Thanks to Beer Enthusiasts, We’re Growing!

We announced today that we plan to expand our brewery production facility at our current site, 235 Grandville Ave SW. Pending approvals, we expect to break ground on this expansion in late October.

The expansion will take place in two phases: the first phase will involve the addition of approximately 37,000 square feet comprised of space for new production equipment, including a new 300 barrel (bbl) brew house and new fermentation tanks, as well as additional offices. The second phase will add approximately 20,000 square feet of space for more fermenting and packaging equipment.

“The focus of this expansion is to increase the capacity of our production facility—to brew more beer right here in Grand Rapids, Michigan,” said Mike Stevens, our co-founder and CEO. “Because of increasing demand from the growing beer enthusiast community, we aren’t able to fill orders right now. We’re expanding because we’re committed to this city, this state and the craft beer community.”

After both phases of the expansion, the Founders production facility will have the footprint for 900,000 bbl of capacity, which will be achieved incrementally through the addition of more fermenters and updated packaging equipment. We expect to end 2014 having shipped 200,000 bbl of beer and to ship 300,000 bbl in 2015.

We also plan to add 72 jobs over three years, ranging from managerial to operations to sales positions, generated by this expansion.