E-Malt.com News article: USA, ID: Payette Brewing Co. plans expansion to new location

Payette brewery plans to expand to a 60-barrel, approximately 40,000-square-foot brewhouse with the long-term potential to pump out as many as 100,000 barrels of beer annually, idahostatesman.com reported on September, 9.

That site has not been chosen. But the beefed-up operation would catapult Payette, which sold 5,348 barrels of beer in 2013, into a new role as Idaho’s largest brewery. Victor-based Grand Teton Brewing Company, which generates about 10,000 barrels yearly in its 30-barrel brewhouse, currently resides in that throne.

“It’s definitely a big jump,” Payette founder Mike Francis says.

Payette sells about 65 percent of its product in cans, including the popular Outlaw IPA. With out-of-state distribution now reaching into Utah, Oregon, Nevada and Washington, the brewery has maxed out its 15-barrel, 11,000-square-foot location, Francis says.

“Where we’d like to go — just more states in the Mountain West and the West Coast — we need a bigger facility to do that,” Francis says.

While it’s exciting to be a local brewery in craft-beer-crazy Boise, Payette is thinking bigger.

“To be a regional brewery in the West, that’s kind of our goal now,” Francis explains. “We love selling beer here. We want to let everybody else in the West know that there’s great beer in Idaho.”

Francis hopes to have the larger brewhouse open in a “year-plus.” The possibility of a restaurant component has not been ruled out, but that will depend partly on where the brewery is located. Either way, there will be a tasting room.

The new brewhouse probably will be in the Treasure Valley. But all opportunities are being considered, Francis says.

“We’re looking at a few different sites and a few different options,” he says. “We’re not leaving the state — I can tell you that.”

Since opening in 2010, Payette has proven to be an ambitious, savvy player in Boise’s exploding beer scene. Canning its beers and aggressively pushing its products into stores and regionally, Payette made waves among older, more-established breweries such as Boise’s Sockeye Brewing and neighborhood brewpubs such as Highlands Hollow.

Francis says Payette’s business plan as a brewery won’t change dramatically with expansion; selling 12-ounce cans will remain a huge part of the equation.

However, more brewhouse size will mean more freedom to experiment as a brewer. And since the mark-up on specialty beers typically is higher than beer in cans, it might make financial sense.

“The idea of being able to do more specialty stuff would be nice, would be fun,” Francis says.


10 September, 2014