In the mid-90s Greg Koch had a vision, to make American beer that people actually enjoyed drinking. It was a novel concept in a country that specializes in watered down, mass-produced beer that favors quantity over quality. Fifteen years later, Koch oversees Stone Brewing Co., a coast-to-coast craft beer distributor based out of San Diego, CA, that ships to 36 states across the US and plans to get even bigger.
“It was the classic story of boy meets beer, boy falls in love, boy has a new career,” says Koch, the company’s Founder and CEO. “With craft beer, people get their money’s worth. Instead of paying for fizzy, watery liquid, they’re getting something that has character and is delicious and satisfying.”
Stone isn’t content to rest on its laurels. Instead, Southern California’s largest craft brewery is about to get even bigger. The company is aggressively pursuing $26 million worth of plans to greatly increase its presence in San Diego, double its production and distribution capacity throughout the US, and eventually open a brewery in Europe.
That’s right, for the first time ever a major American craft beer distributor might be opening its doors in the Old Country, where quality brews are commonplace. For the last year and a half Stone Brewing has been trying to become the first American company to open a craft brewery in Europe, with potential sites being looked at in Berlin or Bruges. While that project has been slowed by legislative barriers in Europe, Koch remains optimistic that the project will be underway soon.
Meanwhile American fans of Stone Brewing don’t need to fret, the company isn’t going anywhere. Instead Koch plans to double the size of his operations here in the US by expanding the capacity of the company’s main brewery, located in Escondido just a few miles north of San Diego. Currently, Stone ships its products from its brewery in San Diego County to 36 different states across the US.
“We’re going to renovate our main location in Escondido to allow us to double our national production capacity,” says Koch. “Eventually the Escondido location will be a brand-new 55,000 sq. ft. building.”
Construction on the renovated main brewery in northern San Diego won’t begin for another two years, but the company already has two other projects underway closer to downtown San Diego. The company has begun construction on a Stone Company Store in the town of South Park just outside the city, and will soon start renovating a brand new restaurant at the historic naval training center at San Diego’s Liberty Station.
Here’s a roundup of Stone’s ambitious plans:
- Expanding the company’s main Escondido brewery, doubling production to produce about a half million barrels of beer a year that will be shipped all over the US.
- Building a 400-seat restaurant at Liberty Station just north of downtown San Diego.
- Opening a sixty-barrel brewery in the European market, currently looking at locations in Berlin or Bruges.
- Running an 18.7-acre farm in North County San Diego that will supply organic produce to the company’s two restaurants — Liberty Station and the existing Stone World Bistro & Gardens in Escondido.
- Open shop in South Park’s “beer corridor,” selling Stone bottles, kegs and half-gallon ‘growlers’.
The plan may seem daunting considering Stone Brewing Co. would have to add about 250 new employees, acquire 35 acres of land, and spend $26 million to build 125,000 square-feet of work space.
“But it’s just our time right now as craft brewers,” said co-founder and brewmaster Steve Wagner.
Wagner may be on to something, as the craft-beer market has been exploding in the US in recent years. While overall American beer sales dropped by one percent in 2010, craft beer sales rose by 11 percent according to the US Brewers Association. Stone Brewing alone pulled in $65 million in revenue in 2010, and is expected to surpass $70 million this year.
Stone's Upcoming Projects from stonebrew on Vimeo.
