E-Malt.com News article: USA, PA: Yards Brewing Company expanding rapidly

Yards Brewing Company, which was founded in 1994, expanded in August 2008. Yet the craft-beer industry and Yards itself have grown at such a clip that the brewer has now carved out more work area in the landlord’s adjacent space, adding a loading dock, cold-storage, day storage, processing space, a bigger testing lab and space for its first tractor trailer. Yards is housed in old industrial space that more recently was an indoor skateboard park, Philadelphia Business Journal reported on December 13.

There were 2,347 craft breweries nationwide at the end of last year, according to the Brewers Association. While the sector makes up just 6.5 percent of total beer sales, that percentage has grown steadily each year. By volume, craft brewers produced 15 percent more beer in 2012 — and local brewers, including Yards, reflect that growth.

In 2009, Yards’ first full year at the expanded site, it was producing 9,000 barrels a year with 12 employees and generating $2 million in sales.

This year, the brewer expects to produce 32,000 barrels with 50 employees, generating nearly $9 million in sales.

“We’re growing at a rate faster than the national rate,” said Trevor Prichett, chief operating officer. “We’re growing in current markets and we’re going into new markets.”

Prichett and Tom Kehoe, Yards’ founder, president and brewmaster, said Yards’ growth has been organic, spreading its reach into contiguous markets.

For the coming year, the brewer has its sights on expansion into Washington, D.C.

In the past two years, it’s expanded into Lancaster County, PA, as well as Delaware and parts of Maryland. Yards is also sold in New Jersey and northern Virginia.

“We want to fill out the Mid-Atlantic footprint. The more you can grow in existing markets, the more money you can make,” Prichett said, with the qualifier: “[Growing too fast] can create quality-control issues. We want to build depth and brand recognition, as opposed to spreading ourselves too thin geographically ... It’s not a service business, it’s manufacturing so you can only grow so fast. There are quality-control issues, investment and capital required.”

At tavern-and-restaurant taps in this area, Yards competes with Victory Brewing Co. of Downingtown, PA; Samuel Adams of Boston; and Dogfish Head Brewery of Milton, DE.
Yards takes pride in being the City of Philadelphia’s largest brewer and its cases bear the line, “Brewed and bottled in the City of Brotherly Love.”

“We’re very much a Philadelphia company. That’s a big part of our identity,” Prichett said.
“Philadelphia is a great craft-beer center,” Kehoe said, citing the other craft-beer makers, a knowledgeable customer base and the impact of Philly Beer Week.


18 December, 2013