When Philadelphia’s Yard Brewing Company took the decision to undertake the most significant expansion in its twenty-plus years in business, it had number of goalposts it wanted to move. So it turned to Germany’s Ziemann Holvrieka and partnered on the project of a lifetime.
Yards Brewing Company has come a long way since starting out back in 1994. Founded by two keen homebrewers, Tom Kehoe and Jon Bovit, the business began its journey with a garage-sized 3.5bbl brewhouse.
Come the start of 1997, Yards’ output had already grown to 800 bbl and the brewery moved for the first time. The new facility gave them the opportunity to bottle their beer and until this time, Yards had delivered all the beer in barrels.
These beers, steeped in English tradition, helped continue to catalyse growth at the business but come 1999 Bovit departed the company. Since then, Kehoe has been president and brewmaster of the Yards Brewing Company as well as the brewery’s face and driving force. By 2001, the brewery reached its maximum output capacity with 2,100 bbl so a relocation to the old Weisbrod & Hess Brewery was in order.
Fast-forward to 2007 and Yards brewed about 10,000bbl per year, constant growth which resulted in Kehoe bringing on board new partners in the form of Trevor Prichett and Ethos Holdings. A period of modernisation and expansion followed. In 2016 alone, around 41,300bbl were produced and sold with roughly 90 percent of the brewery’s beers are distributed in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
One giant leap
This level of impressive growth signalled the need for yet another move, one that would enable the business to invest in a canning line and also boost capacity.
In 2017 the duo identified the ideal site, located at on Philadelphia’s Spring Garden St, one that would offer up 70,000 square feet of space. The business plan plotted that the new facility would give them an annual output of about 100,000bbl and later be extended to more 200,000 bbl.
The estimated cost for the completion of the new brewery came in at about $24m. $8m of this was set aside for building and construction while the other $16m was required for plant technology and equipment.
The order placed with Ziemann Holvrieka included one complete brewing line including malt handling. The brewhouse is designed for twelve brews per day. The output volume is 100 bbl per brew with an original extract content of 15.5° Plato. The brewhouse was equipped with the innovative mash agitator Colibri as well as two Lotus lauter tuns with diameters of 7.5 feet and 15 feet.
With this dual solution, Yards Brewing Company can effectively produce brews of less than 20 barrels or can even lauter brews with a high extract content.
For this reason, an external boiler was installed, which is ideally suited for small batches. Another specialty of the brewhouse is the fully automatic dosing system for cone hops. In addition, Yards ordered six cylindro-conical 650-bbl tanks including dome covers and catwalk system.
“The visit of several reference breweries was very important for the choice of our brewing line”, says Kehoe.
His aim was for a brewery plant that offers the highest possible flexibility in addition to maximum wort quality. This required an individual solution that was best implemented by Ziemann Holvrieka.
“The solutions of the competitors were much more standardized. Compared to an industrial brewhouse, there were no compromises regarding the installed functional components such as pumps or valves”, he adds.
The planning and monitoring of the assembly as well as the automation were handled by Ziemann Holvrieka. To simplify the assembly, all brewing vessels were pre-assembled on a base frame in Germany, with integrated internal piping and already mounted valves. On the construction site, the individual modules were only connected with each other.
The Yards team produced the first brew in the new brewhouse in March 2018 and until June 2018, the existing production facility was still operated for flavour matching. Since then, Yards has been brewing exclusively at the new location in downtown Philadelphia. Central to the new brewery was the taproom experience.
A gastronomic recommendation for all residents and visitors of Philadelphia as well as an architectural highlight and eye-catcher. While sitting in the taproom, the guests can look through large glass panes on the entire brewing process, from the brewhouse up to the canning line.
Separated from the main dining room by a roll-up door is an outdoor area, where guests and visitors can have a seat below the fermentation and storage tanks. For this purpose, the stainless steel tanks were designed with high skirts.
Kehoe concludes that his motivation to continue investing money and passion into Yards was to have a business synonymous with the name of Philadelphia.
“It’s about working hard, having a good time and giving something back to society”, he says.
