USA, OH: Wiedemann Brewery and Bohemian Beer Garden to hold official groundbreaking ceremony on August 30

It's an event that's been years in the making: An official groundbreaking for the new $3 million Wiedemann Brewery and Bohemian Beer Garden in St. Bernard takes place on August 30, Cincinnati.com reported.

The complex, which is expected to open in February or March, will be at 4811 Vine St., in the former Imwalle Memorial funeral home in the village's downtown area.

Getting to this point has been a long road for owners Jon and Betsy Newberry. They brought back the Wiedemann name and established the Geo. Wiedemann Brewing Co. back in 2012. Two years later, in 2014, they announced plans to open a brewery in Newport's WaterTower Square. That would have been a homecoming of sorts: George Wiedemann founded the original Wiedemann Brewing Co. in Newport in 1870.

But the financing for the WaterTower location never came through, Newberry said. A second location in Newport also didn't work out.

And the Newberrys got a good deal to buy the property in their own neighborhood, St. Bernard. Owning the building and having that as collateral, as well as the dozen or so investors (including Wiedemann descendants) that they've picked up along the way, made the venture more appealing to banks, Jon Newberry said.

Being able to self-distribute beer, allowed in Ohio but prohibited in Kentucky, was also part of the new site's appeal, he said.

Still, he said not to count Newport out.

"We really wanted to bring Wiedemann's back to Newport, and we will," Newberry promised. "But that will be Phase 2."

Newberry explains he anticipates the St. Bernard brewery will surpass its capacity – 5,000 barrels a year now, with the potential to expand to 10,000 or 12,000 – and they'll need additional space elsewhere. But they'll keep the St. Bernard space too, he said.

"This is a great site here, a great setting for a brewery and beer garden," he said.

The building dates to 1921 and housed the funeral home until five or six years ago, Newberry said, when the business closed. The St. Bernard Community Improvement Corp. bought the building. It now has sold it to the Newberrys.

He said they'll build a 3,000-square-foot addition onto the back of the building to house the brewery and a kitchen, which will serve a simple menu still to be determined.

The tap room will be in the 4,000-square-foot space that was formerly the funeral home and will have an old-time tavern look, Newberry said.

"We'll use a lot of what's there," he said. "We're not taking it down to the bricks by any means."

There will be seating for about 125 inside, plus 70 or 80 more on a large deck. Later, they'll add an outdoor beer garden with seating for several hundred more people. Customers sitting out there will notice a concrete wall with a bit of history behind it: It was once an actual wall of the Miami and Erie Canal, Newberry said.

Although they've made beer in the past at Stevens Point Brewery in Wisconsin and locally at Cellar Dweller, Newberry said they've scaled back, and there's little Wiedemann beer on the market now.

When the new brewery opens, they plan to ramp up to having a couple dozen beers in a full range of styles on tap, he said. The packaged products will lean toward sessionable beers, particularly the brewery's already established recipes, such as Special Lager and Royal amber.

The groundbreaking will take place at 4:30 p.m. on August 30 and will feature remarks by representatives from the village, the brewery and the project team.

Although there are a lot more craft breweries in the Greater Cincinnati area than when the Newberrys started planning, Jon Newberry thinks the brewery's sessionable beers and nearly 150-year history will ensure its success.

(The brewery stayed in the Wiedemann family until the 1960s, when they sold it to Wisconsin-based Heileman Brewing Co., and continued to operate until 1983. The Wiedemann brand lived on, produced by Pittsburgh Brewing Co., until that company dropped the name in 2007.)

"There's a lot of Wiedemann fans out there," Newberry said. "They're more widespread than I expected."

29 August, 2017