Shipyard Brewing Export Ale Coming to Cans & Pumpkinhead Expands Production (Memphis, TN)
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MyBeer Buzz
Exciting news coming from Shipyard Brewing:
PORTLAND, ME – (12 July 2012) – Due to the high demand for Shipyard Pumpkinhead, Shipyard Brewing Company is pleased to announce it has leased space to begin brewing at an additional location in Memphis, Tennessee. This will also allow Shipyard to offer its products in cans for the first time and expand its overall brewing capacity.
“This is a very exciting time in our growth,” stated Shipyard’s president Fred Forsley. “Our brewery in Portland is at full capacity and this allows us to meet consumer demand for our products.”
Shipyard has leased space within a brewery in Memphis and manufactured tanks to employ its signature open top fermentation brewing process using Ringwood Yeast. Master Brewer Alan Pugsley did the first brew in June and cans of Shipyard Export will be available in Maine starting next week with other select markets to follow this summer. Shipyard Pumpkinhead will be available in cans this fall.
This is not the first time Shipyard has brewed outside of Maine. In 1997, Shipyard opened the world’s first airport microbrewery at the Orlando International Airport. Today, the Shipyard Brew Pub in Winter Park, Florida operates its own nano-brewery. Plans are also underway to open a 20 barrel brewing facility elsewhere in Florida later this year, using the same brewing system that had been installed at the Orlando airport.
Keep in mind Shipyard was originally trying to purchase City brewing…so this is no surprise. This is a new arrangement with Shipyard & City Brewing in Memphis and I suspect there’s a new alternative proprietorship arrangement going on here. Should be interesting to see how they deal with the open fermentation vessels necessary for Shipyard.
Further updates from MaineBiz:
As the third-largest craft brewery in New England, Shipyard has had a hard time keeping up with fervent consumer demand that saw a 31.7% increase in sales from 2010 to 2011, according to Tami Kennedy, director of communications for the brewery.
Shipyard has leased space from Memphis-based City Brewing and installed three 1,000-barrel tanks. The first batch of Shipyard Export, the brewery’s flagship ale, was made there in June by Shipyard master brewer Alan Pugsley and will be available in Maine this week, according to Kennedy. The company’s Portland brewery is at full capacity.
In an effort to maintain quality and consistency, Kennedy says the Memphis operation will use the same equipment, ingredients and methods as in Portland, including its open-top fermentation brewing process.
Despite only being available for three months of the year, Pumpkinhead, the brewery’s autumn seasonal ale, accounts for nearly one quarter of all sales.
"Pumpkinhead is a cult phenomenon," says Kennedy. "There are now a lot of pumpkin beers on the market, but ours continues to catapult in sales. We had a hard time keeping up last year, so that was the driving force for us making decision about how and where to expand production."
Memphis-brewed Shipyard will be easy to distinguish from its local counterpart in it will be in cans. Kennedy says the brewery will start by canning Export, with Pumpkinhead following suit in the fall and Summer Ale making its first appearance in aluminum by next year.
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