USA, MA: Two new breweries coming to Weymouth

Plans are taking shape for two new brew houses and taprooms to open in Weymouth, adding to the craft beer boom currently underway on the South Shore, The Patriot Ledger reported on January 31.

Article Fifteen Brewing Company plans to open a 2,400-square-foot microbrewery in the space previously used by Brewster Ambulance at 835 Washington St. early this summer.

Owner Leo Reardon previously brewed his beer at a cooperative style brewery in Norwood, but wanted to branch out on his own. Reardon said his fiancée is a paramedic with Brewster Ambulance, and they saw the former ambulance bay as the ideal spot to get started.

“It’s owned by George Brewster, and he’s a big supporter of ours,” Reardon said.

A Canton firefighter and paramedic, Reardon said he first got interested in brewing beer when he was stationed in Germany as a U.S. Army medic.

“Beer is brewed locally there and each town has their own brewery, so it became a passion of mine,” he said. “Breweries have become a local space to come together instead of going to a seedy dive bar.”

Reardon said Article Fifteen is in reference to a process from the Uniform Code of Military Justice that typically occurs when a member of the military gets in trouble for something minor.

“It’s usually for something like drunk and disorderly,” Reardon, of Rockland, said with a chuckle.

Reardon said the building is already set up well to use half of it for brewing and the other half as a taproom. The three-barrel system will allow them to make 125 gallons each brew, and Reardon said they intend to have six beers on draft at a time.

Article Fifteen Brewing Company is waiting from approval from the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau before seeking its state and local licenses.

Mayor Robert Hedlund said this week that another brewery is in the process of working out a lease. While he couldn’t disclose any information about the brewery or where in town it hopes to open, Hedlund said it would be a “major operation” with a large taproom.

“The plans and designs are really nice and the space would have a large capacity,” Hedlund said. “It seems like it will work out and be a big magnet in town.”

The explosion in breweries across the state follows the passage in 2013 of the Farmers’ Brewers Pouring Permit law, which allowed brewers to open up taprooms. A decade after the Massachusetts Brewers Guild formed in 2007, the 34 breweries open to the public has grown to at least 112.

Weymouth’s first brewery, Barrel House Z, opened its doors in 2016. Owned by Russ Heisner, Barrel House Z specializes in barrel-aged beer.

Many of the taprooms across the state are designed to feel unique with views into the brewing area, making them more of an attraction than the neighborhood watering hole. Reardon said it is a very supportive industry and breweries don’t treat each other as competition.

With the large number of breweries popping up across the South Shore, Hedlund said he see the opportunity for a brewery tour that shuttles beer lovers from one taproom to another.

“It’s great for the local economy,” he said.

01 February, 2018