Project Scope

Graycor completed a year-long structural steel erection and equipment setting project to transform Coors Brewing Co.’s Elkton, Va., plant into a full-fledged brewery. The plant – located in the Shenandoah Valley – is a finishing and packaging facility for several Coors products and was originally designed to produce 2.5 million barrels of beer. The completed project gives Coors the ability to brew 6 to 7 million barrels annually.

The expansion project included construction of a brew house, grain handling building, fermentation corridor and auxiliary building. In addition, Graycor’s team set fermentation vessels, brewery vessels and grain handling equipment. At 43 tons and 80-feet-long each, coordinating delivery and setting 40 fermentation vessels was a unique challenge.

The delivery schedule was very aggressive due to the fact that VDOT (Virginia Department of Transportation) had to shut down a portion of a road along the Shenandoah mountain range to accommodate the extreme length of the delivery trailers, which were 178 feet long. In addition, the size of the vessels and site space constraints required the use of a special heavy-lift trailer to place them properly. The Graycor team worked nearly around the clock to meet schedule deadlines despite a late foundation release and delayed delivery of the fermentation vessels. The project finished on time without sacrificing quality.