USA: Flying Dog Brewery buys Maryland brewery

Flying Dog Brewery, Denver's largest brewery and the state's second-largest craft brewer, paid $1.4 million to buy a brewery in Maryland that had been in receivership for the past three years, Rocky Mountain News communicated on May 2.

The purchase of Frederick Brewing Co., set to close today, marks Flying Dog's first brewery outside of Colorado, where its downtown Denver brewery is running at its maximum capacity of 45,000 barrels each year. The Maryland brewery has the capacity to produce 60,000 barrels each year and can be expanded to 120,000, said Eric Warner, brewery president. The facility sits on five acres, which would allow Flying Dog to build out to as much as 300,000 barrels each year.

"Business has been booming and we're out of room in Denver," he said.

Flying Dog, whose beers include Old Scratch Amber Lager and In-Heat Wheat, has seen its sales surge outside of Colorado in recent years and the new brewery will cut transportation costs to the East coast, he said. Flying Dog's management set up a new entity called Wild Goose Brewery LLC to purchase the Maryland brewery, which will have a license to make Flying Dog's ales, Warner said.