USA, SC: Tradesman Brewing Co. officially joining the Charleston Brewery District

Tradesman Brewing Co. is officially joining the Charleston Brewery District on the Upper Peninsula as the company completes renovation of its new brewery and taproom, the Charleston Regional Business reported on June 27.

Tradesman opened in 2014 as the first brewery on James Island, but the company quickly outgrew its space, and it closed down the James Island location in September.

The new building, located at 1647 King Street Extension, is in the Charleston Brewery District, a relatively new moniker for the area that includes Palmetto Brewing Co., Revelry Brewing Co., Cooper River Brewing Co., Fatty’s Beer Works, Edmund’s Oast Brewing Co., Munkle Brewing Co. and Lo-Fi Brewing.

The new location is about 2.5 times larger than the brewery’s James Island location, according to co-owner Chris Winn, but with the parking lot, it’s “20 times bigger.”

“Our old building had nine parking spots,” Winn said. “This new facility is on 2.5 acres,” which allows for more people to visit but also frees up indoor space by allowing Tradesman to store some grain and refrigerated finished products outdoors.

The new facility will have an indoor taproom with 24 taps, as well as a large, outdoor covered patio and an outdoor bar with seven taps.

The brewery’s original brewing equipment is currently operational, cranking out experimental flavors two barrels at a time. The new, 15-barrel brewhouse is expected to be up and running before July 4. The annual capacity of the brewery will be about 3,000 barrels of beer per year, which equates to 720,000 pints.

Tradesman also plans to add a canning line in late July to package four of its beer varieties.

Tradesman has been open limited hours during the past few months as crews worked to clean up and renovate the new facility, which used to be a trucking warehouse. Renovations included replacing the building’s drywall, upgrading its electrical and plumbing infrastructure, and putting in new drains to accommodate the amount of liquid involved in brewing beer.

Winn said the renovations cost about $1 million, including the equipment, materials and fees.

“It’s still very industrial, but at least it looks finished and we cut out spaces from what would be an empty rectangle and gave it some definition, so we’ve got space for the taproom, some meeting rooms, some bathrooms, a kitchen,” Winn said. “And, of course, plenty of room to make more beer.”

Winn said the owners originally planned to keep the James Island facility open until the King Street location was ready. But delays in permitting and construction led the team to decide it wasn’t cost-effective to lease two locations and use only one of them.

“The end result was that we sort of invited people over to our house while we were still in our pajamas,” Winn said. “It’s not exactly how we planned to introduce people to the new space, but the end result is that we ended up drawing more people in and having some folks who’ve really been cheering for us to see the progress move.”

Winn said he and his co-owners, husband and wife team Scott and Sara Gayle McConnell, learned several lessons from their old space, the main one being you can never have enough space.

“We learned how important it is to have a little bit of a longer-range vision of what your business can become and making sure you have space for it three years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now,” Winn said. “This new location gives us room to add some components and expand in this location so we don’t need to move the brewery again.”

28 June, 2018