Three Floyds Details Growing Pains
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Aug 6, 2012 8:40PM
Much has been written about the attempts by Three Floyds to get as much of their into as many hands as possible, to the consternation, and whining, of some of the Munster brewery's more zealous fans. The Times of Northwest Indiana has an interview with Three Floyds vice president Barnaby Struve that serves as equal parts news and public relations.
Struve lists the ways that Three Floyds is working to improve its operations, including buying new kitchen equipment, expanding the brewpub and new tanks for the brewery. Struve also recognizes the rock and a hard place predicament in which Three Floyds currently finds itself.
“If they could see the operation - it’s not a sprawling Anheuser Busch factory,” he said. “But because we’ve grown we are producing more. We’re starting to get more revenue in where we can actually grow. But we have to also grow intelligently. We’re doing it as fast as we possibly can while keeping in mind that the most important thing is the quality of the beer.”
Whether it will be enough to placate the people who treat Three Floyds beers like Gollum lusted after The Ring is anyone's guess. “Our brand grows faster then our brewery,” Struve said. “And we grew by 40 percent last year, production-wise.”
That growth leads to another problem Three Floyds will soon have to face. Under Indiana law that Three Floyds helped draft and lobby for, a brewery in the Hoosier State must cap their production at 30,000 barrels. Three Floyds will likely exceed that cap by next year, at which point they either can continue to grow and close their brewpub, or keep the brewpub open and limit production. This means Three Floyds will soon be back looking to increase that cap.
Struve said this is beneficial not only to Three Floyds, but Indiana brewing overall.
“None of us as craft brewers want to conquer the world,” he said. “We’re a very heavily regulated industry. We have no problem with that. We have no problem paying our taxes. But we’re growing and we’re hiring people when no one else is. It’s something Indiana should be proud of.“We’re just a little brewery. We just want to make more beer.”