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20 | I NSIGH T • M a r c h 2 0 15 w w w . i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m In 1996, Weycker opened the Titletown Brewing Company brewpub in the old Chicago & Northwestern Railroad depot in Green Bay's Broadway District, pairing artisan dishes with cra brews. Soon, Weycker faced a big problem: e demand for local cra brews was booming. He needed to make more beer — fast. And he was running out of room. "It started with people wanting different beers in the restaurant, then it was 'Where can they get the beer when they are not at the restaurant?'" he says. "Pretty soon, you realize there is an opportunity there." Changing tastes T urns out, it was a huge opportunity. He had to scramble. Changing demographics and consumer tastes have made cra brewing the fastest growing segment of the beer industry, both nationally and in Northeast Wisconsin. While overall beer sales declined almost 2 percent in 2013, sales of cra beers rose more than 17 percent, grabbing more than $14 billion in sales in the $100 billion-a-year beer marketplace. Wisconsin was home to 90 cra breweries in 2013 — up from 73 just two years before – and several others have come online since. ose breweries produced nearly 450,000 barrels of cra beer in 2013 with an estimated economic impact of $856 million. e Brewers Association, a national trade group, expects those figures surpassed $1 billion for Wisconsin in 2014. As consumer tastes have begun shiing toward unique brews produced locally, established players such as Titletown Beer, here! c o n t i n u e d and Appleton's Stone Cellar have been joined by newer brewers —including Badger State Brewing and Sheboygan's 3 Sheeps — in packaging and distributing their cra beers around the region and state. "e growth has been staggering and it doesn't show any signs of stopping," says Gordon Lane, president and chief operating officer of Chilton-based Briess Malt & Ingredients Co., a national leader in producing specialty malts and ingredients for the brewing industry. "It's grown about 100 percent a year for the past five years." at growth has not only been great for beer lovers, but also for the larger economy linked to the brewing industry, which includes Briess. e company has made several strategic moves in recent years to keep pace with the demand for its products, including investing in hop farms and expanding its malting operations in Chilton and Manitowoc. To illustrate just how fast the cra beer market is growing, Lane referred to a forecast from the global market research firm Mintel, which in January 2013 predicted cra beers would capture $18 billion in sales by 2017. at forecast had to be revised in July of 2014 as cra beers were closing in on the $20 million mark. "Our biggest challenge is keeping up with these guys," he says of the cra brewers. Even with the heady numbers, most brewing operations are small — Badger State is a three-person operation, for example. Lane attributes much of the industry's growth to shiing consumer tastes, Tom, left, and Steve Lonsway celebrated Stone Cellar's 10th anniversary in 2014. Since acquiring the brewpub, they have renovated the space and expanded the brewing facilities. C U R T E S Y O F S T O N E C E L L A R