Earnest Brew Works (ebw) has announced plans to expand in both size and locations starting this summer.
The South Toledo brewery will begin renovations for a production brewery and taproom at 1415 Byrne, the former Kroger location in the Southland Shopping Center, with plans to open in 2022. The new facility is set to be equipped with a 30-barrel brewhouse and will be able to produce almost five times as much beer as ebw does right now, with the ability to produce up to 10,000 barrels per year in the future.
In 2020, ebw hit max capacity in its current home with 2,100 barrels of beer produced.
Concurrently, the brewery will work to open a downtown Toledo taproom and small-batch facility this summer at 25 S. St. Clair, one block away from Fifth Third Field, the home of the Toledo Mud Hens baseball club. The downtown facility will brew on a two-barrel system, creating small-batch experimental and limited-release beers while a public taproom will be built to serve those beers along with core products for onsite consumption, to-go DORA cups and six-packs to go.
“We are looking forward to becoming part of our community’s downtown experience,” said ebw co-owner and co-brewer Scot Yarnell. “Imagine a warm summer evening, one of 12 earnest beers in a DORA cup, being enjoyed in the heart of our area.
“Earnest Downtown will be a great thing.”
In total, the brewery plans to create 25 new jobs in the expansion, with a mix of full and part-time positions.
Not only will the new production facility on Byrne give ebw the much needed room to increase brewing capacity, a public taproom will also be built onsite that will seat 150 patrons inside and 100 more on the patio.
The brewery just celebrated its fourth anniversary this past fall. Yarnell and fellow co-brewer/owner Keefe Snyder started the brewery in November of 2016 with just three 7-barrel fermenters as its brewing capacity with a small public taproom. Now, ebw has maxed out its space with five 7-bbl and six 20-bbl fermenters, along with two 20-bbl brite tanks and a 7-bbl brite.
Maxed out on brewing capacity and with the taproom being packed on the weekends, the duo decided to pursue a larger building.
“From the start, the plan was to open, learn what and how to brew great beer, and grow by reinvesting in additional tanks,” Yarnell said. This plan worked, and the need for a new brewery was realized in the summer of 2019, when the last of the 20-barrel tanks was installed.
The original ebw facility — located at 4342 S. Detroit — will remain operational until the new production facility is complete.
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