There goes the neighborhood. Our geographical neighbor to the north will be seeing Denver’s Flying Dog Brewery focus all its future efforts out of its facility in Frederick, Maryland. In the press release on their website, they cite cost and efficiency as main factors in the decision, part of which is another example of the malt and hop expense crunch. The last few sentences offer insight on the other reasons for the move:

The bottling line in Frederick has lower oxygen uptake at filling than the one in Denver, which translates to better flavor stability and longer shelf life. It also kicks out bottles at twice the pace of the line in Denver. The brewhouse in Maryland is also capable of brewing a wider range of recipes than the one in Denver. Finally, the brewery in MD plans on substantial capital expenditures and plant upgrades (close to a million bucks in 2008 alone) to continue to brew better beer in an efficient and environmentally friendly way.

I say good, bring the whole Flying Dog operation out here, especially if they can save money doing it this way. Granted, according to their press release and BeerAdvocate, this facility already puts out about 70% of their products now anyway, and that their headquarters will remain in Denver.

Still, I have to wonder: What’s up with Frederick, Maryland? Terrapin has been contract brewing out of Frederick for a while (but not for much longer), Wild Goose (under the Frederick Brewing/Flying Dog umbrella) calls it home, and Flying Dog has had most of its production occur there.

Could we be seeing the rise of a Mid-Atlantic brewing powerhouse under the Flying Dog banner? Maybe not, but they still seem to be making some clever moves to limit financial troubles, which appears to be part of shrewd consolidating maneuvers all across the industry, for big or small.

I’m just hoping we’ll be able to reap the rewards of proximity when their variety of special brews are released.