully (and is slow, pensive manner) discussed how Sierra Nevada just recently expanded and that they had to dispose of x hundred barrels of their first batch(es) of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale since it did not turn out well. You could almost feel the pain in his voice when relating this story. It was evident to me that a physical brewhouse expansion was not an option for him since he was unwilling to take the risk of dumping beer. Later in the tour we saw a very large and expensive packaging line he just purchased and installed (from a German vendor who I do not recall right now). So, Jerry was not averse to investing capital in the brewery but the idea of expanding the brewhouse was not an operational risk he was willing to take.

I am not a commercial brewer but the ‘parallel approach’ that Nate is taking to expand his brewery sounds like a prudent way to go.

Cheers to Nate and Tree House Brewing!