Buellton-based craft brewer Figueroa Mountain is headed across the pond with plans to open a new taproom and brewing operation in Germany.

Terra Lee Inglis, bar manager at Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co., pours a draft beer for a customer. (Nik Blaskovich / Business Times photo)

Brewbound, a source for all things beer industry related, dropped the news Oct. 30 that Figueroa is headed to the Bavaria region of the country and plans to start contract brewing there within six months as it looks for possible build sites.

“We’ll start off as a small regional brewery and can grow from there and test the market,” brewery President Jaime Dietenhofer told Brewbound. “Maybe that’s more tied into a 15-barrel system with multiple fermenters just like we started over here and if we need to add capacity we will.”

The moves comes as the country’s 10-largest craft brewer Escondido-based Stone Brewing is planning it’s own $25 million facility in Berlin.

Brewbound reports that Figueroa plans to finance its project with inside capital and potential international partners, though the company’s ambitions are much more humble than Stone’s.

“One of the things we’re really happy about, we wanted to be this kind of university for our brewers and staff,” Dietenhofer told Brewbound. “We can send them overseas and vice versa, bring staff from Germany to us and kind of cross-pollinate.”

The Business Times recently reported that the Figueroa was moving all its 20,000 barrel per year distribution operations over to Jordano’s Pacific Beverage Company. Earlier this year Figueroa also told the Business Times that it’s opening several new locations throughout the Central and South Coast region.

The brewer is investing almost $6 million for three new taprooms located in Santa Maria, Arroyo Grande and and Westlake Village. Both the Arroyo Grande and Westlake Village locations will produce up to 1,500 barrels annually. The Santa Maria taproom is expected to open Nov. 22. A San Luis Obispo location is also in the works for the new Public Market under development there as well.

Figueroa has partnered with Milano Restaurant Group to help finance the Arroyo Grande and Westlake Village projects, and the company also expects to have its offerings available in the Central Valley and Bay area by 2016, according to Brewbound