Wormtown Brewery grew 400% in first year on Shrewsbury Street
Sam Bonacci
Ben Roesch and David Fields stand in front of sixth anniversary merchandise at the Wormtown Brewery tap room.
Worcester’s homegrown brewery is celebrating a massive growth in production in its first year at its Shrewsbury Street location, even as it prepares for a 50,000-square-foot expansion.
The brewery will celebrate one year at its 72 Shrewsbury St. location and six years since its founding.
The big news from the brewery is its massive expansion in volume from its previous location. That location, attached to Peppercorn’s restaurant, maxed out at 2,800 barrels of production.
The Shrewsbury Street location was forecasted to grow production up to 6,000 barrels in the first year, said managing partner David Fields, but that was outstripped before the new location even opened and two more expansions took place during the year.
“Before the brewery even opened, we had ordered equipment to expand the brewery again,” Fields said explaining that the current capacity of 15,000 barrels had previously been a five-year projection. “We adjusted with it, and we grew with it.”
This growth came about from a surge of demand for their products. Wormtown is still not distributed outside of Massachusetts, but with more beer on the shelf, it has begun to drive more demand in the bars and the demand has not slowed.
That is why Wormtown is pursuing a new 50,000-square-foot facility where it will both brew and have warehouse space. The brewery will always have the Shrewsbury Street location as its face to the public and the city, with more than 55,000 people coming through the tap room from March through December last year, but this new location will grow production potential up to 25,000 barrels a year. That production is estimated to come online by the end of 2016.
All this growth has meant expansion of employees, from three at the old location up to 25 now, with 17 of those being full-time employees. New to the company as well has been offering health care and soon a 401(k) program.
“You’ve got employees with kids and mortgages who rely on this company to put their life together and to be able to say ‘Yes, we are doing really good’ is great, but to add benefits to it is what I am really proud of,” said Ben Roesch, Brewmaster and co-founder with Tom Oliveri of Wormtown Brewery.
The Shrewsbury anniversary celebration begins at noon, coinciding with St. Patrick’s Day festivities, with live music from 5 to 9 p.m.
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