River North Brewery continues to expand, adding three new stainless steel tanks Friday. Two 30-barrel fermenters will increase the brewery’s fermentation capacity by 44 percent. In addition, a new 30-barrel brite beer tank will effectively triple the brewery’s carbonation space, helping to eliminate bottlenecks during the final stage of production. The new expansion will allow River North to focus on keeping up with demand for River North White, its Belgian-style witbier, which was recently released in canned four-packs. A second canned offering, a Belgian-style red IPA simply called “River North Ale,” is expected to hit shelves in the next two to three months. “We’ve been waiting since August for our new tanks to arrive,” said Matt Hess, founder of River North. “There is a lot of planning involved in ordering new tanks, since lead times are so long, but they are finally here. I’m looking forward to getting them filled as soon as possible.” Currently in its second year of operation, River North Brewery is on pace to break the 1,000 barrel production threshold this year. Matt and Jessica Hess opened the award-winning River North Brewery in February 2012. Brewing in the RiNo district of Denver, Matt focuses on Belgian styles and American styles with a Belgian twist. Follow the brewery on Facebook (http://facebook.com/rivernorthbrewery) or Twitter/Instagram (@rivernorthbrew) for the latest insights. http://rivernorthbrewery.com ###
Wow. Good for them. If nothing else, they're proof that some of these upstarts can really up their game after opening. I was pretty underwhelmed with them when when opened and I've heard similar opinions from a ton of other people, too. Nothing horribly flawed or awful...just boring and uninspired. However after a few months they really hit stride and have been putting out some damn fine beers. Hopefully some of our local troubled children will turn things around like they were able to do.
River North has never been the worst offender though as it relates to startups. They came out with J.Marie & Unified Theory to start and would consider those to be well made and different beers (not many BA Wit's out there). Uninspired beer labels for sure. Also, I recently had the B-sides BBA Quad with cherries and it was incredible.
yeah I thought Unified Theory was very good right from the start. Did not love--or dislike-- several other things I tried in bottles but always liked what I had at the brewery...need to revisit the bottled/canned product. Maybe pick something up on the way home...
To me their first beers had no malt character at all. They were almost gluten-free tasting. I went back a few months later and it was as though the grains had come out of hiding.
