In 2015, White Labs announced pretty significant expansion plans for a new eastern United States production facility and headquarters. Since then, a good deal of progress has been made and it is excited to share that White Labs Asheville is ringing in the new year with production beginning as early as the second week of January.
Ultimately, the facility will be ramping up operations in three phases with all construction ending in late spring 2017.
So far, White Labs has finished building out space for its production facility and administrative offices, and have also begun to move in yeast propagation equipment (also known as the FlexCell™ process). Once production begins in January, it will be producing a limited amount of yeast from this location and likely still shipping most of its supply from San Diego. In phase two it will be adding more FlexCells™ and increasing production.
Hiring for Asheville officially began in early fall 2016. A few San Diego-based team members have relocated to assist with setting up the facility, on-boarding new employees and allowing for operations to smoothly commence. Among them, White Labs Vice President Lisa White is now residing in North Carolina and driving this project to fruition. A date has been set for Asheville’s new hire orientation to begin immediately after the New Year.
The hope is to officially open to the public in late spring. White Labs is working on a tasting room and boutique restaurant, along with adding an educational classroom and large-scale brewing system. Much like its current San Diego and Boulder Tasting Room, the AVL Tasting Room will serve the same batches of beer fermented with different White Labs pure liquid yeast strains. This will all mark the completion of phase three, and for the next two years, It will shift focus to increasing yeast production from Asheville.
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