Ag, industry expansions brewing in southwest Turlock

The giant metal skeleton rising next to an orchard on Fulkerth Road should be brewing local beer by March. Behind the $12.5 million Dust Bowl Brewing Co. plant and tasting center, a tall crane points to progress on the Hilmar Cheese Co. construction project, planned since 2009, on a new strip of West Canal Drive.

Down the street on Dianne Drive, a massive meatpacking facility has been proposed. Plans were submitted in August for a 100,000-square-foot plant and 17,000-square-foot livestock pen. The Capital Cultivators LLC project is slated for discussion by the Turlock Planning Commission in November. The project will need City Council approval.

Foster Farms was issued permits in July to expand an existing hatchery on South Walnut Road and in April to build two 7,000-ton soy silos on West Main Street near North Clinton Road.

Eight projects, large and small, are in some phase of the planning and building pipeline within Turlock’s Turlock Regional Industrial Park adopted in 2006. Its black-and-white vision of “an Agri-Science Cluster” is coming to life nearly a decade later in the swath bounded by West Fulkerth, Highway 99, West Linwood Avenue and Washington Road.

“The cluster is a center for research and development, manufacture, processing, and celebration of agriculture and food products in the San Joaquin Valley,” summarizes the Westside plan.

Celebratory food products are Dust Bowl’s bread and butter. The company started in 2009 and now produces 5,500 barrels a year, many with Dust Bowl-themed names such as Hobo pilsner, Hops of Wrath IPA and The Great Impression stock ale.

“It’s getting exciting now that you can actually see the new brewery taking shape,” brewery founder Brett Tate said Wednesday. “There’s so much going on behind the scenes.”

The new site will have a tasting room, restaurant and events venue. “We’ll be able to handle large groups, unlike our downtown taproom, which will remain a more intimate setting,” Tate said via email.

“The design aesthetic is very cool and plays on our Dust Bowl heritage, and we’ll have lots of space for indoor and outdoor dining. The interior layout will allow our patrons to view the brewing process and packaging line,” he said, adding the brewery will offer tours.

The 30,000-square-foot brewery under construction will more than triple current production, brewed at the firm’s 2,100-square-foot facility on Spengler Way.

Helping sell all that additional beer will be a fifth distributor, Bay Area Distributing, under a contract announced in August. The deal will extend the reach of Dust Bowl beers through Northern California. Sales to the south will be possible with the opening of the new facility, notes a company news release.

The company is owned by Brett and Karen Tate, and Brett and Camy Honoré.

This story was originally published September 16, 2015 at 4:06 PM with the headline "Ag, industry expansions brewing in southwest Turlock."