What a way to celebrate your first anniversary. WeldWerks Brewing saw a huge increase in consumers for its celebration, due in part because the Greeley, Colorado brewery was just recently named the best new brewery in the country by USA Today.
A part of the “10Best Reader’s Choice” polls, WeldWerks — which hit its one-year anniversary in late February — saw an influx of out-of-towners descend upon the brewery for the celebration after it was announced that it edged Cincinnati’s Rhinegeist in the month-long contest.
“[There was] about twice what we expected for the party,” said Neil Fisher, the co-owner and head brewer of WeldWerks. “We’ve already seen the impact. It’s changed us and given us a little notoriety. More people know who we are and that’s really cool.”
Using its own hand-picked panel of judges to determine which 20 breweries should be in the contest, USA Today opened a poll on Feb. 1 and closed it on Feb. 28. All 20 breweries nominated had opened in the past three years.
Fisher guessed that WeldWerks received “tens of thousands” of votes, but he was not given a final tally. He added that he still does not know how they were nominated. He figures a myriad of things, including a silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2015 for its Hefeweizen, helped earn a nod.
Whoever did get it on the list, WeldWerks didn’t take the nomination lightly. Once Fisher received an e-mail in late January from USA Today saying it was in the running for the honor, the team sprang into action, hitting social media hard.
“We wanted to win,” Fisher said. “It was a big opportunity and we didn’t want to squander it. Our supporters and customers told us that people from all over the country, friends and family, were voting for us.”
The brewery let the public know how it was going, what place it constantly was in and asked for people to keep voting. The result saw WeldWerks’ number of likes increase from 4,700 fans to more than 6,000 on Facebook during February.
“We’ve taken our reputation very seriously,” Fisher said, noting the brewery — which made 600 barrels in 2015 — has dumped batches because the beer did not reach a certain standard it had set. “We try to make every beer out of the brewhouse that we have put a lot of thought into and it meets our standards of quality and the flavor profile we are shooting for.”
WeldWerks plans to try to double its draft accounts, currently around 60, by the end of the year. Fisher noted that before the national honor, it had plans to expand in capacity, with plans to have a new 30-bbl tank in by the third quarter of 2016. That plan has been nudged to the early second quarter with possibly two more tanks added by the end of the year.
“We aren’t scrambling to go order a bunch of tanks and moving at light speed,” he said. “We are trying to be cautious and stick with the plans we have for new beers and the current lineup. We don’t want to overstretch ourselves. We want to grow sustainably and still have quality beer.”
Depending on how things progress with packaging, Fisher said it may have a small line of single-bottle formats in either 375 or 750 mls on the horizon. It does plan to can Hefewieizn soon, but no timeline has been set.
USA Today also held a similar best brew pub poll with Titletown Brewing Company of Green Bay, Wisconsin beating out Brewery Vivant of Grand Rapids, Michigan and The Schlafly Tap Room in St. Louis for the top spot.
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