Central Kentucky breweries are tasting success. Now they’re looking at what’s next.

It wasn’t that long ago when a beer lover, if she wanted to get a good, local craft beer, would have to go to the brewery where it was made and sold. The locally brewed beers weren’t available in your local Kroger or Walmart.

But now, in just the span of a few years, that has changed. Craft beer drinkers can go to the corner gas station and pick up a six-pack of the same beer that is served at the brewery.

That’s thanks to the craft beer boom that’s going on nationwide, including in Central Kentucky, causing locally breweries to expand their facilities and their labor force.

Lexington’s Country Boy Brewing recently built a new facility in Georgetown just for its canning. The business founded in 2012 has plans to eventually produce 25,000 barrels of beer annually. To compare, Country Boy brewed 500 barrels its first year, 1,800 barrels its second, 5,000 in 2014.

Jeff Beagle, one of the founders and operations manager of Country Boy Brewing, said the brewery’s increased production has been great for business, especially its canned products such as Shotgun Wedding, Cougar Bait, Cliff Jumper and Classic Hard Cider.

“It’s been pretty amazing so far,” Beagle said of the canned products. “(People) still come to the taproom, grab a beer, or a six-pack to take home with them.”

Lexington’s West Sixth Brewing cans its beer at its facility at 501 West Sixth Street. When it began production in 2012, West Sixth produced about 20,000 cans of beer a month, said Ben Self, one of the founders of the company. All of it was the West Sixth India Pale Ale, the flagship beer for the company. The beers were available only in Lexington at Kroger, Speedway and Liquor Barns.

Now the brewery plans to produce 2.2 million cans by the end of this year or about 183,333 cans a month. The brewery also intends to add two or three 80-barrel fermenters early next year.

“We definitely grew faster than we anticipated,” Self said. “We were definitely surprised and pleased about how thirsty Kentucky was for more of a whole craft beer.”

The explosion of local canned and bottled beer also brings money and jobs into the state, according to a 2017 study commissioned by the Beer Institute and National Beer Wholesalers Association.

The beer industry provided nearly 9,000 direct Kentucky jobs, which included brewing, wholesaling and retailing. When it comes to Kentucky’s Sixth Congressional District, which includes Lexington and surrounding counties, the study reports beer brings 2,075 jobs to the area.

In addition to cans, bottled beer is also available to Central Kentuckians. The Alltech Lexington Brewing & Distilling Co., also known for its Town Branch bourbon, produces bottled beer.

When Alltech began bottling for distribution in 2000, the beer was only available in a few Lexington bars and hotels. The only beer available? Kentucky Ale, a English Pale Ale. And the beer was only available in bottles.

“Back then, the cans were kind of looked down upon as a cheap way to package beer,” said Pete Weiss, marketing coordinator for Alltech.

The brewery produced about between 5,000 and 10,000 barrels of beer in 1999, according to research by Purdue University. Its production now? About 60,000 barrels a year. And the beers come in cans, too.

Growth is evident everywhere.

Derek Selznick, executive director of the Kentucky Guild of Brewers, an organization that educates and promotes the craft brewing industry in Kentucky, said canning is very important to the craft beer industry.

“Gas station sales, liquor store sales and supermarket sales are an incredibly important and huge step that breweries take on when they send their beer out to market for distribution,” he said.

Selznick, who has been executive director of the organization for more than a year, said he has seen more breweries focus on distribution. One example is White Squirrel Brewery, based in Bowling Green, which has recently begun canning its products.

“One of the other things that we have seen is a diversification of the products. More seasonal releases, more small-batch releases,” Selznick said.

The local breweries have adopted their own seasonal releases and more.

West Sixth sells beers statewide and not just in standard six-packs. Four-packs and 12-packs of a few beers are available as well. The brewery also cans more than just its IPA, including year-around cans, such as Amber Ale and Cocoa Porter, to seasonal and limited beers, such as Transylvania Tripel and Pennyrile Pale Ale.

Self said the recent embrace in craft beer and the brewery’s beer quality has contributed to such an explosive growth.

“All the marketing in the world might get someone to try that first beer, but if the beer is not fantastic, there’s too many other options out there, so there’s no reason they would buy a second one,” he said.

Country Boy’s canned products are available in stores such as Circle K, Thorntons and Liquor Barn across Central and Northern Kentucky.

Alltech’s beers include the Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Barley Wine, Kentucky Honey Barrel Brown Ale and Kentucky Vanilla Barrel Cream Ale. The beer is available in 30 states and three countries.

Alltech’s Weiss said there were a combination of factors that led to such an explosive growth in less than 20 years.

“I really think it was the combination of drive and our brand, Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale,” he said. “It’s such a unique product.”

Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale was launched in 2006. The beer is aged for up to six weeks in bourbon barrels used from Kentucky distilleries.

So what’s next for Central Kentucky’s strong breweries?

Weiss said having a unique product can do wonders for a craft brewery.

“Finding that niche, finding that piece that you do really well is really what’s going to drive breweries to the next level in Kentucky,” Weiss said.

This story was originally published November 5, 2017 at 12:04 PM with the headline "Central Kentucky breweries are tasting success. Now they’re looking at what’s next.."