Dogfish Head Brewery Expansion - Stage 1 Complete!

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery announces the completion of Phase One of a multi-step expansion of the Milton, Delaware brewing facility.

Phase One includes the installation of a fabulous new bottling/packaging line.

Dogfish Head Craft Brewery announces the completion of Phase One of a multi-step expansion of the Milton, Delaware brewing facility.

Phase One includes the installation of a fabulous new bottling/packaging line. The new line can run 240 bottles (or 10 cases) per minute - that's twice the rate of our old line! Some of the great new features include a 32-head bottle filler and more automation that we ever had before! We can now get the bottles on the line, fill & cap them, label them, and get them in the cases with ease. At the same time, we can build our boxes and 6-packs automatically. We can package a batch of beer with the same number of employees as before, but in half the time (and with a ton more consistency and efficiency)!

All that above info, might make the manufacturing geeks happy - but from a Dogfish drinker standpoint, perhaps the most exciting news is the addition of our coding system. Each and every bottle that comes off our line now has a yellow ink stamp on the neck with the packaging date. Each case box has the date stamped as well! This helps our warehouse, distributors and retailers more easily rotate their stock of Dogfish Head beers - which means fresh beer for you!

Finally, we concurrently upgraded our Kegging Equipment to a system that allows us to clean and fill about 25 kegs every hour!

So, what's next???? Now that we can package so much more beer - we need a place to store it and we need to be able to brew more!

Phase 1 - New Packaging Line (completed 6/05)

Phase 2 - New, Huge Warehouse (completed 1/06)

Phase 3 - Adding A Bunch Of Fermenting Tanks (6/04 - 3/06)

Phase 4 - New Brewhouse to go online (estimated complete by 12/06)

Phase 5 - Milton Restaurant Added (who knows - maybe 2008?)

So, we're working hard to get you more, better beer for you to enjoy!