(ITHACA, NY) – Ithaca Beer Co. has had its hands full the last eight months, and some of you noticed. Now there is some light at the end of the tunnel. While Ithaca Beer is limited on store shelves and the IBC Tasting Room recently closed at the old brewery, in just a couple weeks, not only will IBC open doors to a new brewery, beer garden and taproom.
In addition, IBC will begin shipping-to-market lots of craft beer brewed on IBC’s new brewing system, including a brand new summer-come-autumn seasonal pumpkin ale, Country Pumpkin.
Dan Mitchell, owner of IBC broke ground for the new brewery over one year ago on August 26, 2011, and now, he is wrapping up final work on the taproom and beer garden in order to open doors to the public once again.
“We were hoping to open sometime in May this year, but the building process took much longer than we thought. A few months back, I was deeply worried about how we were going to put all the pieces of this new place together, but now, the brewery has truly taken shape, and things are back on track. The beer garden already looks amazing!”
The taproom and beer garden will open in mid-September selling pints of beer, flights of beer, and limited small plates of food items until the full kitchen opens later in October, at which point, the taproom will offer a full menu that features gourmet wood-fired pizzas made from locally sourced ingredients. The taproom will also sell packaged beer and apparel as well as offer weekend brewery tours when the doors open in mid-September.
When Mitchell set about building the new brewery, one of his goals was to seamlessly transition from brewing on the old, beyond-capacity brewing system to brewing on a brand new, state-of-the-art brewing system, which has twice the brewing capacity of the old one.
“We wanted to keep the beer flowing throughout this whole process. We wanted to close the doors on the old place one day, and open doors to the new place the very next, but as we got further along and beer demand kept going up, we realized there was no feasible way to move tanks and brew beer to meet demand,” at least without having to buy all new tanks for the new place, which was unfeasible.
Many customers have noticed a shortage of Ithaca Beer on store shelves, at bars, and at restaurants, but Mitchell hopes these customers will be relieved to hear that a whole lot of beer is about to ship out, including a brand new seasonal ale called Country Pumpkin – Ale brewed with Pumpkin and Spices, and Outdoor Ale – our very limited, fresh-hopped seasonal ale. Country Pumpkin will be available in bottle and draft. Outdoor will be available in draft only.
Customers will also see a return of all their favorite beers in the market very soon.
“Our new system is already brewing more beer and better quality beer than we have ever brewed before.”
Cult followers of Flower Power – India Pale Ale may find relief in knowing a whole lot of Flower Power has been brewed and fermenting in tanks. In the coming week, it will be bottled and shipped out.
“This has been an overwhelming growth step for us.” says Mitchell, “Huge, in fact, but now, things are looking up. It’s getting exciting!”
IBC will announce the new brewery opening on its website soon. Check www.ithacabeer.com for updates.
