Saint Arnold Brewing Company Reports 23 Percent Growth in First Half

HOUSTON, August 3, 2009 – Saint Arnold Brewing Company (www.saintarnold.com), the oldest craft brewery in Texas, today reported record production of nearly 13,000 barrels during the first half of 2009. The increase reflected growth of market share for the brewery within the Texas market. Saint Arnold had a major distributor switch in February of this year that gave the brewery access to more retailers within existing markets.

Since being established in 1994, Saint Arnold Brewing has operated out of the same Northwest Houston facility. Today, the brewery is operating at full capacity 24 hours a day while reconstruction continues on a historic building near downtown Houston. The building at 2000 Lyons Avenue will be the brewery’s new home before year end. The new facility will immediately double Saint Arnold’s brewing capacity and will have an ultimate capacity of up to 100,000 barrels of beer per year.

For the six months through June 30th, production volume reached 12,983 31-gallon barrels of Saint Arnold craft beer, an increase of 22.9 percent over the same period in 2008. In the first six months of 2008, Saint Arnold Brewing came close to matching the amount brewed in all of 2006.

“We thank our community of loyal customers for encouraging supermarkets, bars and restaurants to offer full flavor craft beer, and for their support of Saint Arnold,” said Brock Wagner, Founder/Brewer of Saint Arnold Brewing who noted that craft beer’s share of the U.S. beer market is just four percent and has plenty of room for further growth.

In September, Saint Arnold is preparing to release Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 8, the latest in the brewery’s series of small batch craft brews. It will be a Scotch ale based on the winning recipe from this year’s Big Batch Brew Bash. Additionally, Saint Arnold will reintroduce Saint Arnold Oktoberfest in August.