Baxter Brewing Announces Expansion Plans

From Baxter Brewing:
Baxter Brewing has begun construction on a new, full-scale Taproom; the new tap room will have a foot print over 10 times the current tap room to accommodate patrons that can’t find a place to sit in the current tap room.

“One of the greatest attractions and assets of Baxter has always been the 170 year-old textile mill we call home”, said Baxter Brewing Founder, Luke Livingston, “but we’ve never been able to really show it off the way we’d like from our current space. It is definitely a challenge to historically retrofit a mill built in 1850, but having our brewers and tap handles sharing the same space with the millwrights and cotton tarps of the past is inspiring”.

The new 4,800 sq. ft. Taproom, expected to open this summer, will do just that: “Highlight our unique brewery backdrop and tell the Bates Mill story like we’ve never been able to do before”, said Andy Bielecki, Baxter’s Taproom Manager who joined the staff last year after previously running the taproom at Swamp Head Brewery in Gainesville, FL, one of that state’s oldest breweries. “I’m excited that we’re going to be able to finally not only truly accommodate the crowds of people that come to Baxter each weekend to tour and taste, but greatly expand upon the variety of beer we’ll have on tap as well.”
Baxter’s new Taproom will have greatly-expanded seating options—including outdoor space along the Mill’s impressive canal and waterfall system, when the weather permits—and hours of operation; several more taps of unique and hard-to-find Baxter beers, including an expanded barrel-aging program; and many more surprises to come.
While greater-Portland is home to thirty-plus taprooms and brewpubs, Lewiston-Auburn has but three. “Just as we do with the Great Falls Brewfest every summer, our commitment is to continue to bring beer enthusiasts just a little further up the 95 corridor to see everything this community has going for it,” said Livingston. “Promotion of the Lewiston-Auburn community has always been at the heart of our Core Values at Baxter; what better way to accomplish that then through beer tourism, one of the fastest-growing groups of visitors to Maine! We know that anyone we can get to travel just a little further north will love not only what they’re going to find here at the Bates Mill, but throughout our community.”