The city’s craft brewers are fuelling a building boom that brings construction workers and beer together like never before.

At least nine craft microbrewery startups and three major brewery expansions — by Steamworks, Mark James Group and Central City — are in varying stages of development in Metro Vancouver, all with an eye to opening before the end of the year.

Surrey’s Central City Brewing Co. is nearing completion on a massive 65,000-square-foot brewery near the Pattullo Bridge. The project will immediately triple the brewing capacity of the brew pub with new equipment dedicated to its successful Red Racer line of beers, and still leave plenty of room to grow.

The goal is to take Red Racer across Canada and into the northwestern United States, according to owner and brewmaster Gary Lohin, who is in Italy commissioning new packaging lines. Lohin already has product in 120 stores in B.C. and 230 stores in Ontario.

“The new brewing equipment is in transit,” said sales and marketing manager Tim Barnes. Test batches will get underway in May with an eye to opening July 13.

Plans for a lounge and tasting room are still mostly in the sketches-on-napkins stage, but Central City plans to take full advantage of recent loosening of B.C.’s tied-house laws, which now allow breweries to serve and sell their products on site.

Campaign for Real Ale BC president Rick Green applauded new government rules that offer breweries many of the same revenue opportunities enjoyed by wineries, adding they will only help fuel more consumer choice in beer.

Vancouver’s Steamworks Brew Pub entered the retail market in 2012 with the Signature Pale Ale that has been a mainstay in the Water Street establishment for nearly 18 years. A Pilsner has been added to the core list of beers being sold in bottles and kegs, as have recent seasonal limited releases such as Oatmeal Stout and Blitzen Christmas Ale.

A new brewery in Burnaby, slated to open July 1, will massively expand production of bottles and cans for the retail market and kegs for other pubs, according to Steamworks president Walter Cosman. Steamworks has been producing bottles under contract at Langley’s Dead Frog Brewing while the new brewery is being built.

“We are looking at expansion to Alberta and Ontario,” Cosman said.

The new facility will include 25,000 sq. ft of production space and a 2,000-sq.-ft tasting room, an amenity made legal by B.C.’s new relaxed liquor laws.

Newly hired brewer Caolan Vaughan expects to add to the roster of seasonal releases and has plans for a program of barrel-aged beers and out-of-the-box innovations.

“I hope to combine some New World and some Old World philosophies and make some imperial stouts and double IPAs,” said Vaughan, a 28-year-old Australian who has worked for Little Creatures Brewery in her native country and more recently for U.K.-based Thornbridge Brewery.

Cosman reckons there is room for more and bigger craft brewers in B.C.’s beer market.

“When you look at Portland and see that craft beer has 40 per cent of the beer market and Seattle is in the range of 30 per cent, there is no sign of this growth slowing down,” said Cosman. “Craft beer is still less than 20 per cent of the beer market (in B.C.).”