E-Malt.com News article: USA, OR: Seaside Brewing expands capacity

Just last week, Seaside Brewing Company owners Jimmy Griffin and Vince Berg broke ground in the alley space behind their pub, laying the ground work for a 15-barrel brewing system, expected to be up and running before the summer rush hits, Seaside Signal reported on March, 8.

“This added capacity allows us to get beer out to the bars that want it,” said Griffin. “It’s a nice little addition to our nest so we can supply our own taps and whatever we have left over kick it to other folks that want it.”

Two 15-barrel tanks and two 30-barrel tanks will be housed between Seaside Brewing Company and its neighbor to the west. Currently the pub has been operating with a nano-barrel system.

Eventually Griffin knows they will need even bigger brewing capacities, which will have to be located off-site. That time frame remains to be seen.

Griffin said that even though they’ve had the tanks for several months now, they decided to spend the time and energy (and money) on renovating the building and creating a unique ambiance first, before investing in a brewing system.

“People expect to see those big tanks,” he said. “Otherwise they don’t even recognize you as a brewery. So I think it will be a big piece of the puzzle for a lot of people. People don’t understand that most brew pubs start out with a nano-brew system and build their way up. We wanted to make sure that before we did all that, we had a cool place to come drink beer.”

While the new brewing system will assure that they never run out of their own beer, Griffin said even without it business has been picking up.

“We didn’t expect to get crushed over the summer like we did,” he said. “It was huge for us. But we had the typical Seaside winter and things are slowly getting busier so we’re focusing on getting ready for those busy summer months again.”

Griffin said their nano-brewing system has been cranking out two batches a day in preparation for spring break.

“It’s beginning to become sort of a community-based watering hole, with good beer,” he said. “And people seem to like it, because we sell out of our own beer all the time.”


13 March, 2013