Coming up on its third anniversary in January, Lewiston’s Baxter Brewing Co. is hopping.
For 2014, three more 240-barrel fermenters are being added to the the exterior of the 130 Mill St. facility, and production of brewed beer will more than double, going from 12,000 to 25,000 barrels of beer a year.
“We will have the capacity to brew 33,000 barrels, which will give us the capacity to be the third largest brewery in the state of Maine,” said Luke Livingston, founder and president of Baxter Brewing. “We’ll be behind Shipyard and Allagash, respectively, in production capacity.”
All of that beer — 775,000 gallons — to be brewed in 2014 will be shipped statewide, and to Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire.
“New England will take all of the beer we can make in this footprint,” said Livingston when asked if he would be selling nationally.
To mark its third anniversary, Baxter Brewing is going to start offering a variety 12-pack of its current beers to consumers in January, and will also feature some new, small-batch beers in 2014.
But the favorite of most Baxter beer drinkers, Stowaway I.P.A., will always be on tap at the Lewiston production facility and is 60 percent of the beer maker’s production.
“As long as we don’t lose our quality of beer produced, our company culture and core values, or our roots in the Lewiston-Auburn area, we’ll grow as big as we can,” Livingston said.
The brewery hosts free tours at 3 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, and its Pour Room and gift shop is open Wednesday, noon to 6 p.m., Thursday-Saturday, noon to 8 p.m., and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.. More at www.baxterbrewing.com.
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- Empty cans are ready to be filled in a back storage area of Baxter Brewing in Lewiston. All of the cans used for Baxter Beer come from the Ball Company’s plant in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
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- Jon Green adds 60 pounds of hops to a fermenter containing Stowaway I.P.A. at Baxter Brewing Co. on Wednesday. Stowaway I.P.A. requires five different hop additions — one addition may be up to 500 pounds if a full batch is being brewed.
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- People from all 50 states, a dozen foreign countries and all of the Canadian provinces have toured Baxter Brewing in Lewiston, according to pins on a map in the company’s Pour Room. Free tours are given at 3 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, and beer lovers can purchase samples of Baxter’s popular beers, as well as of their small, experimental batches, in the Pour Room Wednesday through Sunday.
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- When Baxter Brewing started up about three years ago, it used a manual machine to apply the plastic six-pack rings to the cans. Now the process is automated and the company went from six-packing 75 cases an hour to the current 165 cases per hour.
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- Barley is a major component of beer, and all of the spent grain from Baxter Brewing is sent to a Cabot Creamery-affiliated dairy in Poland to be used as feed. “We’re the only brewery in the state of Maine to use malted barley grown in Aroostook County in every one of our beers,” said Luke Livingston, founder and president of Baxter Brewing Co.
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- The “bunker,” the space under the three exterior, 240-barrel fermenters at Baxter Brewing Co., is where the finished beer is removed from the tanks and filtered, if required, before being canned. Three more 240-barrel fermenters will be added in January.
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- Reclaimed wood from the floors of the mill in which Baxter Brewing operates waits in a back room, to be turned into tables, shelves and other wood accents in the beer maker’s offices.
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- The inside of an 8,000-gallon fermenter at Baxter Brewing in Lewiston.
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- Shelves and tables made from reclaimed mill floors accent the new offices of Baxter Brewing.
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- The mill room at Baxter Brewing is where the barley is ground in preparation for the beer-brewing process.
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- Baxter Brewing personnel moved into new second-floor offices in July.
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