West Virginia brewery count hits 20

Especially when considering our past four decades of brewery experience, West Virginia has this month reached a nice milestone. As of September 9, we have 20 licensed breweries in the state.

The two newest licensees are Pubstomper Brewing Company in Morgantown and Sophisticated Hound Brewing Company in Princeton. Add these two to Brew Keepers (Wheeling), which was licensed in July, and Parkersburg Brewing, which was licensed in August, and you have four breweries receiving their WV licenses in 2016 so far.

It’s going to be a record year

That count of four new licensees matches last year’s total, and that was a post-Prohibition era record. We still have several more breweries in planning (BIPs) that could obtain licenses before the end of this year. Among those, I’d count Cootie Brown Brewing in Huntington (The Peddler’s brewery project), Front Porch Brewing and Mash Brewing, both in Charles Town, and Pinch Gut Hollow Brewery in Fairmont as those most likely to get licensed in 2016. Weathered Ground Brewery in Cool Ridge and Town Run Brewing in Shepherdstown are two other BIPs that might get licensed by year-end.

With any luck, we could end 2016 with 23 to 25 breweries. That’s definitely something to celebrate. The other good news is we have not had a brewery close since 2010. For a small business track record, that is pretty phenomenal. With most of West Virginia’s other manufacturing industry sectors continuing to decline over the past decade, brewing is certainly one of the few bright spots in the state’s economic profile.

Existing breweries expanding

Measured by just about any standard, the state’s brewing industry is booming. Even with all the new out-of-state craft beers flooding our market, our in-state breweries are showing a strong commitment to growth. Consider these expansions at existing breweries that have been or will be completed this year or were announced and are currently underway:

• Mountain State Brewing is opening a gigantically enlarged brewery in Thomas including a canning line.
• Big Timber is in the middle of building out a greatly enlarged new brewery in Elkins.
• Stumptown Ales installed a new brewhouse and fermentors that will allow them to increase production by a factor of 10 or more over where they started the year.
• Berkeley Springs Brewing is currently installing a much larger brewhouse and fermentors to greatly increase its capacity.
• Bridge Brew Works installed a new fermentor twice the size of its original ones.
• Blackwater Brewing is installing a new brewhouse and fermentation tanks that will enlarge its brewing capacity by several times.

Welcome our two newest breweries

Pubstomper Brewing Company will be having its beers brewed in a cooperative arrangement with Morgantown Brewing Company’s production brewery in Westover. Co-owners Cody Cheesebrough and Christopher DeFazio plan to start with a hoppy pale ale, which they will have distributed around the state by the Eagle wholesale network. They will soon be adding an Amber, a Porter, and a White Ale. Everything will be exclusively packaged in canned six-packs. They currently do not have plans to offer a tasting room or brewpub.  Brewery Facebook page

Sophisticated Hound Brewing Company is owned by Matthew W. Barnett of Princeton, WV. While he has yet to release details of his brewery operations, the Oktoberfest Pipestem announced on its website that it will serve Sophisticated Hound brews at its October 8 event. As of this article’s publishing date, no brewery website or Facebook page is listed.