ELLICOTTVILLE, N.Y. — A Southern Tier brewery/distillery is readying a $5 million expansion in Ellicottville while finalizing partnership agreements that will take it into three additional markets, two of them right on Lake Erie.
Steelbound Brewery & Distillery expects to break ground this year on a 10,000-square-foot addition of its existing restaurant/brewery on Route 219 in Ellicottville for a 60-barrel brewhouse equipped with fermentation tanks to accommodate 120 barrels; plus a new 20,000-square-foot barrel house distillery out back with room for 2,000 barrels.
Founder Bill Bursee got his start in home brewing in 2015 and started Steelbound as a retirement hobby business after a career in construction. He said it's turned into a seven-day-a-week passion project, growing faster and broader than he ever expected.