Screech Owl Brewing spreads its wings

One of West Virginia’s most reliably fun brewery visits over the past decade has been to Screech Owl Brewing in Cuzzart. Soon, a whole lot more folks around the state will be seeing the beers from this growing operation in their local markets.

Screech Owl Brewing (SOB), which was established in 2015 high up in the lovely Preston County mountains, sits just a few miles from both the Pennsylvania and Maryland borders. While the brewery is a beautiful and fun place to visit, its more remote location, in an area with a small local population base, limited the amount of beer it could sell through its taproom.

Since its early days, Screech Owl’s owners, Crista and Roger Johnson, worked with a beer distributor in their home area to sell draft, and later canned beer, to the local retail market. As the local market’s taste for Screech Owl brews grew, so did the brewery’s confidence. Over the years, they’ve completed a couple of brewery expansions and added more counties to their distribution footprint.

Screech Owl’s distribution steadily grew beyond its home base of Preston County—first adding Monongalia County with distributor Mona Supply. Then more territory was taken on in north central West Virginia with Tygart Valley Distributor and Valley Distributing. Then, WV’s Northern Panhandle was added with Carenbauer Distributing.  

Being just a short distance from Pennsylvania and Maryland, Screech Owl Brewing partnered with Joseph M. Faris Distributor in Pennsylvania and Lohr Distributors in Maryland to further expand its footprint to multiple states. Soon the little brewery’s sales broke the 1,000 barrels-per-year mark, and their confidence grew even more.

Greatly expanded distribution announced

Now, a bold new day will soon dawn for Screech Owl Brewing.

“We have decided to go big,” said Roger, who is Screech Owl’s master brewer and minority owner. 

What he’s talking about is the recently signed agreement with the Johnson Brothers-Mountain State Beverage distribution network that will add 42 counties and expand the Screech Owl brand statewide. This move will take the label for the first time to major WV population centers such as Charleston, Huntington, Martinsburg, Beckley and Parkersburg — as well as many surrounding counties.

Roger figures the expanded West Virginia distribution could take their current 1,000 barrels-per-year sales up to as high as 2,500 annually over the next few years. 

Brewery space and equipment growing

To support the expanded territory, Screech Owl’s brewery facility is growing. “Over the next few months and year, we will be adding more equipment and more automation to the brewery,” Roger says. 

Some examples include:

• a high-efficiency wet mill that will help them speed up grain processing; 
• a centrifuge which will increase beer production efficiency by an expected 20 percent; 
• a brewery building expansion, which will add a new packaging area allowing increased canning;
• more-automated canning line equipment — including a depalletizer and twist rinser — which will greatly improve canning efficiency.

“For the first time, we will have the room to package and brew at the same time,” Roger explains. He says he expects that the increased automation and expanded space will double their annual production capacity.

Screech Owl is also working with Mind Merge Design in Morgantown for marketing assistance along with social media support.

Family-focused operation

Through all this growth, the brewery remains a family-focused operation. A few years back, Crista and Roger brought in their son, Jameson, who had been working with beer distributor Mona Supply, to become their general manager. Jameson joined his wife Kristin at the brewery, where she had worked for several years alongside Roger, assisting him with the operation of the brewery and becoming a very accomplished brewer herself.

Look for them at beer festivals

To support the new distribution and build brand awareness, the brewery will be attending more beer festivals around the state this year. You can expect to see them at major fests — Foam at the Dome in Charleston (May), Rails & Ales in Huntington (August), Mountaineer Brew Fest in Wheeling (August) — as well as at smaller festivals throughout the summer and fall months.

Screech Owl looks further ahead

As these expansion plans unfold, Roger still focuses his attention even further into the future. He was a key player in the state legislature’s recent move to allow West Virginia brewers to brew at more than one location. Could there be a new Screech Owl brewery location coming? Roger says plans here are as yet not tied down, but from talking with him, you can hear his desire to grow into a larger production facility. In the mean time, he is also exploring contract brewing with a larger out-of-state brewery in order to support Screech Owl’s sales in the Pennsylvania and Maryland markets, which are also growing.

Majority woman-owned brewery

An important thing to note is the big role that women play in the company. Screech Owl Brewing is a majority female-owned brewery, with Crista Johnson owning 51% of the operation. While Roger Johnson designs the beers, most of the work actually producing them goes to brewer Kristin Johnson and her assistant brewer and trainee, Harley Miers.

Currently, the brewery’s largest selling brands are its Bold Blonde Ale and Hoo’s Your Daddy IPA. Roger says Bold Blonde has been around for 8 years, and is still “selling like hot cakes.” Other popular labels include Class IV Hazy IPA, Wild & Wonderful Strawberry Ale, and Buckwheat Honey Porter. Coming very soon will be the brewery’s first Hazy IPA in a can.

Unlike some WV brewers, Screech Owl does not produce dozens of different beers a year. Roger feels their focus on a few core brands allows them to control things better. He feels this plays a big role in the consistency and quality you’ll find in their beers.

So be on the lookout for Screech Owl Brewing brands as they hit new retailer shelves and on-premise accounts across West Virginia this year. And, of course, you can still plan a visit to their mountainside brewery taproom, which is always a treat too.

---

Screech Owl Brewing
2323 Ralph Livengood Road
Bruceton Mills, WV 26525

Taproom open Fridays and Saturdays

Brewery Website Link