Expansion Update 12/7/11

The last few days at Smuttynose have been as busy as usual, but all brewing, bottling, kegging and cleaning has had a new soundtrack: the sound of a jackhammer and a concrete saw.

You're looking at the future home of a custom-poured concrete pad
that will be home to trench drains and LOTS of Smuttynose beer

In our last newsletter, we posted pictures from our warehouse of cleared-out pallet racks, showing the first step of another expansion (our third in two years) at our Heritage Avenue facility.  Now, in the words of Nacho Libre, we're getting down to the "neety greety."  Over the last week, we've had concrete workers tearing up the existing concrete floor to put in the necessary ceiling reinforcements for the roof extension, that will allow the 22.5' height of the fermenters to fit properly.  

A support joist anchor

Once the supports are in place, we can begin increasing the roof height and adding the roof portal through which the tanks will be craned.  Our plumber, Danny Boy, will soon work alongside the Smuttynose maintenance crew of Adam and Adam, to pre-run glycol pipes for the coolant system connections.

It's been nearly a decade since the backs of BBs 1-6 have seen the light of day.

With any change in a complex system like this, there are adjustments that need to be made.  To make room for the new construction, we had to move pallet racks, unassembled packaging and various other bits of Smuttynose stuff to an off-site warehouse facility.  This part of the project gave us a great chance to get rid of some junk, recycle a lot of old papers and tear down a wall that really has opened up our space (see the above picture).  The space already feels different.   

Another interesting effect of this expansion will be schedule expansion and increased staff demands.  We aren't putting in a new brewhouse, so that means we'll have to crank out up to twelve more 50bbl brews every two weeks to keep these tanks filled.  Dave and Greg are currently figuring out how our production schedule will change and what staffing adjustments, if any, will need to be made.  

In total this expansion will allow us to add just shy of 10,000 bbls of annual production to our output, which is a nice little bump.  We've also begun doing some site prep at Towle Farm this week, which is always nice because we're never quite sure exactly where we can fit another expansion here at Heritage Ave.

Nothing says excavation like a thigh-sized tree root surfacing.

Stay tuned for another expansion update!