LONGMONT — Both of Longmont’s craft breweries grew about four times the industry average in 2011, according to the most recent figures released from the Boulder-based Brewers Association.
Left Hand Brewing Co. and Oskar Blues both released 2011 production numbers Wednesday, reporting increases of 49.4 percent and 40.5 percent, respectively, over 2010.
Left Hand produced 36,833 barrels of beer in 2011, an increase of more than 12,000 barrels over the previous year. The brewery’s vice president of operations, Chris Lennert, said he hadn’t finished tallying up the revenue for the past year, but expected it to be 45 percent to 50 percent more than in 2010.
“It was an amazing year,” he said.
Part of Left Hand’s growth was due to the 40-foot-tall, 480-barrel tanks that the company installed behind the brewery in late 2010. Those tanks became fully operational this past year.
“They’ve allowed us to grow that much,” said Jake Kolakowski, the brewery’s packaging manager. “We wouldn’t have been able to grow that much without them.”
Kolakowski also noted that a keg-filling machine the company installed in the spring can fill 70 kegs per hour, “instead of our old one that could do 20.”
And those huge fermentation tanks that tower over Left Hand’s Boston Avenue facilities will soon get some company, according to co-founder Eric Wallace.
Three more will be installed in February, and a new 500-barrel “bright tank” will be installed on Monday. The bright tank holds the brew between the fermentation and bottling stages.
“All this growth — it’s caught us a bit by surprise,” Wallace said Wednesday.
Left Hand, founded on Boston Avenue in 1994, this year will be adding a new bottling line and a centrifuge to aid in production of its new bottled Milk Stout Nitro.
Oskar Blues expanding as well
Oskar Blues is in the middle of a $4 million expansion, which included the addition of a new, much larger canning line that runs at twice the speed of its old one and can produce 16-ounce cans. Look for 16-ounce Deviant Dale’s IPA to hit stores in March.
More than a dozen new tanks and extensive infrastructure upgrades are also part of the current expansion.
Oskar Blues produced 59,000 barrels in 2011 — up from 42,000 the previous year — ensconcing the company on the Brewers Association list of top 50 American breweries.
The 17,000-barrel increase about equaled the brewery’s total output in 2008, the year it moved its brewing operations to Longmont.
The brewery opened in Lyons in 2002 as the nation’s first craft brewer to put its beers in cans. Since then, about 150 craft brewers around the country have followed suit.
Aside from the growth of beer sales, 2011 was a landmark year for Oskar Blues in other ways, too.
Owner Dale Katechis opened his Hops & Heifers Farm, on which he grows hops to make some of his beer and raises cattle served at his restaurants.
The company launched a new single-gear bicycle company, REEB Cycles, and rolled out the Bonewagon, its mobile food truck.
According to the Brewers Association, the craft beer industry experienced growth by volume of about 11 percent in 2010, the most recent numbers available.
Katechis said in a statement Wednesday that all of those endeavors “are an extension of what this is all about; doing what you love.”
Tony Kindelspire can be reached at 303-684-5291 or at tkindelspire@times-call.com.
