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Beer, Beer, Everywhere: Brewery Vivant to Distribute to Chicago

By Paul Schneider in Food on Apr 4, 2012 8:20PM

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Photo credit: Michael Kiser, Good Beer Hunting

Brewery Vivant owner Jason Spaulding announced last week that his Grand Rapids-based brewery will distribute cans and kegs of its Belgian- and French-inspired beers to Chicago beginning late this summer.

This is great news. We have salivated over Brewery Vivant since Michael Kiser of Good Beer Hunting visited Grand Rapids and published a couple of posts that showed off the refined, striking aesthetic of the brewery's soaring arches and described the ambitious, inventive brews Spaulding has made since 2010.

Spaulding will spend $300,000 to install four new 60-barrel fermenters this summer (a barrel is 31 gallons, or two standard-sized kegs). The expansion will bring Brewery Vivant's capacity to 5,000 barrels per year.

"It's been the plan all along to go to Chicago as soon as we're able," said Spaulding. The move makes sense: many Chicagoans are familiar with Brewery Vivant from vacations in the area. The expansion will not only allow the brewery to reach a larger audience, it will also open up capacity for more specialty beers, like Zaison. Zaison is a nine-percent ABV saison brewed with tellicherry black peppercorns and orange peel.

The new tanks won't arrive until late May or June, but Spaulding already plans to meet with Illinois distributors this month. He has collaborations in the pipeline with notable breweries, but he will not say who just yet. Our first taste of Brewery Vivant will be Zaison, which Spaulding plans to ship in July or August.

The news comes on the heels of Sixpoint Brewery's announcement last week that their beer will launch in Chicago on April 13th. These are the latest in a wave of new arrivals crashing over Chicago's craft beer scene. We reported in February that Greenbush Brewing will sell its bottles in Chicago in April, and Milwaukee Brewing debuted in town this past weekend at the Chicago Beer Festival. Chicago's location has allowed beer distributors to bring in brands from the east and west coasts as well as Europe.

Unlike breweries that entered the Chicago market in years past, these new out-of-towners like Sixpoint and Brewery Vivant will find a craft beer scene undergoing its own dizzying revolution. Pipeworks just hit the market last month, and Spiteful and Solemn Oath will not be far behind. Revolution's new production facility will start cranking out cans this month and Two Brothers' new canning line just shipped this week.