Workhorse Brewing Co., KoP’s only brewery, to open this week

Source, Philadelphia Business Journal, Kenneth Hilario

The owner-founders of King of Prussia, Montgomery County’s only brewery are channeling the company name – Workhorse – and installing fixtures, brewing beer and perfecting the details, so they can finally open the tap lines and welcome the public.

The inside of Workhorse Brewing Co. at 250 King Manor Drive still has the vestiges of a construction site, but things are shaping up at the 70,000-square-foot brewery near the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the King of Prussia Mall.

Click through the gallery above to see August 2018 progress. See below to see how it looked in May.

The owner-founders of Workhorse Brewing Co. — who injected north of $5 million to develop their first brewery — are aiming for a mid-September opening, potentially by Sept. 17 for the beermaker’s first event, CEO Dan Hershberg told the Philadelphia Business Journal during a recent tour of the space.

Workhorse Brewing Co. brewed seven types of beer: Märzen/Oktoberfest, Vienna lager, Pilsner, West Coast IPA, New England-style IPA, Helles lager and an American Brown Ale.

The brewery, which started production in late July, will have 24 draft lines, at least 12 of which will be online when the beermaker opens.

The 12 lines will carry:

up to seven of their own brews;
two draft ciders by Kurant Cider;
two wines from Fort Washington, Pa.-based Karamoor Estate;
and one line for a cocktail in partnership with Pottstown, Pa-based Manatawny Still Works.
The brewery has a 5,000-square-foot tasting room; 30-barrel system; retail area; and 1,200-square feet for private event space. Workhorse Brewing Co. will partner with local food trucks and restaurants, including Choolaah Indian BBQ, which opened in September 2017 at the King of Prussia Town Center.

The owner-founders plan to distribute their brews to third-party accounts, but Hershberg said the goal is to focus on the on-site experience and use the taproom as “data” to see what the market demands before it rolls out a full-blown distribution push.

There will be crowlers and growlers available for purchase when the brewery opens, and there are plans to start canning in the second year.

Subsequent phases of the brewery could potentially incorporate additional space. Examples include tapping into 7,000 square feet for a second, larger event area or using about 10,000 square feet for a barrel-aging facility; adding a canning line or other brewing equipment, like additional 60-barrel fermenters to supplement the existing six, Hershberg told the Business Journal in an earlier interview.