Snowshoe gets its brewery – Old Spruce

August 26, 2019

Up on Snowshoe Mountain, no one is happier than Lawrence Walkup about the opening of Old Spruce Brewing. Walkup bought the six acre tract at the entrance to the Silver Creek area about five years ago and has been working on putting a brewery there ever since.

A crowd showed up for last weekend’s soft opening. Photo: L. Walkup

This brewery is a beauty. It’s a large, 4,000 sq. ft. footprint, rustic wooden structure. It has about 10,000 sq. ft. of usable space if you include the main floor, second floor, decks, porches, and patios. With a capacity 300 people, it places among the largest brewpubs in the state.

Building a brewery up on Snowshoe Mountain was not an easy task. The remoteness of the area and its high elevation created numerous challenges. It took almost two years from initial site preparation to get it completed.

“It’s definitely been a challenge,” Walkup says. “Everything is more expensive here.” He’s talking about things like concrete, building supplies, technical services and some specialty skilled labor. There aren’t always the things you need close by, so you have to pay to bring them in.

Most of these things, while a challenge, were not unexpected to Walkup. You see, he has owned and operated the Old Spruce Tavern in Snowshoe Village since 2010. He’s been a fixture at Snowshoe since 2006, when he came to the mountain to work as food and beverage director for the resort. He loved what he found and stayed.

The Old Spruce Brewing pub layout

The main floor taproom will serve only Old Spruce beer. On the second floor is a fully licensed whiskey bar where you can get just about any type of popular beverage you want. Wide exterior decks provide additional seating. A grass-carpeted, 1,000 sq. ft. room at the rear of the second floor rear will house the playroom with indoor, all-weather corn hole, bocci ball, foosball, and other games. Outside will be more seating areas and a spacious parking lot.

The public areas are rich with wood and metal features, stairways and bars. A craftsman from Elkins made the brewery’s cool metal logo sign.

They used local folks from Creek Company Store to source the eclectic wall decorations, such as the sleds and the glass bottle chandelier. Many of the tables are repurposed from different sizes of wooden cable spools. A gorgeous oblong communal table is made from wormy chestnut. Bathrooms are located on both the main and second floors. During good weather, live music will flow outdoors in their beer garden area.

A full-service kitchen will handle all the food needs. “We’re going to be doing tacos, sliders, and appetizers,” says Walkup.

Now for the beer

For the first period of months, you can expect five year-round beers and two seasonals. Walkup is a bit of a perfectionist, but in a good way. He has no interest in just offering a bunch of beers for the sake of variety. Before he adds another style, he wants to make sure it is very well brewed. “I want to be sure we get them dialed in before we make more,” he says.

As brewer, he hired Chris Eure, a well-experienced self-taught brewer who has also worked around a couple of other breweries. Eure seems to have the knowledge and sensibility that makes a solid brewer. His initial beers taste good.

The five beer styles for opening include a Blonde Ale, ESB, Porter, Hazy IPA, and Red IPA. The Red IPA will include a portion of locally sourced honey. Seasonal batches may include a Scotch Ale and a spruce tip beer (next spring) that will be flavored with fresh spruce tips cut on the mountain.

Eure likes the hops and plans to always mess around with the IPA recipes, trying different hop blends. That sounds in line with what Snowshoe visitors will want to see.

At least for his start-up period, don’t expect to find Old Spruce beer anywhere off Snowshoe Mountain. “I don’t want to distribute,” Walkup says. He plans to sell all his beer at the brewpub and at his other Snowshoe tavern. His target is to sell 1,000 barrels the first year. That seems like a pretty aggressive goal, but would be great if they can do it.

Beer will be sold in pints, flights, and growlers.

The brewery layout

Of the 4,000 sq. ft. on main floor, about 2,500 is consumed by the brewery. The brewery equipment is based around a two vessel, 5-barrel brewhouse, which includes a combination mash and lauter tun and steam-powered brew kettle. The system has a 20-barrel hot liquor tank giving them plenty of capacity to do double batch brew days. Steam is produced by a nicely engineered gas-fired boiler, which is enclosed in its own room.

Cellaring equipment includes three 10-barrel fermentors, one 2-barrel fermentor, and two 10-barrel bright tanks. They will hold finished beer in the bright tank for a couple of days to carbonate and then keg everything. Kegs will be stored in their cold room. They have no plans yet for bottling or canning.

While most of his primary equipment is brand new, Walkup was able to take advantage of some surplus equipment that other West Virginia breweries outgrew.

“I bought a couple of things from Big Timber,” he said, including his glycol chiller and grain mill. “I got our keg washer from Bill Heckel at Greenbrier Valley Brewing.” Those items became surplus at Big Timber and Greenbrier Valley when they enlarged their breweries last year and needed larger capacity equipment.

Customer base

Besides the locals who live and work in the area, Walkup believes the brewery will be a big draw for people vacationing at the resort. “Most breweries now are destinations,” he said. He will target the resort visitors and tourists by offering a local brewed beer that is available nowhere else. Snowshoe attracts many thousands of visitors each year, most of whom come from more heavily populated areas of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast. These are folks who are used to having local breweries to go to, so Walkup’s plan seems to be a smart one.

While there are peak seasons and slow seasons, Walkup understands that kind of operation well from his experience operating his two taverns in Snowshoe Village. He said half jokingly that when he opened the original Old Spruce Tavern he planned to make money four months, lose money four months, and break even four months. His business success shows he has mastered the ebbs and flows of the resort’s cycles. If there was ever someone who has what it takes to make a brewery work on the mountain, it is Walkup.

Photo credit: Snowshoe Mountain Resort — Snowshoe Mountain Resort is arguably the Southeast’s and Mid-Atlantic’s top skiing and snowboarding destination. Photo: Snowshoe Mountain Resort

While the spring season is admittedly slow, the summers at Snowshoe are getting stronger and stronger. The resort seems to have some kind of festival, music, or sports event nearly every weekend all summer and fall. The fall foliage leaf peepers add to the visitor counts through early October. Ski season kicks in at Thanksgiving and runs to March. Hawthorne Valley golf links is one of the most dramatic courses east of the Mississippi. Snowshoe’s mountain biking scene is growing fast and has greatly boosted warm-weather business. It promises to get even stronger with Snowshoe Highlands’ resent Ride Center designation by the International Mountain Bicycling Association. That means the association recognizes it as one of the nation’s exceptional mountain bike destinations.

Snow sports, golfing, hiking, and mountain biking enthusiasts have a demographic that matches closely with the prime customer profile for local craft beer. That also goes for those resort lovers who just come to relax and enjoy the fresh mountain air or attend a festival. The demographics are a great fit.

Brilliant Stream welcomes Old Spruce Brewing to the realm of West Virginia brewers. It is a superb addition to one of the region’s premier tourist destinations.