Charleston’s Fife Street Brewing project announced

Local beer lovers in Charleston WV can now see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s called Fife Street Brewing. The business founders have officially announced their new downtown brewery project, which is targeted for a late May 2022 taproom opening. It’s a project that the Charleston craft beer community has been longing for for the past several years and, hopefully, will lead to even more brewery development in the region.

late myLead brewery partners Derek and Lisa Godwin say the brewery project began taking shape about 15 months ago when they started talking with two of their craft beer loving friends—architect Jody Driggs and web media specialist Josh Dodd. A brewery project was hatched. Jody’s and Josh’s skills blend well with Derek’s (CPA) and Lisa’s (insurance) to produce what would appear to be a rock-solid business owner skill set. As craft beer lovers themselves, the founders are just as excited to see this brewery get up and running as are the rest of Charleston’s beer thirsty citizens.

Development moving along 

Fife Street Brewing will be housed at 180 Summers Street (the corner of Summers St. and Brawley Walkway/Fife St.). The owners are currently busy with remodeling the space to bring a first-class brewery taproom experience to the market.

A head brewer has been hired and the brewing equipment will be ordered later this month. They initially expect to have a 7-barrel brewhouse with around 50 barrels of total fermentation space. They will also utilize a one-barrel pilot batch system to produce regular small, specialty batches for the taproom.

Fife Street Brewing will package its beer in kegs and cans for sales at the taproom and also plan to self-distribute some beer to other Charleston-area bars, restaurants, and retailers. 

The business will take up a total of approximately 3,680 sq. ft. of space, with about 2,000 sq. ft. being the taproom with bar and table seating for a capacity of 125 people. A separate, connected 1,700 sq. ft. space will be devoted to the brewery and kitchen equipment. At opening, they expect to employ around 6 full-time and 10 part-time staff.

As the first floor tenant of the historic Cox Morton Building, the brewery shares the building with two floors of apartments upstairs. The brewery taproom entrance will be off Brawley Walkway using the same doors that serviced the long-time tenant of the space, Fife Street Shoe Shop, for roughly 100 years beginning in 1918. 

New and different

Derek says they want to bring a different experience to downtown than what is now available elsewhere. “We’ll think outside the box,” he says. He wants to add to and complement what Charleston has to offer. He says one big thing they will emphasize is community involvement. The taproom will even have a designated kids space to help accentuate its family friendly posture.

Once opened, they plan to keep 12 taps full of house-brewed beer. Most of the taps will regularly rotate through different beer styles as new things are brewed. For dining, Fife Street Brewing will feature a small plates menu, including a number of food items not common in the Charleston bar market. The taproom will have live music one or two nights a week.

Gil Peterson is head brewer

Fife Street Brewing has hired Michigan native Gil Peterson as head brewer. While still quite young, Peterson is broadly experienced in commercial brewing. Since 2016, he has been head brewer with Fairhope Brewing in Alabama. Before that he was a lead brewer and then head brewer at Blue Blood Brewing in Nebraska. Peterson looks like a most interesting guy. According to his LinkedIn resumé he is a 2012 graduate of the Intensive Brewing Science and Engineering program of the American Brewers Guild, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in business administration from Northwood University, and is currently studying physics at Arizona State University.

Peterson was selected from a group of 12 finalists who were interviewed for the job. Derek says they were pretty astonished by the scores of experienced applicants they received from across the U.S. and even from several foreign nations. Peterson stood out in his skills, experience, and demeanor. He was their first choice.

Second brewery builds craft beer district

Derek feels that Fife Street Brewing will be complementary to, rather than competitive with, the Bad Shepherd Beer Co., which is only a half-block away. He says he hopes to work in concert with them to accelerate Charleston’s craft beer culture.

It is broadly understood that a town needs more than one brewery if it wants to make its mark in the craft beer world of today. Ross Williams, head brewer at Bad Shepherd, has often said that he would welcome another brewery to downtown and thinks it will also benefit his brewery by helping Charleston become more visible as a craft beer destination.

Brilliant Stream will follow the development of this project and will post future updates prior to the brewery opening.