CORVALLIS, Ore. (KMTR) -- A Corvallis business is building on virtual overnight success in the craft brewing industry with a huge expansion.
A business that was originally planned to run out of a basement to start, 2 Towns Ciderhouse is now capitalizing on its meteoric success and in the process of building a huge new facility.
The company opened up for business about two years ago in mid-2010, making artisan-style “hard cider.” Originally, the founders has planned to grow steadily over the course of two years.
However, massive popularity blew 2 Towns' plan out of the water in just two months of operation.
Today, the cider house is flooded with orders, bottling weekly, brewing new batches bi-weekly, and totally cramped with the gear it needs to keep up.
The three Corvallis-native friends who started it, Lee Larsen, David Takush and Aaron Sarnoff Wood even built their own refrigerator inside their current office space for storage.
Because of the growth, the company is now expanding to a new building under construction on Highway 34 near the Eastgate Business Center in Corvallis.
The new facility will be at least eight times 2 Towns' current 1,100 square foot office space.
"I really projected that six 250-gallon tanks, you know in two years, if we were doing that it would be amazing and maybe that that point i could make this my full time job and i cannot even explain to you how crazy this entire ride has been,” says Lee Larsen, co-founder of 2 Towns Ciderhouse.
“It's 12 hour days but when you're having fun it doesn't really matter,” says Larsen.
Sarnoff-Wood says there is significant room to expand in the cider industry, which continues to grow in the northwest.
"In the U.K. it's (cider sales) around 17% of the beer cider market and here it's less than one, so that tells me there's plenty of room to grow,” says Sarnoff-Wood, another co-founder of 2 Town Cider.
2 Towns is hoping to move in to its new facility in June or July of 2012.
Brew wise, the company will expand from about 1,500 to 2,000 gallons in brewing capacity to about 5 to 6 thousand gallons.
The new building will also be home to the company's very first tasting room.
As for the taste of the hard cider product, 2 Town says most of their cider isn't super-sweet like the usual mass brands you might have seen on the store shelf.
Most of their ingredients are sourced locally as well, including the apples and honey used in their drinks. Most of 2 Towns products are available for purchase in Eugene and Corvallis area grocery stores and others throughout Oregon.
With the new building and a new bottling machine, 2 Towns is also looking to move its product in to nearby states including Washington, California, Alaska and more. In early May 2012, company sent its first batch of cider to Washington state.
