Pubstomper takes over Morgantown Brewing Company

Cody Cheesebrough and Chris DeFazio are now officially the owners and operators of the Morgantown Brewing Company (MBC) brewpub on University Ave. They had formerly been having their beer made there under contract.

The two men, who are equal partners in Pubstomper Brewing Company, L.L.C., purchased the venerable brewpub from Art Gallagher, who had owned and operated the establishment since 2009. They will continue to operate the business as Morgantown Brewing Co. and will discontinue their Pubstomper brand. All their beers will be marketed as Morgantown Brewing products.

Expect some of the former Pubstomper brews to reappear in MBC trade dress, including Hoodie Weather DIPA and The Whole Enchilada DIPA. Liquido Fundido Mexican Hot Chocolate Stout will return as a seasonal.

“Having a place to finally call home for our business has been the best decision we have made so far,” says Cody Cheesebrough. “When we were contract brewing, we were at the mercy of the production schedules of our host brewery and most of our sales were happening far from home. It created difficulties in meeting production deadlines and communicating our brand message to the people who were actually consuming the beer. Now that we have our own location, we have gone from just creating beer to creating an experience for our guests.”

Cheesebrough says that while the Pubstomper name has a lot of sentimental attachment, it doesn’t make sense to continue using both it and Morgantown Brewing as trade names. Pubstomper will remain as the corporate name of their company, but the Morgantown Brewing DBA will be what they use for branding.

“As Morgantown natives, we recognized that the brewpub has been a local institution for well over 20 years; changing the name just wasn’t logical,” says Cheesebrough.

Morgantown Brewing has a long history

In 2009, Gallagher purchased the assets of the closed West Virginia Brewing Company and reopened it as Morgantown Brewing Company. West Virginia Brewing Co. had started up in 1994 by taking over the state’s original brewpub, One Onion Brewing. A brewery has operated at the University Avenue address, with only a few breaks, since 1992.

Gallagher and some partners had also opened a separate division of Morgantown Brewing in Westover, which ceased operation late last year. That business functioned as MBC’s production brewery canning and kegging its flagship line of beer for the distribution market. After the facility’s closing, its brewing equipment and canning line were sold off.

Originally, Pubstomper brewed its beer at the Westover facility, but as that brewery ramped down operations last fall, Pubstomper began brewing at MBC’s downtown brewpub. This gave Cheesebrough and DeFazio great familiarity with the brewing equipment and personnel there.

Beginning in early 2017, the Pubstomper guys had been working on plans to establish their own brewery facility. When Gallagher decided he would like to sell the Morgantown Brewing brewpub and business name, they jumped on it. They came to an initial sales agreement last November and closed the sale in April.

It’s not your daddy’s MBC

It will be fun to follow the transition of MBC as the new owners fully implement their style of brewing. Cheesebrough explains it this way:

“Morgantown Brewing has been a local favorite known for brewing textbook traditional beer styles. In the coming months, Morgantown Brewing Company’s tap list will evolve from an unvaried list of traditional beers into a compendium of new-age beers people can’t get anywhere else. Chris and I have never been traditionalists and we have never brewed beers to fit within style guidelines. We take pride in building a brand that makes people rethink what a beer can be rather than what it is supposed to be.”

Cheesebrough says they have a lot of changes planned and some already made. The first big change was to the MBC brewers. DeFazio and Cheesebrough will now head the brewing operations along with their full-time head brewer Brady Jackson. That team is bringing a lot of new stuff to market.

“Our beer menu will be changing drastically,” Cheesebrough says.

While Alpha Blonde will remain as a permanent fixture on the tap list, all nine of the other taps will be rotating with lots of new brews.

“We will be continuing production of some Pubstomper Brewing Company beers, but they will be sold under the Morgantown Brewing Company name. We received very positive feedback for our Hoodie Weather DIPA and The Whole Enchilada DIPA, so those two will definitely be making a return. Our Liquido Fundido Mexican Hot Chocolate Stout is another one that we’re excited to bring into rotation.”

New brews on tap at MBC

They have launched a few new beers already, including:

Gucci Bueno – New England-style Session IPA, double dry-hopped with Citra and Mosaic hops. This beer is interesting because it has traditional British malts underneath super fruity American dry-hopping. It makes for a very pleasant beer with a full body and big aroma while keeping the ABV low. (4.2% ABV)

2-On-2 Streetball – Hazy DIPA fermented with Hefeweizen yeast and double dry-hopped with Citra and El Dorado hops. The the banana-like character from the Hefeweizen yeast is complemented by the candy-like flavors of El Dorado hops and the fruitiness of Citra to make a super juicy beer with low bitterness. (7.6% ABV)

People Power Beer – East Coast American DIPA double dry-hopped with Citra and Experimental BRU-1 hops. The combination of Citra and BRU-1 hops create a peachy character and the Golden Promise malt we used gives the body a nice clean character. The beer will be on tap from July 4th through Election Day. The brewery will be donating 10% of the sales revenue to the ACLU.

Retrofit – A blended sour created by combining a one-year oak soured ale, a traditional French saison farmhouse ale, and passion fruit puree. It’s a complex beer with notes from the oak, esters from the farmhouse ale, and the fruit character from the passion fruit. (6.2 % ABV).

In addition, they are in the process of drastically limiting their keg inventory for distributors. So expect to see less MBC beer out in other parts of the state.

“We strongly believe that the best place to enjoy Morgantown Brewing Company beer is here at our brewpub,” says Cheesebrough.

MBC’s permanent food menu will be staying largely the same with emphasis on features which will rotate every two weeks. They want those featured food items to be a celebration of world cuisine with everything from Asian street food to California-style tacos to classic Americana and Cajun cuisine.

Brewery website