A 56,000 square foot Verizon call center office building had been abandoned for over six years and was priced to move. The challenges of converting this building into a regional craft brewery included fitting a 50-barrel four-vessel brewhouse and 150-barrel fermentation and bright beer tanks into an existing low structure building. Sustainable opportunities included adaptive reuse of an existing facility where offices were reused as the production offices. The executive board room was transformed into the brewhouse, an employee break room became the micro & analytical lab because of it's central location between the brewhouse and fermentation cellar. The open office "bullpen" with large windows looking over the Flint Hills of the Kansas countryside became the cellar and packaging areas. An employee kitchen and lunch room was set up perfectly to become shipping and receiving docks.

"Increasing our production capacity is very exciting. This new and larger facility will give us the space and ability to be a dynamic and creative brewer of not only more beer, but also those specialty and limited edition beers that we have been dreaming of making since we started the brewery," said Jeff Gill, CEO and founder of Tallgrass.

Photos courtesy of LaCasse Photography

Tallgrass brewing company

The employee kitchen and lunch room were set up to allow for conversion to shipping and receiving docks. The grade difference was exact dock height however excavating and exposing the existing foundation was a challenge. Shoring up the existing exterior wall while pouring a new concrete foundation stem wall was accomplished as a three step process. Adding a malt silo and spent grain silo help identify Tallgrass Brewing on approach.

Source:

Tallgrass Brewing Company (2015). Tallgrass Brewing Co. Quadruples Capacity with New 60,000-Square-Foot Facility Largest Craft Brewer in Kansas Positioned for National Distribution and Hometown Growth [Press Release]. Retrieved from

http://tallgrassbeer.com/wp-content/uploads/Tallgrass-New-Brewery-Press-Release_final.pdf