U.S. Distillery & Brewery Project Activity Maintains Strength
U.S. per capita alcohol consumption has been on the rise in recent years, with a sharp spike in alcohol use seen during the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic. While those days of quarantining and looking for an outlet from stress and isolation may have diminished, the U.S. distillery and brewing sectors are going strong, showing billions of dollars in active projects. Industrial Info's coverage of this sector includes both large commercial plants aiming to get out as much product as possible and smaller operations set on creating smaller craft batches of beers and spirits.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, two of the largest projects come from some of the largest producers of alcoholic beverages in the U.S. and world, Molson Coors Brewing Company (NYSE:TAP) (Chicago, Illinois), known for its beers, and Diageo (NYSE:DEO) (London, England), which manufactures some of the world's best known alcoholic beverages, including Johnnie Walker scotch, Guiness beer, Smirnoff vodka, Captain Morgan spiced rum and Crown Royal whisky.
Coors is expanding its famed brewery in Golden, Colorado by constructing a 200,000-square-foot building addition, featuring a new bottling line and related equipment, to increase production capacity. The project kicked off in 2020 and is expected to be completed later this year. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Food & Beverage Project Database can learn more by viewing the project report.
Diageo has even larger plans in store for Montgomery, Alabama, where the company this year plans to begin construction on a grassroot distillery and warehousing facility. Construction on the 200,000-square-foot facility is set to begin later this year, putting it on track for completion in late 2025, when it will begin ramping up toward production of 10 million gallons of spirits per year. Subscribers can click here to learn more about the project.
Kentucky easily lives up to its reputation as the whisky capital of the U.S., boasting more than $3 billion worth of active distillery projects. The largest of these projects is underway in Bardstown, about 40 miles southeast of Louisville, where Heaven Hill Distilleries Incorporated (Bardstown) is underway with construction of a grassroot distillery. The first phase of construction, which began in 2022 and is expected to wrap up later this year, includes a new whisky production area, a grain-receiving building, grain lab and fire pump building and will result in production of 150,000 gallons per year of whisky products. Subscribers can learn more by viewing the project report.
Another project in Bardstown also is set to be completed by the end of this year. Bardstown Bourbon Company (Bardstown) is expanding its distillery with a 15,000-square-foot building addition that will include 16 new fermenters, a new distillation column, grain-handling equipment and more to increase production capacity to 55,000 barrels per year. General contractor Buzick Construction Incorporated (Bardstown) began construction on the expansion about a year ago. Subscribers can click here to learn more.
In addition to these and other larger projects, Industrial Info also is tracking more than 120 active projects planned or underway at craft breweries and distilleries, which produce smaller batches of beverages of reputedly higher quality or that has unique attributes. Many of these are being built on brownfield sites, often with historic ties to the industry or community. Big Spring Spirits (Bellefonte, Pennsylvania), a distiller taking pride in its Pennsylvania ingredients and locations, is putting the finishing touches on a mixed-used project that includes a new distillery at the site of the last pre-Prohibition whisky distillery in Pittsburgh. The project emphasizes the location as a place to enjoy Big Spring's products, with a rooftop bar and a marketplace featuring local merchants. Subscribers learn more by viewing the project report.
In a similar project, New Realm Brewing Company (Atlanta, Georgia) is nearing completion of a development featuring a craft brewery at a historic cigar warehouse dating back to 1882 in Greenville, South Carolina. The external features of the historic building will be largely preserved, while interior renovations will modernize the facility for today's consumers. In addition to the brewhouse, the facility also will feature dining and meeting spaces. Subscribers can learn more by viewing the project report.
Subscribers to Industrial Info's GMI Food & Beverage Database can click here to view reports for all of the project discussed in this article and click here for the related plant profiles.
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 trillion (USD).