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By Nathan Peck | MiBiz
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Growth at Arcadia Brewing Company has owner Tim Suprise looking for a new production location to meet growing demand. PHOTO: NATHAN PECK

CALHOUN COUNTY — It’s a good time to be a craft brewer.

Sure, the beer is great, but the business is better.

Tim Suprise, owner and president of Arcadia Brewing Company, is in the midst of planning for future expansion of the 14-year-old craft brewing company. Speaking to MiBiz in the taproom of his Battle Creek operations, Suprise explained the 30,000 square feet of existing space along West Michigan Avenue is constraining the company, which is growing at a 38-percent annual rate.

“We are bursting at the seams,” Suprise said. “Expansion really isn’t possible here. We are looking at other options and how we’re going to do that. Having a brewing facility downtown doesn’t make sense from a logistics standpoint.”

The capacity constraints have put Arcadia in a position where it can’t fulfill nearly a third of its orders right now, Surprise said. He is looking to expand his capacity to nearly 12,000 barrels annually, but downtown Battle Creek lacks the 50,000 square feet of space he needs for his brewing operations to grow. He’s scouting other locations to build the new brewhouse.

Total investment for the new facility will be between $3.5 and $6 million. Arcadia will maintain a presence in downtown Battle Creek, but Surprise said what a future production facility will look like and where he will locate it remains up in the air.

“We are committed to downtown Battle Creek. We want to maintain a presence here,” Suprise said. “This is too much space for a restaurant alone, but it is too little space for a brewery and restaurant.”

Suprise is coming upon a self-imposed deadline: He plans to make an announcement on the future expansion of Arcadia at the company’s 15th anniversary party on Dec. 3.

“It’s exciting to be exploring our options and opportunities out there,” he said. “Despite the economy – and general beer sales are down – craft beer is up.”

Local craft brewers explored different approaches to growth. Larry Bell in Kalamazoo opted to separate brewing operations from the taproom, with Bell’s Brewing Inc. spending $17 million to add 24 new 400-barrel fermenters and a 200-barrel brewhouse in its Comstock Township brewing operations. In Grand Rapids, owners of Founders Brewing Co. opted to keep its brewing and taproom in the same facility, capitalizing on its Grandville Avenue location’s proximity to U.S. 131 as it grows to 110,000 barrels of production annually.

Dark Horse Brewing Co.’s President Aaron Morse invested $1 million in the Marshall-based craft brewer’s operations over the last year. Dark Horse added an 18,000-square-foot brewhouse to house four new fermenters in 2010 and will be adding four additional fermentation tanks before year’s end. Dark Horse’s production nearly doubled in the last year. Morse expects to brew 10,000 barrels in 2011, up from 6,100 in 2010, and is looking to expand distribution to New York and North Carolina.

“We’ve seen tremendous growth. The craft beer industry itself is going very well,” Morse said. “Michigan is a great place for people who are creative and outdoors – they go together, (and) that helps us. We’ve focused on the education for craft beer. People are just starting to get it. In any industry, you have to stay fresh and liven things up. We are all trying to make that next great-tasting product. To do that, we have to do crazy, weird, eccentric things, or else it gets old.”

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• arcadia brewing company
• battle creek
• calhoun
• tim suprise