Stone Brewing Co. Speciality Beer Brewery, Escondido, California, USA

The Stone Brewing Company has grown from a micro-scale brewery run out of a California garage to one housed in a $12m, purpose-built, 58,000ft² specialist brewery in Escondido Research and Technology Business Park.

The company is now the largest independent speciality beer wholesaler in Southern California.

The facility is able to produce 70,000 barrels per year (expandable to 250,000 barrels per year) and employs 125 personnel. In 2004 Stone Brewing produced 32,000 barrels of beer and generated $10.9m in revenue.

In 2006 the company produced 50,000 barrels of beer and in 2007 it produced in excess of 70,000 barrels. With this rate of increase in production year on year, the company deserves its accolade of 'fastest growing brewery in the US'.

As well as the new brewery, the facility includes a visitor's centre with tasting facilities, retail outlet (supplying take-home Growler jugs and gifts / branded merchandise) and a 300-seat 9,500ft² restaurant. The designer of the restaurant was David Robinson Design.

CONTRACTORS AND CONSTRUCTION

The Escondido Research and Technology Centre is the host for the new building and its developer was JRMC Real Estate, who provided assistance in the project.

The architect for the project was McArdle Associates Architects and the construction contractor was Hamann Construction. ROLEC Prozess-und Brautechnik GmbH of Germany manufactured and installed the brewery equipment. The company delivered the brewing vessels in July 2005 and had a team on-site installing and building the brewing equipment.

The control systems and sensors for the plant were supplied and installed by Coastal Electric of Vista, California. The final sensors were installed by 1 October 2005. The brewery is designed to be run from a single computer control room and also via portable touch screen interfaces when the brewer has to be mobile around the brewing area.

The waste water systems were completed in early October 2005 and the brewery was then deemed ready for testing. Test brews, including 'dry run' water brews to test the integrity of the systems, were run in the first half of October 2005. The company transferred its operations to the new site, including its on-site bottling line during December 2005.

BREWHOUSE

Stone Brewing's brewhouse has been upgraded in size from a current per-batch capacity of 30 barrels (930 gallons) to 120 barrels (3,720 gallons). One of the process vessels has a capacity of 185 barrels, while the mashing or lauder tun has a diameter of 5.3m and a capacity of 4t of malt or grist for each individual brewing process. The malt storage vessel has a capacity of 48,000lb.

FEATURES AND ARCHITECTURE

Although the building is of fairly standard construction (constructed from pre-stressed reinforced concrete wall panels) it has some architectural features introduced by the CEO, Steve Koch.

One is a 14ft-high wall which was built as a charity fund raising event which donated money to the Palomar Family YMCA, the Boys & Girls Club of San Marcos, the Escondido Sunrise Rotary and the California State University San Marcos Foundation. The wall was built with stones 'purchased' from Stone Brewing for anywhere from $125 to $1,000.

EXPANSION

In 2007 The Stone Brewing Company announced that it had decided to expand with the construction of a further building. The company has exercised a contractual option with the Escondido Research and Technology Center (ERTC) developer JRM-ERTC, I, L.P. to build a new 50,000ft² building, which will be adjacent to the existing Stone Brewing facility. The new building will be used for warehousing and office use.

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