SKOWHEGAN — Pam and Jeff Powers had a good week.

On Tuesday, the Skowhegan Board of Selectmen gave the town development office approval to file a letter of intent for a $180,000 grant application for their Bigelow Brewing Co.

Owner Jeff Powers at Bigelow Brewing in Skowhegan, which is expanding after a year of operations. Staff photo by Michael G. Seamans

The Bigelow Brewing Company headquarters in Skowhegan on Thursday. The brewery is expanding after a year of operations. Staff photo by Michael G. Seamans

On Thursday, the couple took delivery of 96 full-sized utility poles to be used to build a new hop growing yard, the same day they released their newest brew – Avery Peak 4088, a summer wheat ale made with orange and coriander.

When the couple opened their brewery on Bigelow Hill Road in May 2014, there were about 47 microbreweries in Maine, company vice president Pam Powers said. Now there are 62 with 12 more set to open this year.

The plan is to quadruple the Bigelow Brewing operation, and Powers said it’s warranted.

“I don’t know any brewery that is struggling in Maine,” she said. “We have had an increase in sales every month. We are selling at capacity. We’re selling every bit of product we can make. We can’t make it fast enough. We’re turning down customers every week.”

If the federal Economic and Community Development grant is approved, the couple will need at least that much more to expand the brewery in the former horse-barn by 50 feet for a new 15-barrel brewhouse. They currently operate with three barrels. They also want to add a one-acre hop-growing yard, extend the garage for storage and complete landscaping for an outdoor patio, where they will offer wood-fired pizza slices, samples of brews and local entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights. They also will host fundraising events, weddings and rehearsal dinners.

In addition, they plan to start canning their beverages for sale.

The couple opened with two beers in 2014 – Dementia Dog, a double IPA (India pale ale) with five kinds of hops that has a 7.9 percent alcohol content by volume, and Lying Bastard, which is 4.9 percent alcohol.

They since have added Bigelow Brown Ale, Jail Break Chocolate Chili Stout – made with tomato chili from New Mexico – and as of Thursday, the Avery Peak 4088, the number indicating the elevation of Avery Peak in the nearby Bigelow range.

“We can do about 100 gallons of brew on this system,” Powers said Thursday as she, husband Jeff and daughter Jordan, 26, brewed up a batch of Avery Peak. She said by expanding from three to 15 barrels, “our system will be able to do 450 gallons, and we’ll have four fermentors that will hold 1,000 gallons.”

They hope to brew 3,000 gallons over the course of a month with some beers taking 14 days to finish and others taking half that amount of time.

“Our business plan has us starting at about 2,000 gallons a month and increasing production as demand calls for it,” Jeff Powers said.

Jeff Powers works full time at Catalyst Paper in Rumford. Pam Powers is a retired Skowhegan middle school teacher.

The couple began converting the 36-by-48-foot horse barn in 2011 and started the state and federal licensing process.

The Powers make about 100 gallons of beer each week, most of which is stored in a cooler on site, ready for sale from the brewery and from taps at local restaurants and pubs and in 22-ounce bottles and 64-ounce growlers for local stores.

The commercial utility poles will be sunk into the ground 14 feet apart. Each pole will have a cable system on top and twine strung to the ground for the hops to grow on. A hop plant can grow 12 inches in a day during the summer, and plants take about three years to fully mature for harvest, Pam Powers said.

“We’re also fencing that in next year, and we’re going to have sheep eat the grass, and chickens will be in there to keep the bugs off the hops,” she said. “We’re going to try to do all organic if we can.”

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