contributed photo Architectural rendering of what Bad Habit Brewing will look like when renovation is completed in July.

Bad Habit Brewing Company is expanding its current location on College Avenue by increasing production and warehouse capacity, and adding an event space.

Construction began on Dec. 3, and is expected to be completed in July, said co-owner Aaron Rieland.

When complete, the 2,500 square feet of production and warehouse space will enable Bad Habit to double their output to about 1,600 barrels a year, Rieland said.

“We have busy times of the year like in the summer when we get low on beer. This will give us the opportunity to really keep up to full capacity all the time,” he said.

The event space will be called “The Brewer’s Lounge” according to their website.  At 1,500 square feet, it will be about the size of the existing taproom. It will have a separate entrance, its own bar, and a capacity of about 75 inside and 40 outside on a patio that will wrap around the south and east sides.

With just the taproom, Rieland said, they have been limited in their event offerings to times when it wasn’t open to the public, mostly in the morning.

“We will have a completely separate event space and we will be able to rent that out seven days a week, ” Rieland said.

The Bad Habit website has several architectural renderings of the new space at http://www.badhabitbeer.com/private-event-rentals-1.

Diekmann grew up in Mounds View, Minnesota. He attended St. Cloud State University to wrestle and study English. He has been an infrequent freelance writer for several years, mostly for the Monitor-Review, a small paper that served the southern Minnesota town of Adams. He and his wife recently moved to Sauk Rapids to watch their grandchildren grow. He has been freelance writing for the Newsleaders since late 2015, and is still trying to get used to the novelty of having an editor.

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