Ozark Beer Co. will soon move into the former Rogers Flour Milling building at 109 N. Arkansas St. in downtown Rogers.
Courtesy photo
Ozark Beer Co. will soon move to a new location, officials announced this week.
The brewery has purchased the former Rogers Flour Milling building at 109 N. Arkansas St. in downtown Rogers, and plans to begin brewing in its new home in the next few months.
The move is just the latest in a series of growth spurts for Ozark, which opened two and a half years ago at 1700 S. 1st St. in Rogers.
After doubling its brewing output in fall 2014, the company added new equipment last summer to push capacity to just over 5,000 barrels a year – a 50 percent increase. The extra capacity allowed Ozark to double its lineup of canned beer and add distribution to central Arkansas.
But more equipment means less room for growth, so owners Lacie Bray, Andy Coates and Jefferson Baldwin began looking for a new home.
Their search led them to the former milling building, which offers 10,000 square feet of warehouse space with ceilings high enough to allow Ozark to install taller tanks, which means more beer and a greater distribution footprint.
While the new space isn’t as big and shiny as some of the spaces available in Rogers, the owners said getting into downtown was a high priority.
“We could have bought a larger, newer facility for two-thirds of the price, but it would have been on the edge of town,” said Coates.
Bray, who grew up in Rogers, agreed. “We really want to be part of the growing downtown community,” she said.
According to a news release, the building has also served as the Rogers Transfer Co., a public scales facility and most recently a storage facility for building supplies.
A grand opening and public viewing is being planned for sometime in the coming months. If all goes according to plan, Ozark will be brewing in the new space by the end of the summer.
