USA, IL: Spiteful Brewing plans to begin brewing at new location by early fall

A few frustrating months into the search for a building to construct a new brewery, Jason Klein, who co-founded Spiteful Brewing three years ago with a childhood hockey buddy, made a phone call.

It was to Gabriel Magliaro, whose Half Acre Beer Co. has become one of Chicago's most popular breweries, but not without a few growing pains — namely, finding the right properties, Chicago Tribune reported on January 13.

Magliaro offered a few tips — be patient, don't settle for less than what you want — and they hung up. Within a few days, Magliaro was back in touch: the building next to Half Acre's production brewery at 2050 W. Balmoral Ave., in the Bowmanville neighborhood, was for rent.

Klein and his partner, Brad Shaffer, checked out the space at 2024 W. Balmoral Ave. They liked it. They wanted it. They confirmed that Magliaro wouldn't mind another brewery moving in next door. When he consented, Spiteful had its new home.

With plans to begin brewing by early fall, Spiteful's new location will put two of the city's upstart brewers — albeit at significantly different points in their trajectories — side-by-side, each pouring beer at neighboring taprooms. (Both aim to open a taproom in about a year.)

For the breweries, the birth of Balmoral Brewers Row is also the beginning of a brotherhood of sorts, with Half Acre the decidedly older sibling of the two.

"It's only a good thing," Klein said. "Having two reasons for people to go somewhere instead of one is good for everyone. Chicago hasn't really seen something like this before, but it has worked in other cities."

Magliaro said the breweries can learn from each other. Spiteful, which made about 850 barrels of beer in 2015, can learn how to grow from a neighbor that expects to make 35,000 barrels in 2016, and recently began distributing in New York City and Philadelphia. And Half Acre can remember what it's like to be a young brewery finding its way.

"We were a really good brewery, and happy and having fun, when we were making 5,000 barrels of beer," Magliaro said. "We don't want to lose sight of that."

Magliaro said he only passed along the tip about the vacant space because he trusted that Spiteful would be a good neighbor, and good to the neighborhood, which is a quiet residential stretch beside the sprawling Rosehill Cemetery.

"They make good beer and they're in it for all the right reasons," Magliaro said.

Spiteful's co-founders met at the age of 9 playing hockey in the northern suburbs, and initially talked about opening a bar together. Once they redirected their aim to brewing, they launched in a Ravenswood basement so small that the brewery's major components — including the brewing system and the canning line — are on wheels.

Yet, with a lineup focused on hoppy and dark beers, Spiteful has become one of the city's most popular small breweries, a status cemented in November with two gold medals at the Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beer.

The new space, most recently a martial arts supply store, is currently little more than cement floors, steel beams and walls of brick and glass block, but it will more than quadruple Spiteful's space. Construction is expected to start in the spring. Brewing equipment, which includes a 30-barrel brewhouse, has been ordered.

While many of the smallest breweries distribute beer largely in 22-ounce bottles, Klein suspects Spiteful has been able to separate itself by canning its beer, which has included a pale ale and an India pale ale both in 12-ounce cans. It plans to continue to distribute those beers in that format, along with a double IPA and a porter in 16-ounce cans and the periodic 22-ounce bottle. Just expect to see more of it — and a lot more Spiteful beer on draft. Spiteful beer has only been on tap in a handful of bars.

The partners plan to max out at about 20,000 barrels of annual production within three years. They're not sure they'll want to grow the operation much larger.

"We want to be on the large side of what a microbrewery is," Klein said. "We just want to focus on home market and see where that takes us."

Magliaro said it's probably best for both breweries that they are at significantly different sizes, and aiming for different goals. For Half Acre, that's growing while maintaining its workplace culture that includes such perks as shower stalls in the gleaming new employee bathrooms so that workers can clean up after, say, riding a bike to work. Half Acre's approach to its work is deep in aesthetics; it is one of the few breweries to have an artist on staff and one of even fewer to have a staff woodworker. Handsome, hand-carved tables fill the Half Acre offices, and the handiwork will be on display when the taproom finally opens.

Spiteful's goal is simply to take off the training wheels, literally and figuratively. Klein said he could think of few greater advantages than figuring it out next to Half Acre. In fact, after offering a tour of the new space, he headed over to his new neighbor to take measurements of Half Acre's canning line; he and Shaffer are thinking of buying a similar machine.

"It's good to have a neighbor," he said.

15 January, 2016