Production at Fox River Brewing Continues to Surge

Let's take a look at the numbers. The Wisconsin Department of Revenue has released beer production reports through August of this year (there's always a couple months of lag time). The numbers coming in from Fox River Brewing Company are surprising.

Production at Fox River is up 38% over the same period last year. In fact, Fox River has already produced more beer during the first eight months of 2015 than it did in all of 2014. At this point, the brewery is among the fastest growing in the state.

Here's the raw data. Over the first eight months of this year Fox River has produced 1353.16 barrels of beer*. That's 509.06 more barrels than it brewed in the first eight months of 2014. Fox River's total production for all of 2014 was 1334.28 barrels. Obviously, they've already blown past that number and if this pace continues, the brewery will be close to 2,000 barrels by the end of this year.

Historically, production has been split nearly evenly between the Fox River breweries in Oshkosh and Appleton. But with the bottling line installed this past spring at the Appleton facility the balance has begun to shift. Through August, 610.47 barrels have been brewed in Oshkosh while 742.69 barrels were brewed in Appleton.

For comparison sake, here's the August production for the three breweries currently reporting in our vicinity (Bare Bones is not yet included in the Department of Revenue's published reports).

• Stone Cellar / Stone Arch: 307.85 bbls.
• Fox River Brewing: 284.18 bbls (combined Oshkosh and Appleton).
• Appleton Beer Factory: 37.00 bbls.

The final push to the close of this year should be interesting. Everyone I've spoken to at Fox River has indicated that both breweries are maxed out in term of capacity. If this pace continues, and there's no reason to suspect it won't, look for for Fox River to expand in the near future.

*One barrel equals 31 U.S. Gallons, or 13.6 cases of beer, or 330 12oz. bottles.