Big events for New Glarus Brewing’s Deb Carey: sitting with first lady, brewery expansion
Excerpted from Wisconsin State Journal
By Barry Adams
There are good reasons the White House selected Deb Carey to sit with first lady Michelle Obama during the State of the Union Tuesday night.
Carey, the New Glarus Brewing Co. co-founder, was first runner-up for the 2011 National Small Business Person of the Year and met with the president on small-business issues late last year. She’s also putting the wraps on a $7 million expansion at her Green County brewery, but the construction crews aren’t going away.
Carey told the State Journal on Monday that a $9 million expansion project will begin in April that will allow the brewery to double its production to 250,000 barrels. The 9,000-square-foot, yearlong project will primarily add more fermentation tanks and bring the brewery, which makes Spotted Cow and dozens of other craft brews, to over 100,000 square feet. The expansion will increase the number of employees from 75 to over 100 and further cement Carey and her brewmaster husband, Dan Carey, as one of the most innovative business couples in the state.
The story of Deb and Dan Carey has been well documented and enhanced by the fact that all of the beer brewed by the company is only sold in Wisconsin.
The Careys started their business in 1993 with a 10,000-square-foot brewery and in 2007 opened a $21 million, 75,000-square-foot brewing plant on the village’s south side. The just-completed expansion at the new brewery added more warehouse space and doubled the size of the visitor center.
Carey said she remains committed to selling her products only in Wisconsin because there is room for growth, even with the increasing number of new craft breweries that continue to come on line.
“There’s a lot of space for all the craft brewers to grow,” Carey said. “We’re just trying to keep up.”
