Anchor Brewery–“A Second Brewery is an Inevitability”

Exciting news from our pal Mark Carpenter  @ Anchor Brewery via the Washington Post:

After years of running in place, with production hovering around 90,000 barrels a year, the brewery is growing again. Carpenter says Anchor should produce 110,000 barrels in 2012, a company record. The brewery has added four 290-barrel cellaring tanks, and two more are on their way. Carpenter says a second brewery is an inevitability, although he adds it won’t necessarily be an East Coast branch of the sort Sierra Nevada and New Belgium are constructing.

Carpenter comments on the change in corporate philosophy: “Fritz wanted to have a brewery small enough so he could know everyone, a single-shift, five-day-a-week operation. He wanted to have a business where he’d like to work.”

The new owners, best known for turning Skyy Vodka into a multimillion dollar brand, “have as long a vision as Fritz had.” That vision involves growing the Anchor brand to keep pace with newer, more ambitious breweries.