Druthers Brewing in Saratoga Springs, New York, has recently opened a second facility in Albany, New York, to grow its rapidly rising demand.
Only established three years ago, Druthers Brewing’s original location in Saratoga Springs was 10 bbl. system with the capacity to churn 1,000 barrels. While that was satisfactory for the time, it quickly became prevalent that an adjustment was going to be necessary to follow demand.
This past April 2015, Druthers Brewing started brewing in its new Albany location on a 30 bbl. brewhouse with 60 barrel cellar tanks supplied by Marks Design and Metal Works. George de Piro, the breweries chief brewing officer, said that the actual capacity can reach a 50 bbl. output, which has been accomplished. He estimates that the system could withstand 60 bbl., but has yet attempted the feat.
In coordination with the brewery, Druthers opened a brewpub to accompany the new brewing location. Not only will this assist in the demand of both brewpubs, but it will also provide extra support for the two restaurants.
“In summertime we can’t keep up with demand for beer at our original location,” explained de Piro. “So we had to contract brew to make up for the shortfall, and that’s actually pretty expensive and you don’t have direct control over the quality like you do when you’re making it yourself.
“This is an industry … that’s seen double digit growth almost every year for the past 25 years, and so we feel like we should be doing that too. We feel we should be growing every year. We’ve pretty much maxed out what we could do with our original location, not even after three years, so it was time to put together another one so we could increase brewing capacity, sell more beer in Saratoga, sell beer here in Albany and distribute draft off premises.”
According to de Piro, the system in the Albany location was designed so that the they could make big beers and not run out of room in the mash and lauter tun. “So the mash tun and lauter tun are actually pretty oversized,” he said. “They are the size you’d see at most 50 bbl. breweries. What I can do with certain beers is dilute at the end of the boil … and that helps me get to 50 bbls.”
Aside from the brewing system, the new location’s brewpub actually has similar capacity to the Saratoga Springs location. “As of now it has no outdoor seating,” explained de Piro. “We have about 250 seats, all indoors. It’s got a much bigger kitchen so we’re actually able to make stuff here in Albany to ship to Saratoga’s kitchen. Which is important for us because the Saratoga kitchen is actually significantly undersized.”
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