Construction is underway at the new Silver Branch Brewing Company Rockville Beerworks location.
We reported last year that the downtown Silver Spring-based brewery announced its intention to expand in Montgomery County and would seek public investment to enhance its offerings and relocate brewing facilities to the former True Respite Brewing Company site at 7301 Calhoun Place.
True Respite closed in 2023.
The Rockville Beerworks would be Silver Branch’s third location since opening in downtown Silver Spring in March 2019 and in Warrenton, Va., in 2023. According to The MoCo Show, the Warrenton taproom is temporarily closed due to a fire last December.
To fund their expansion plans, Silver Branch owners Brett Robison and Christian Layke launched an investment campaign on Honeycomb Credit, the same crowdfunding platform that local coffee roaster Bump ‘n Grind used to successfully fund the expansion of its Analog Market community hub in downtown Silver Spring.
The equity investment campaign had raised over $193,600 of its $465,222 goal last October.
Silver Branch’s downtown Silver Spring brewery reached total capacity within a year of opening in 2019. It had previously announced plans to merge with Old Ox Brewing in April 2022, but the two breweries called off the merger three months later.
“We were running at capacity much sooner than expected and began considering different opportunities to expand, including partnering with other breweries, but we couldn’t find the right fit,” marketing director Chris Bonnell said in an interview with the Prince William Times in 2023.
Along with the Rockville Beerworks expansion, Layke and Robison plan to use the funding to expand distribution to Virginia and Delaware, enhance its Warrenton location, launch its Mosaic Pizza brand, and launch a Mosaic Pizza Truck and Silver Branch Bierwagon.
After moving the brewing equipment to the former True Respite facility, the downtown Silver Spring and Warrenton locations would be expanded with a full Mosaic Pizza kitchen co-located with each of Silver Branch’s taproom locations.
They plan to launch a beer and food delivery service and convert the space occupied by the brewing equipment at the downtown Silver Spring location into an event space overlooking Colesville Road.
“Silver Branch has been capacity-limited for over two years,” according to the brewery’s Honeycomb Credit listing. “We have needed more space to brew so we can meet the demand of Silver Branch beer in wholesale, and we have needed more space to build a kitchen in Silver Spring so we can meet the demand for private events and a more diverse menu for groups and family dining.”
Updates on the Rockville Beerworks renovations will be posted to Instagram at @silverbranchrockville.
Photo: © 2024 Google / Silver Branch Brewing Company Graphic