(Chicago, IL) – As 7,000 or so beer industry professionals crowded into Washington, DC, this week for the Craft Brewers Conference, one notable brewery owner was missing. Lagunitas Brewing founder, Tony Magee, wrote on Twitter this week that he hadn’t “been to one since ’01. Just not much of a joiner, I guess.” Fitting that he may have delivered the biggest news of the week, far away from the Nation’s Capital…

Lagunitas is expanding its plan for Chicago, taking over the whole facility it is already building in and prepping it for a second brewhouse. That plan will eventually bring Chicago capacity to a whopping 1.7 million barrels on top of 700k barrels at the original plant in Petaluma.

At 2.4 million barrels, that would put Lagunitas as the second-largest “craft” brewery behind The Boston Beer Company in terms of brewing capacity.

Below, how the news unfolded over Twitter…

Headin home tomorrow. Tday was about actual budget revelations in Chicago. Chi has very deep fire codes. Increases cost, but safety too. — LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) March 29, 2013

As we crunch thing$ we’ve moved towards more long term thinking on brewing capacity. Who’s to say what craft beer CAN’t be? Seems clear… — LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) March 29, 2013

…the arrow of Craft is pointing upwards for the foreseeable future. So we took the whole 300M ft2 of the building (15 million ft3!!)… — LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) March 29, 2013

…and building in prep for a second brewhouse and ferm cellar at Chicago starting now. Means Chicago is scaled for 1,700,000 bbls. — LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) March 29, 2013

Petaluma will work at its current 700,000bbls totaling to 2,400,000 bbls… Does that seem insane? Not from my seat. The world belongs… — LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) March 29, 2013