Someone at Boulevard dredged up this awesome newspaper article from 1989 about Free State and Boulevard starting up. It's a great view into the past of American craft beer. The fact that craft beer was only 0.1% of the US market in 1989 shows us how far we've come even if 7.8% of the market doesn't seem like very much now.
I thought that it was very interesting to see that Boulevard was started with a $1.3 million investment, and Free State was started with nearly $1 million in investment (accounting for inflation). Might be something to think about for all of the new breweries starting up these days.
The article also states, "McDonald thinks that staying small is the key. He doesn't think he will ever brew more than 25,000 barrels of beer annually." Boulevard
just announced the groundbreaking on their new $12 million Cellar 5 project. The project is expected to expand Boulevard's annual capacity to over 300,000 barrels. You can see a rendering of Cellar 5 below the newspaper clippings. How times have changed for craft brewers!
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| Click on the image for a larger view. |
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| Click on the image for a larger view. |
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| As viewed from Southwest Blvd, the Cellar 5 expansion shown here is the taupe colored building on the right. |
