The plan was for the first 100,000 cans to last a while before a second order was needed. But just a few months into production at West Sixth Brewing Company, co-owner Ben Self said he and his partners were having twice as much aluminum delivered.
“When we ordered that first 100,000, we thought it was going to take us two-and-a-half years to sell them all,” Self said about the brewery and taproom that celebrated its first anniversary in early April. “One hundred thousand is actually a half-truckload of cans; you pay extra for that. And we’ve ordered three or four times since then of full truckloads.”
Self, along with partners Brady Barlow, Joe Kuosman and Robin Sither, have seen not only their brews become a success, canning an amber beer in addition to their IPA, much sooner than imagined, but they’ve experienced unexpected growth in the popularity of their tap room and overall production capacity.
“None of us can pretend to say we knew exactly where this was going to be a year ago when we started,” Self said. “We had a business plan written and some fairly conservative ideas of what we wanted to do over the first year, but we really vastly underestimated what Lexington’s desire for craft beer and the neighborhood’s response to us would be as well.”
Their taproom at the front of the facility on the corner of Sixth and Jefferson is filled with crowds on weeknights and weekends. Since being approached by customers to host a weekly running club and yoga class, Self is finding the taproom and attached beer garden as crowded on those Tuesday and Wednesday evenings as he hoped they would be on weekends.
“Anything we’re doing has really come from an idea of saying ‘yes’ when people approach us. Both runners club and yoga club were initiatives not by us, but by some of our customers, saying ‘We’d really like to do this,’” he said. “That’s what’s been great — much like the development here at the Bread Box, all of it has been grassroots driven.”
In the back of the massive former Rainbo bread plant, artists have studios that became an official stop on the Gallery Hop, and other community groups, such as the Roller Girls of Kentucky and Broke Spoke Bike Shop, have facilities on site.
“Initially people were very skeptical [of our location], there’s no doubt,” Self said. “This was not the place people would think about going before we opened. It was not in the typical nightlife areas of Lexington. But from day one that really changed.”
Now restaurants are also sprouting up, in addition to the constant rotation of Lexington-area food trucks that park outside the taproom. Ouita Michel of Holly Hill Inn is opening an eatery in the West Sixth building, and former Table 310 chef Johnny Shipley is opening a restaurant called County Club in a building across the street from the facility, in real estate also owned by those associated with West Sixth.
“The bones of the building are fantastic,” Self said about the former commercial bakery. “It’s beautiful; it’s been in food production for 100 years. So things like the utilities coming into the building are sized properly. That’s been critical to our initial growth.”
And the growth is continuing. When West Sixth opened last April, they could produce 45 barrels a week (a keg is considered a half barrel). They’ve since expanded to a capacity of 105 and have on order equipment to take them to 165.
As popular as the taproom is, much less than 10 percent of what is made is consumed on site, Self said, as West Sixth is sold throughout Kentucky and up into Cincinnati and looking to add more cities.
As the brewery continues to grow, Self said he’s glad their location “still has tens of thousands of empty square feet” to keep up.