(Virginia Beach, VA) – Green Flash Brewing Co. made its big announcement on Thursday: the company will open a new brewery in Virginia Beach, designed to essentially mimic its existing facility in San Diego County. If you haven’t read that press release yet, do that first.

BeerPulse caught up with Co-Founder and CEO, Mike Hinkley, to fill in the gaps and shed more insight on the company’s growth and future.

GROWTH AND PROJECTIONS

Green Flash brewed just over 42,000 barrels in 2012, up around 80% from 2011, ending the year around a 50,000 barrel/year pace. Tanks will go in this summer, bringing capacity to 100k barrels and the company will brew at a 100% capacity pace in Q4 of next year. The team projects to finish out at 65,000 barrels in 2013 and 80,000 or 85,000 in 2014.

The Virginia Beach should come online in the first quarter of 2015 though the company could hypothetically push that up, Hinkley says.

On a regional basis in 2012, California grew almost 90%, San Diego 80% and other markets 100%.

NEW MARKETS

As of the beginning of 2013, Green Flash beers were available in 32 states. 20% of sales happen right in San Diego, a little over 30% in the rest of California, 35% on the East Coast, 6-7% in the Pacific Northwest and 6-7% in the remaining other markets.

88% of 2012 sales came in existing markets and 12% came in new markets, primarily in the Southeast.

The company will open Missouri, West Virginia, Arkansas, Mississippi, Reno (Nevada) and one other market this year. Hinkley believes they have contracts signed in those markets so if they are not there already, it won’t be long from now.

The goal is to get to 50 states with the new brewery though Green Flash could open even more territories before 2015 if it can fully service the 32-and-counting existing markets.

To support a far-and-wide distribution strategy, the company has brought on six salespeople for top markets this quarter in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.

PACKAGE AND RETAIL STRATEGY

Green Flash is about 60/40 draft/bottle and Hinkley says this has been consistent across the board, even in new territories. In some “developing” territories, the brewery may go with sixtels instead of half-barrels.

Moving away from six-packs and more traditional styles a while back to go to four-packs of what some may consider specialty styles was met with some resistance but, overall, has proven to be a valuable point of differentiation. The plan is to stick with four-packs, 22 oz. bottles and, if anything, may “move up the chain and go to a cork-finished bottle.” No plans for variety packs (“can’t imagine we will ever do them”) or cans.

The package mix is in line with the company’s retail strategy. Part of Green Flash’s ability to service a few dozen states at only 50,000 barrels of production is that it zeroes in on boutique retailers in every market. In some states, only the top 10-20% of bottle shops, restaurants and pubs may see Green Flash beer. Any presence in chains and large retailers is limited, says Hinkley.

BRANDS: WEST COAST IPA AND NEW GREEN BULLET TRIPLE IPA

West Coast IPA is the brewery’s horse with about 50% of sales and it has remained there for the past few years despite the addition of multiple new brands to the package mix. When the company was on backorder from 2006-2011 (before the latest SD expansion), they purposely limited it to 50% due to capacity constraints and demand for other brands. All the brands “pretty much doubled” in 2012.

2013’s big new beer launch will take place in the third quarter when Green Flash re-introduces its 9th Anniversary beer as a seasonal: Green Bullet Triple IPA. It has received positive reception in the tasting room and other events where showcased. The dry hop is all New Zealand hops (Nelson Sauvin, perhaps?). Green Bullet and Pacific Gem are the other two hops used to make it. Like other seasonals, Green Bullet will be released in 22 oz. bottles, four-packs and draft across the distribution area.

BARREL-AGING AND SILVA STOUT

Up until now, the company’s barrel-aging program has been “experimental” with less than 100 barrels filled at any given time. Hinkley says that is about to change as he just purchased two truckloads of Heaven Hill Whiskey barrels. Green Flash will use those to age an imperial stout for the next 15-18 months. The finished beer, known as Silva Stout, has been an extremely limited cult favorite though Green Flash will blow up production to 6,000 cases. It will hit distribution in mid-2014 outside of Southern California for the first time and be Green Flash’s largest barrel-aged release to date.

Hinkley notes that Virginia Beach will have a barrel program as well.