Great Flood Brewing Co. Expansion

 

The Great Flood Brewing Company brewpub originally opened in the upper Highlands neighborhood only a bit over two years ago, they are now preparing for a major expansion.

Recently I was able to tour the new production brewery and taproom. Vince Cain showed me around the 13,000 sq. ft. space. Mr. Cain along with Matt Fuller and Zach Barnes are the owners of Great Flood Brewing.

The vast building at 629 Bergman Street is mostly empty at this stage; they only received the keys about two weeks ago!

First we entered the administrative/office areas that will also include a lab. The tour required some imagination since the new brewery equipment had not arrived. Most of the brewhouse is coming second hand from a California brewery.

The new steel tanks will arrive shortly and will be a nice upgrade for Great Flood Brewing. The new equipment will be insulated and temperature control, unlike what the brewers are currently using. They will be receiving a 15 BBL mash tun and boil kettle, six 30 BBL fermenters, a 30 BBL and a 60 BBL brite tank.

The Great Flood brewers have been making beer with a 2 BBL system that included plastic fermenters. That steel will be a sexy upgrade!

A canning line has been purchased as well. They will be offering two beers in cans as soon as the equipment and beer are ready. One of the beers will be an American IPA, the other style has not been announced. Distribution will be through River City Distributing.

I have seen a mock up of several of the labels designed by Pearce Shanks a cartoonist/artist and taproom employee. You can expect the nice art deco Great Flood logo to be prominent.

They are projecting that they will be producing beer at this location by the end of the year. The brewers will be experimenting with several test batches as they scale up on their new brewhouse. They currently produce about 300 BBLs per year. The new equipment will enable Great Flood to produce up to 4200 BBLs per year.

All of the spent grain will continue to be donated local farmers. In their sustainability efforts they even repurpose the grain bags, which are used by local artists.

The way Vince described it the planned taproom will be similar to Madtree Brewing, Civil Life Brewing, or Oskar Blues Brewing taprooms. There will be a tap wall on the walk in warehouse cooler with tables among the brew works. There will be a family and dog friendly outdoor area with tables, cornhole, etc. Additionally there is plenty of room for food trucks and perhaps live music.

On Bergman Street they are surrounded by the buildings of Forth Technologies, a chemical/pigments company. The area definitely has an industrial feel to it although it is very close to residential areas and only a stone’s throw from the new Germantown Lofts.

I suspect the new location will have a different feel but will retain the friendly laid-back atmosphere of the Bardstown Road location. It will be nice to have another Germantown beer destination. Welcome to the neighborhood.