(Denver, CO) – Crooked Stave has expanded its Barrel Cellar in Denver and will start taking sign-ups for its Cellar Reserve Membership program on Monday.

Founder and Brewer, Chad Yakobson, is currently brewing 72-barrel batches at Prost Brewing Company less than a mile down the road and transporting finished beer back to the Barrel Cellar for barrel-aging. He is also brewing at nearby River North Brewery and transporting wort to the Barrel Cellar for fermentation.

The current cellar setup includes: a 15-barrel brite tank, 30-barrel brite tank and a 20-barrel fermenter. For wood-aging, Crooked Stave has 90 oak barrels, three 65hl oak foeders that recently came in and a 25hl oak foeder.

“Since moving to the barrel cellar, we have increased our aging capacity three-fold to 370 barrels (at once / not annual),” says Yakobson. “We can also package three times as much beer now which should allow us to keep our two barrel-aged Saisons on the shelf year-round with sours coming out periodically.”

Crooked Stave plans to build a 20-barrel pilot system in the first part of next year as it expands into a fully-funded project called The Source Marketplace in Downtown Denver.

Other news includes the launch of online signups for the 2013 Cellar Reserve memberships.

Also of note, Basic Brewing Radio posted over an hour of audio of a recent trip to Denver for the Great American Beer Festival. They take a tour of sour and funky beers with Michael Tonsmeire, the Mad Fermentationist. Among the brewers they chat with are Yakobson, Jason Yester of Trinity Brewing, Will Meyers of Cambridge Brewing, Patrick Rue of The Bruery, and Christopher McGarvey of Front Street Brewery.” Worth a listen if you are into sours.