BrewDog opens brewery in competitive central Ohio beer market

by Ben Garbarek Click here to view original web page at abc6onyourside.com

Monday, February 20th 2017

CANAL WINCHESTER, Ohio (WSYX/WTTE) — Scottish brewery BrewDog opened its North American headquarters for the first time Monday in Canal Winchester.

The $30 million facility on Gender Road took nearly two years to build and is the size of about two football fields. It will house BrewDog’s brewing equipment, distribution center and taproom.

The brewery will start brewing in March. It’ll sell its beer across Ohio and perhaps eventually nationwide. The facility in Canal Winchester is designed to be a tourist destination.

“We had people coming from Brazil,” said Keith Bennet, who moved from Scotland to start the brewery in the US. “We’ve had people driving down from Michigan just to have a beer, things like that. So, it’s really exciting. Hopefully, people do make it a destination and we can make it a really cool place to hang out.”

BrewDog will be competing with more than 30 breweries in central Ohio and more than 200 across the state. The Ohio Craft Brewers Association said the number of breweries in Ohio has quadrupled since 2012.

“People have a passion for it,” said Mary MacDonald with the Ohio Craft Brewers Association. “It’s something that they love. A lot of them are former home brewers turned professional and they want to serve something that’s local to their market.”

MacDonald said the market doesn’t appear to have hit its saturation point yet. She said there are more than 60 new ones in the works across the state.

“You’ve got more farmers markets, you’ve got more locally owned restaurants, you’ve got lots of artisan bakeries and things like that and the craft beer scene is kind of following that,” she said.

BrewDog also made headlines last week by announcing a new perk for its employees. Employees will get a week of paid leave if they adopt a dog.