Ask Wesley Keegan his business plan for TailGate Beer and the answer is ambitious but straightforward: to be the best craft beer maker in Tennessee.

Keegan’s not necessarily talking about beating out his competitors — in fact, he’s not all that concerned with what other breweries are doing — but he wants to grow TailGate into a large-scale brewery while still putting quality and innovation at the forefront.

“I’ve learned a lot in doing this for as long as I have. If you’re not big, you’re small. You kind of have to be big and do things at a higher volume because the margins aren’t very big,” Keegan said.

The brewery, which specializes in small-batch and experimental craft brews, just wrapped a yearlong major expansion at its West Nashville headquarters that positions the company for the kind of fast-track growth that’s unusual in the Nashville craft beer market. Music City is now home to about a third of the state’s 66 breweries.

A new 50-barrel brewhouse means TailGate has the potential to eventually brew up to 120,000 barrels per year. For comparison, Yazoo Brewing Co., Nashville’s largest craft brewer by volume, produces roughly 30,000 barrels of beer each year. Annual production for craft beer powerhouse Bell’s Brewery in Michigan reaches around 400,000 barrels. Tennessee breweries as a whole produce 250,247 barrels of beer per year, according to the Brewers Association.

To be sure, TailGate needs to grow into its expanded facility and it takes time to ramp up production in a sizable way. But Keegan invested big money (he won’t say exactly how much, but he doesn’t have outside partners or investors in his business) to add 10,000 square feet to his 16,000-square-foot facility at 7300 Charlotte Pike, install the new brewhouse, buy an ultra-fast canning line and add a cold storage room.

“We have a really nice museum right now, but we have to fill the tanks,” Keegan said. “I’m positioning myself to grow; that’s it.”

Keegan’s go big or go home mentality comes from more than a decade of experience in the craft beer industry, a career he began when he was 21. He relocated TailGate to Nashville from San Diego a few years ago, and he’s watched many other breweries struggle with capacity issues.

“I did this for eight or nine years, so when I got (to Nashville), I was like, ‘OK, what were my issues?’ My issues were I couldn’t brew enough and I needed a tasting room. So I tried to address it all and because this property was so big, I could expand,” Keegan said.

The brewery, which employs 70 people, has been on a growth spurt since its relocation, including opening a second tasting room in November on Demonbreun Street, right near Music Row and Nashville’s booming tourist scene. Keegan said sales at the Charlotte Pike tasting room doubled after the Demonbreun Street location opened thanks to increased visibility.

“I’ve learned a lot of lessons,” Keegan said. “When I started, people didn’t care about tasting rooms, then three years later they started to. The industry has really evolved.”

Additional tasting rooms are likely in TailGate’s future, Keegan added.

TailGate has 80 beer taps between its two tasting rooms. Its brews are sold in hundreds of stores and bars in the state. The brewery is focused exclusively on sales in the Tennessee market along with some international accounts in England, Scotland and Ireland.

“We really need to be the best that we can be in Nashville and in Tennessee. I’m not interested in expanding for the sake of getting a quick order,” Keegan said.

By the numbers: Tennessee craft beer industry

66: Number of craft breweries in the state

24: Tennessee's overall ranking by the number of craft breweries in the state

250,247: Barrels of craft beer produced each year by Tennessee breweries

Source: Brewers Association

Reach Lizzy Alfs at lalfs@tennessean.com or 615-726-5948 and on Twitter @lizzyalfs.