Get hype, Toronto, because one of the city’s best craft breweries is set expand its operation.
The owners of Bellwoods Brewery announced this morning, in a charmingly titled blog post called “Coming of Age“, that they’ve acquired a new location at 950 Dupont. Once the location is refitted to serve as a brewery, it will become Bellwoods’ primary production facility.
The reason for the expansion should be obvious to anyone that’s visited the brewery’s Ossington location in the past couple of months: despite their best efforts, the Bellwoods simply can’t keep up with current demand. “…even with the preparation of last year and the most aggressive brew schedule we’ve ever tackled, we’re just barely keeping beers on draft and shelves. In the winter we were able to regularly keep a line up of 10 beers in the Bottle Shop. As I write this today, we have 2,” say the company’s founders on their website. “Lots of people tell us this is a good problem to have, but if you like to drink our beer you probably understand that less is not more. As it turns out, with craft beer, more is more. Sorry, age-old adage!”
Once the location is operational, it will help scale the production of the brewery’s most popular brews, including the Roman Candle, Witchshark, Monogamy, Bounty Hunter, Hellwood and Wizard Wolf, to help meet demand. Moreover, the move will allow the brewpub to focus on brewing additional one offs.
That said, although the new location will be focused on the production side of things, a small amount of space will be allocated for those that want to visit and enjoy a brew on the spot.
Other interesting tidbits from the blog post include that the new location will employ 10 to 15 full-time staff, as well up to 30 part-time staff. In addition, the building’s owner and Bellwoods have come to an agreement to jointly share the cost of restoring the building—which, judging from the photos up on the brewery’s website (one of which you can see above), is set to be a significant undertaking. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the new location is set to open next summer—unless something should delay the process, of course.
No word yet, however, on whether any of this means that the lineups at the Ossington location will get any shorter. I guess you can’t have it all.
Image via Bellwoods Brewery blog.
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Igor Bonifacic is the managing editor of Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter.
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