Last year, Urban Chestnut Brewing Company (UCBC), a St. Louis, MO craft brewery founded and operated by two former Anheuser-Busch employees, Florian Kuplent and David Wolfe, opened their second brewery, Urban Chestnut Grove Brewery & Bierhall, located in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood, aka The Grove. And just last month, they announced plans to open a third brewery later this year, Urban Chestnut Hallertauer Brauerei, in the Hallertau region of Bavaria in Wolnzach, Germany.
As Missouri’s third largest craft brewery, Urban Chestnut had been previously constrained by its capacity and limited to distributing their beers primarily to the St. Louis metro area, but with about 30,000 bbls of annual brewing capacity now on-line, the new operation in the Grove has allowed Urban Chestnut to expand its brewing output, and provide the brewery with the ability to increase its distribution footprint.
Last year, the company took advantage of their new capacity by expanding distribution to Columbia, Jefferson City and Kansas City, MO. This week, Urban Chestnut is preparing to open up the Chicago market.
“We’ve been seriously interested in selling our beers in Chicago for quite a while,” said David Wolfe. “We’re thrilled to be entering a market with such a hyper-dynamic brewing scene; a craft beer market with lots of local breweries, a constant stream of new entries, and an abundance of avid and knowledgeable beer drinkers.”
Urban Chestnut will be partnering with Lakeshore Beverage Company, Illinois’ largest distributor, to distribute their beers in Chicago.
“Lakeshore is a first-class operation, with a lot of talented people,” remarks Jon Shine, Urban Chestnut’s Head of Sales Operations. “Their commitment to growing craft beer in the Chicago area and belief in Urban Chestnut makes them an ideal partner for us.”
Urban Chestnut Brewing Company’s brewing philosophy centers around Beer Divergency—a ‘new world meets old world’ brewing approach wherein UCBC contributes to the “revolution” of craft beer through creations of artisanal, modern American beers, and pays “reverence” to the heritage of beer with offerings of classically- crafted, timeless European beer styles.
“Chicago has a very competitive craft beer scene; however, there is a thirst for these styles of beers that Urban Chestnut brews… beers that are full of flavor, classic styles, refreshing and drinkable. That’s just one of the reasons we are excited to bring Urban Chestnut to Chicago,” said Ted Champion, Import/Craft Manager of Lakeshore Beverage.
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