2018 WV brewery highlights – facilities advancement

When you look back and add them up, a number of West Virginia craft breweries made tremendous strides during 2018, especially in enlarged and improved facilities. 

Best Brewery Expansions, 2018. Today, the spotlight is on those that took huge steps up from where they began the year. We take a closer look at Berkeley Springs Brewing, Bridge Brew Works, Sophisticated Hound Brewing, Screech Owl Brewing, and Greenbrier Valley Brewing. These projects really hit it out of the park. 

(This is the first in a series of articles reviewing WV brewing in 2018.)

Berkeley Springs Brewing Company

When Berkeley Springs Brewing opened a couple of years back in a retail storefront, it seemed like a pretty spacious place. They quickly outgrew it. Earlier this year, the brewery made the big move to a new location where they have plenty of room to grow. And grow they did. (See last May’s article on the expansion.)

Now nestled deep in the luscious green woods of the re-invigorated Coolfont Resort community, owners Karl and Denise Wagenbrenner reworked a former commercial laundry building, first putting in a larger brewery and small bar area that opened late in the spring. Next, Karl took on building a large addition to the brewery to house a full-blown brewpub restaurant. The final touches are now being put on this addition. BSBC also upgraded its food menu to feature house-made smoked meats and barbecue in addition to pub favorites. 

The impressive new brewery project is not all BSBC accomplished during the year. With several new tanks installed allowing more beer production, they were able to add distribution to the state of Maryland, and have been busy marketing their beer all the way to Baltimore.

Bridge Brew Works

Nathan Herrold and Ken Linch at Fayetteville’s Bridge Brew Works sure made the right decision when they opened a taproom at their production brewery this year. The guys had held off on joining the taproom bandwagon for years but finally decided it would be the best approach to building their business. They were so right.

It is a drop-dead gorgeous post and beam structure constructed with wood from the local region. Since its opening, the taproom has been constantly busy. What used to be a trickle of customers in their former growler sales room has grown to a busy stream rivaling the flow of the nearby New River.

Brilliant Stream ran this feature on the taproom shortly after its opening last summer. 

Sophisticated Hound Brewing

In opening its new brewery and taproom space in downtown Princeton, Sophisticated Hound Brewing Company surely completed one of the state’s most impressive urban renewal projects. It is one that best exemplifies the community renewal power of small breweries today.

Quickly becoming a hot spot in Princeton’s Market Street district, the brewery immediately brought increased weekend foot traffic to the area. In addition to a first-class taproom and restaurant, brewery owner Matt Barnett upped his capacity with a new 10-barrel system.

The space is gorgeous; the concept is strong. It positions Sophisticated Hound for lots of future growth. More details and photos of the project are included in this Brilliant Stream article.

Screech Owl Brewing

When Roger and Krista Johnson opened Screech Owl Brewing on their farm near Bruceton Mills, it was a production brewery only. You could fill a growler, but you couldn’t get pints. Even with this limited beer availability, beer sales were strong. As the brewery’s business and equipment grew, they knew their next step would be to add a full-blown brewpub to their operation.

Last summer, with the opening of the beautiful Spent Grain Cafe, the Johnsons completed their dream. Serving up pints and delicious smoked meats and pizza and pepperoni rolls made from their spent grain, the cafe became an instant hit with the local community and also attracted visitors from afar.  With all the new business they attracted, they are already seeing they could have used more space. Their next project is enlarging the brewery so they can keep up with demand.

Brilliant Stream visited Screech Owl last spring and published this report on the project while it was still under construction.

Greenbrier Valley Brewing

Earlier this year following his commitment to purchase Greenbrier Valley Brewing Company, Bill Heckel immediately went into high gear. Heckel’s investment in tons of new brewing equipment elevated Greenbrier Valley to the level it needed to compete effectively in distribution with the craft beer big boys. He also enlarged the brewery space by adding a spacious new cold room.

To top it off, he brought back highly respected brewer Brian Reymiller to direct brewery operations. With the new top-notch equipment and Brian leading the brewhouse crew, we see nothing but upside for Greenbrier Valley.

You can read about the details of this expansion in an article published earlier in Brilliant Stream.

Brewery highlights – Other expansions well underway

Two other existing breweries were also undergoing major expansion projects but did not have them totally completed in time for this article. These include a whole new production brewery at Big Timber Brewing in Elkins and a new brewery and taproom for Brew Keepers in Wheeling. We will report on them once they hold the grand opening of their new facilities.

Links to featured brewery websites 
Berkeley Springs Brewing
Bridge Brew Works 
Sophisticated Hound Brewing 
Screech Owl Brewing 
Greenbrier Valley Brewing