Breweries in Development 2024
For 2024, Brilliant Stream is tracking the following new brewery projects in West Virginia. We will update each as additional information becomes available.
2023 turned out to be a good year for brewery openings in West Virginia with two getting up and running: Fox Hops Brewery in Elkins and Köerber Beer Company in Barboursville.
2024 Active Brewery Project List
• Boc-Hord Brewery, Princeton
• Ursus Brew Works, Charleston
• Hard Right Brewing Company, Hinton
• 14th Street West, Huntington
• Stone Tower Joe Brewery, Fairmont
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BŌC-HORD Brewery
J.W. Groseclose announced that he and a business partner are taking over the former Sophisticated Hound Brewing location in Princeton. J.W. formerly directed brewing operations at Big Draft Brewing in White Sulphur Springs. He is known for brewing popular American-style ales. The new business will also include a bakery.
The brewery will offer food service out of a redesigned and enhanced kitchen space. Dan Perry, of Lewisburg’s popular Stardust Cafe has consulted on their kitchen build-out, so it should be good.
Boc-Hord is now going through the brewery licensing process.
Address: 833 Mercer St, Princeton, WV,
Projected Opening: Fall 2024
Ursus Brew Works
According to brewery developer, Jason Martin, his brewery will be located in the Old Strand Building located at 207-211 Hale St Charleston, WV. He purchased the building in early summer 2024 and worked with an architect to get floor plans drawn up.
Martin is an Air Force veteran who has a Masters Degree in Biology. A few years after graduate school, Martin was hired as a brewer at a small brewery in Crofton, MD. He brewed there professionally for 2 years and decided he would like to start his own operation. He had home-brewed for 8 years before getting hired as a pro brewer.
His family is from the Charleston, WV area, and he says he has wanted to move there for about 10 years. Martin currently lives in Maryland just outside Washington DC.
Projected Opening: No timeline has yet been announced but sometime in 2025 would be good guess.
Hard Right Brewing Co.
Hard Right Brewing Co., Hinton, WV: No recent updates.
Led by Pete Tilden, the project is in its early development stages in 2023, with a target opening date of 1st quarter 2025. Tilden say his plans include securing an existing building and redeveloping it into a small brewery with taproom and light food fare.
Projected Opening: By Mid-2025
14th Street West Huntington Brewery
This early-stage project has gone through some changes. The original concept, which was led by John Garcia, the owner of Lookout Brewing in Black Mountain, North Carolina, appears to be off the board for good. In late 2023, other parties with brewery development interests visited the property and considered purchasing a parcel on which to build out a brewery and taproom. Those interests seemed to have waned.
The property is still being actively marketed for brewery development by the Huntington Area Development Council https://www.cityofhuntington.com/business/huntington-area-development-council/
Projected Opening: Unclear
Stone Tower Joe Brewery
In May 2022, the Fairmont Times newspaper reported that local coffee roaster and restaurant, Stone Tower Joe, will expand into a much larger Fairmont building that will eventually include a small brewery.
Business co-owner Peter Daniel says they purchased the former 84 Lumber Company building, which had been closed since December 2019, because they needed space to grow. Once they get their coffee production operation, restaurant and shop up and running, he plans to develop a craft brewery there, which he notes may not be open for a couple of years. The building sits on 4 acres along Country Club Road.
Over the years at its restaurants, Stone Tower Joe has sold craft beer along side its coffee. It also commonly provides coffee beans for use in making coffee-flavored beers to WV breweries, such as High Ground Brewing in Terra Alta. If things go as planned, before long, it will be making its own beer.
Stone Tower Joe Brewery,
1228 Country Club Road,
Fairmont, WV
Projected Opening: Unknown