The Columbus Brewing Company is planning for growth over the next few years… exponentially. CBC Owner and Brewmaster Eric Bean just closed on a new manufacturing facility for their brewing operations at 2555 Harrison Road, which is nearly ten times the size of the former brewery.

“We weren’t looking for nearly this much space, but it has everything we wanted up front,” explains Bean. “It’s going to mean a lot of empty warehouse space for the first few years, but the price was right to pay for that up front to give us the room to expand.”

Currently located in 6,000 square feet of space in the Brewery District, CBC has been brewing local beers since 1988. Their Pale Ale is their most popular style (and highly praised with a score of 94 on BeerAdvocate.com), which Bean says has been both a blessing and a curse in some aspects.

“We’ve got a limited portfolio for a brewery of our size because we’re limited by the success of our IPA,” he says. “People ask when we’re going to brew new beers, but with only 6,000 square feet of space we couldn’t slow down IPA production to make others.”

The new warehouse on the West Side of Columbus boasts approximately 50,000 square feet of space, which should be more than enough room to expand. Bean says that phase one of the expansion includes an upgrade in brewing capacity from 12,000 barrels per year to 25,000 barrels per year with plenty of additional room to continue to grow beyond that. He hopes to have phase one completed and operational by early summer 2015.

“We’re working through the details, but we should also have some sort of tasting room and a space for people to come see our process,” he adds. “We’re trying to figure out how elaborate that will be in phase one. We we are buying some shiny new equipment, so we definitely want to show it off.”

While the brewing operations are relocating, the restaurant at 525 Short Street is not. The two businesses are separate and operate independently.

For more information, visit www.columbusbrewing.com.