The new expansion will move the brewery from their Ravenswood location to a major redevelopment near Rockwell and Barry led by Paul Levy, the developer behind the Bridgeport Art Center. This new space is a collection of industrial buildings with its back up against the North Branch of the Chicago River. In fact, the brewery plans to take full advantage of that bit of green space for the future taproom, and a good bit of cleanup and beautifying is part of the overall development project meant to focus Chicago’s food and beverage fans on a group of businesses that share a similar ethos. Food innovation labs, a coffee roaster (Metropolis), and numerous other food and beverage companies (word is a distiller and a chocolate company) are all part of the plans.

For Metro’s final build out, they’ll be transitioning from a 15bbl two-vessel brewhouse to a 30bbl three-vessel brewhouse with an end-game capacity of about 45 thousand barrels a year (it’ll be a long while before they utilize that capacity fully), which more than doubles their current production capabilities on the hot side alone. “This will be our final move,” says Hurst, “We’re setting up to grow inside that 20-thousand square foot space. We can add vessels to increase efficiency and the number of tanks we’ll eventually have will get us to the end of our business plan.” While the new capacity will be freeing in may ways, the constraints they’ve been working under have pushed the team to be better and more efficient — a characteristic Hurst plans on bringing with them to the new digs.

“Constraint on a small business is good because it teaches to you to work within your parameters,” says Hurst. “It forces you to be creative and inventive in how you solve problems. If you have cash, you can throw it at your problems.” Indeed, while getting a bank loan seems like a new day for Metropolitan, it’s not “fuck off money.” They’ll still be working inside of a conservative financial model, and working hard to continue focusing on process and efficiencies to keep them on top of their game.

"I’m proud of our team. They focus on being efficient, improving our process, and while the beer is always on-point, they’re always coming up with new ways of doing the same things. These constraints taught us well, and attracted the kind of people to our team who were willing to face that challenge. Now we’re going to a new space, and that cash will have been spent. We’ll be as tight as ever, and our entire team is motivated. We have a great sense of pride solving problems with intelligence and not money. We’ll have immediate relief to hire help — I work 12-14 hours a day, every day. so it’ll certainly help a lot. Maybe I’ll lead a normal life at some point, but I’m not holding my breath."