(Havre De Grace, MD) – DuClaw Brewing announced today that it is opening a new brewery next year, a total project that will cost $4 million. Brewery ownership signed the lease contract on Tuesday. Baltimore Business Journal reports:

The 15-year-old suds maker and restaurant chain has outgrown 10,000 square feet of brewery space in Abingdon and has a contract to acquire a vacant 165,000-square-foot building in Havre De Grace to help meet its expansion goals. DuClaw plans to occupy roughly half of the 26-acre property, at 1601 Clark Road, and lease the bulk of the excess space to contractors and vendors it does business with.

I caught up with DuClaw Sales Manager, Brad Klipner, to gather some additional basics on the project.

1) When are you expected be brewing at the new facility?

Renovations should begin in April 2012 and we expect to be brewing there by October 2012.

2) How many barrels are the current locations brewing this year?

8,500 from the current brewery

3) What will be planned/starting capacity for the new brewery (in terms of annual barrels) and what will be the ceiling for capacity?

We will open with about a 30,000 bbl capacity. It can scale to 125,000 bbl without any additions to the building.

4) Which brewmaster will be running the facility?

Jim Wagner, who has been our brewmaster since 1998

5) How many new jobs are tied to the new brewery?

There will be approximately 25 employees at the new facility to start.

6) Any info on size of barrel room, how many barrels you plan to keep, and potential sour program?

We plan to do lots of different barrel aging, though no exact size of the barrel room yet, except for… large. And yes, we might do sours, but no definite plans as of right now.

7) Still just bottles and kegs or cans, too? More broadly, any new formats/packages that you’ll introduce?

2011 was the first year we’ve ever produced 12oz bottles / 6 packs. Response has been overwhelming and quite humbling. The new facility is planned to do kegs, bottles and cans. We will continue to produce 12oz and 22oz bottles. Cans is a new introduction for us.

8- Have you already started meeting with distributors or when do you plan to?

Once we’re moved in, expect distribution to entire state of MD (believe it or not, we’re still not in all of MD!), PA, DE, VA and DC. We just brought on a new distributor in the Baltimore-metro region and we begin meeting with new distributors in additional territories / states later this month and throughout the next few months. Very excited to expand our reach into new markets where fans have been patiently waiting for DuClaw Brewing Co. beer!

9) What is your top selling beer? Can you speak more about your product mix in general?

Out top selling full-time beer is Venom Pale Ale… (though we believe a new soon-to-launch year-round beer may end up taking that top spot for us.) Our top selling seasonal is Mad Bishop Oktoberfest, followed by Devil’s Milk Barleywine.

We pride ourselves on pushing the boundaries of brewing. From the lower ABV / session beer end of the spectrum like our Euforia Toffee Nut Brown to big, rare releases like our just-launched Divine Retribution (60/40 blend of Retribution *11% ABV Imp. Stout* and 21% ABV Colossus, then aged 6 months in bourbon barrels).