Economy & Economic Development  February 2, 2016

New Belgium pushes back opening of North Carolina taproom

FORT COLLINS — New Belgium Brewing Co. will be serving up brewery-fresh beer to locals in Asheville, N.C., soon. But construction delays, due primarily to a tough winter, have caused New Belgium to push back the anticipated opening of the Liquid Center taproom at the company’s new North Carolina brewery by a month or so, company officials said Tuesday.

Fort Collins-based New Belgium announced last fall that the plan was to open its Asheville taproom sometime this month. Now that timeframe is looking more like late March or early April, New Belgium’s Asheville spokeswoman Susanne Hackett said.

Last month’s blizzard alone — a storm that pummeled much of the East Coast — dumped more than a foot of snow in Asheville, which averages only about 13 inches of the white stuff annually. The tough weather has made it difficult to, among other things, pour concrete in the brewery’s parking lot.

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“We’ve had some pretty extreme weather,” Hackett said. “A one-month push-back on a project of this size is not bad.”

Add to the weather the fact that training is still in full swing for many Asheville brewery employees, 17 of whom will begin training on taproom duties next week.

“We’re just focusing on making sure we have time to train people properly and do it right,” Hackett said.

New Belgium, already one of the nation’s largest craft breweries by production volume, broke ground on the $140 million Asheville facility in the spring of 2014. Located just west of downtown Asheville along the banks of the French Broad River, the facility will include a 127,000-square-foot brewery and packaging hall, along with the 6,000-square-foot liquid center.

At capacity, the brewery will be able to churn out 500,000 barrels of beer per year, about half of what New Belgium brewed in Fort Collins in 2014. The brewery will employ 80 people initially but ramp up quickly to 150 over the first year or two of operations. The plan is for the facility to serve the eastern part of the United States while Fort Collins continues to serve the west, though specific territories haven’t yet been determined.

New Belgium has been test brewing at the facility since the end of 2015, doing trial runs of Fat Tire, Ranger IPA and 1554 Black Lager to make sure the facility and equipment are working the way they’re supposed to and ensure that the beer tastes right.

Hackett said she’s unsure when the brewery will start distributing the beer it produces. But that process shouldn’t affect the taproom’s opening. If the production brewery isn’t ready to start supplying the taproom when it opens, the Liquid Center will simply start serving beer produced in Fort Collins.

“We’re not sure how long (testing) will take,” Hackett said. “Our focus is to get the quality and consistency right before we start pushing that beer out.”

Aside from its initial opening, New Belgium is planning a “CeleBEERation” on Aug. 27 to mark the Asheville grand opening and the company’s 25th anniversary.

FORT COLLINS — New Belgium Brewing Co. will be serving up brewery-fresh beer to locals in Asheville, N.C., soon. But construction delays, due primarily to a tough winter, have caused New Belgium to push back the anticipated opening of the Liquid Center taproom at the company’s new North Carolina brewery by a month or so, company officials said Tuesday.

Fort Collins-based New Belgium announced last fall that the plan was to open its Asheville taproom sometime this month. Now that timeframe is looking more like late March or early April, New Belgium’s Asheville spokeswoman Susanne Hackett said.

Last month’s blizzard alone —…

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