Deschutes Brewery is breaking ground on 57,593 square feet of new warehouse space adjacent to its current warehouse at its production facility in Bend. While the current warehouse has remained the same size since 2004, the brewery has greatly increased its production capacity with the recent addition of new fermentation vessels and a new bottling line.
Simply stated: it was time. Deschutes opened seven new markets last year in Ohio, Kentucky, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont, Washington DC and Pennsylvania. They are now in 28 states plus D.C.
The new building will include 5,000 square feet of additional cooler space for kegs and room to store most of the brewery’s 3,000 oak barrels used to age its reserve series beers, which, due to space limitations, have been housed off site. The contractor for the project is R&H Construction.
Several advanced sustainability features have been designed into the building including solar-readiness, high efficiency HVAC, insulation, lighting and more.
This year Deschutes Brewery is anticipating shipping 360,000 barrels up from 335,000 in 2014. The new warehouse allows them to build inventories and store more finished product on site.
In terms of timing, the shell will be up by the end of the year, and the project will be complete by spring of 2016.