USA, NH: Founders of Stoneface Brewing Company seeking approval to construct a new brewing facility
It’s a story they love to share: Beer enthusiasts Peter Beauregard and Erol Moe met and became fast friends as co-workers at a Portsmouth technology company more than two decades ago, Seacoastonline.com reported on January 27.
The two spent time outside of work homebrewing together, experimenting with their own concoctions, offering the beverages to close friends to rave reviews. They later won first prize at the Boston Homebrew Competition in 2013 for their India pale ale recipe.
That IPA became the signature beverage of the duo’s Stoneface Brewing Company, which they founded in late 2013 and began commercial brewing out of in the beginning of 2014, producing around 800 barrels of beer a year and incrementally expanding ever since to about 11,000 or 12,000 barrels today.
Now, Beauregard and Moe are looking ahead to a possible new chapter: a new Stoneface facility that could double their brewhouse capabilities.
The co-founders of Stoneface Brewing Company are seeking Newington's approval to construct a 23,400-square-foot brewing facility that would eventually become the popular brewery’s permanent home. It would feature a restaurant, too.
Newington’s Planning Board held a public hearing this week on the project, which would include expanded parking from their current site and 4,640 square feet of office space in a separate warehouse building. The proposal states the potential new brewery site would be located on a 5.71-acre lot on Shattuck Way, not far from its current location.
“It's very exciting for us because it allows for us to provide a better experience for our customers and a better experience for our employees who come to work every day to brew great beer,” Beauregard said.
Stoneface has reached its “functional capacity” at its current 436 Shattuck Way location, Beauregard said. Moe agreed, adding the company achieved its five-year growth plan.
“There’s a lot of inefficiencies at that point, so it's time to take the next step and capture some more efficiencies going forward without sacrificing the quality of the beer,” Beauregard added.
Town records show Stoneface’s potential new home would be located about a half mile south of Stoneface's existing business, has a freestanding building, which would be replaced with a new industrial warehouse and office building, an empty lot and a wetland area.
Newington Town Planner John Krebs said the proposed site does not yet have a specific address, but the parcel of land is near the junction of River Road and Shattuck Way. The parcel of land, around the area of 66 River Road, includes an old Armor Metal Roofing building on it.
“As soon as it gets approved, it will be assigned a street address,” Krebs said.
Stoneface, which currently uses a 15-barrel production system, is on the same grounds as numerous businesses and shares parking spaces.
The proposal for the new brewery, Moe said, has about 160 parking spaces.
For the most part, the project proposal has stayed under the radar. “I have gotten a couple texts from a few brewery owners just saying how it would be awesome,” Moe said.
Kittery’s Winter Holben architecture firm was tasked with designing the proposed building in partnership with Ricci Construction Company in Portsmouth. The design is touted by the firm as a “hop-forward” concept aiming to expand space for Stoneface’s fermentation, conditioning and packaging.
Winter Holben is touting "a ground-floor restaurant and tasting room, with flexible event space and offices on the second floor, as well as an outdoor beer garden and play space" in its design.
Beauregard said Stoneface’s restaurant has about 100 seats and a new facility would likely double restaurant seating capacity. Stoneface features outdoor dining under a tent, which adds an additional 30 seats or so, though the new facility would also have an outdoor patio with seating.
“With COVID, our experience the last few years (is that) more and more folks want to be outside. So providing more of a brewery-centric focus for our customers instead of a traditional restaurant is kind of where we’re aiming for,” he said.
Moe said the rotating menu at Stoneface's restaurant serves "elevated pub food," namely burgers and wings, adding the co-owners haven't discussed a possible expansion of the menu if they're approved for the new brewery.
"I think organically it would because there’s more room in the kitchen to experiment with different options," he said.
The co-founders hope their proposal is given the green light from Newington’s Planning Board by March. Beauregard and Moe entered into a purchase and sale agreement with the lot’s property owner that is contingent upon project approval.
Beauregard did not specify a cost for the project, but said, “It’s not inexpensive. But I think the good news is that if we’re able to secure financing, it's something with our growth plan that we’ll be able to do.”
Brandon Holben, principal architect of Winter Holben, touted the ground-up construction and said the project would be the latest in a number of brewery projects for the firm.
In the past, the firm has assisted local breweries like Great Rhythm Brewing Company and Loaded Question in Portsmouth, Woodland Farms Brewery in Kittery and York Beach Beer Company. Their portfolio also includes a remodeling of the Press Room, an iconic Portsmouth bar that opened in 1976, and a previous Stoneface expansion.
“It's just very cool working with owner operators of a growing business like this — small, local businesses that we like to support in our work,” he said. “It gives us pride in doing work with places like this.”
If the proposal is approved, Stoneface’s co-founders said the plan would be to transition all operations to the new facility, but that there’s no definitive timeline.
When Stoneface first began, the company distributed its beer in kegs, but the ultimate goal was to can their beer for distribution.
After bottling their beer, which Moe said is still a system used for Stoneface's imperial stouts and sour beers, they eventually moved to aluminum cans.
"Our vision was always to be in aluminum. It’s a great sustainable package, it's infinitely lighter, it takes less time to cool, and it ships better," he said. "For us, the beer was always going to end up in cans."
The brewery, with its recognizable logo portraying New Hampshire's fallen Old Man of the Mountain as a hop plant, distributes its craft beer throughout New England, as well as in Washington, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Moe said he and Beauregard, despite their accrued brewing expertise, don't have any particular type of beer they prefer over another. Though they enjoy brews with "hoppy profiles," the best brew is one in the presence of friends.
"I think when you have a beer that is in front of you with friends or (when you're) in a social situation, it just tastes good, it just tastes better," he said.
Beauregard and Moe don’t wish to rush ahead of the town approval process, but they are focused on the future.
A new Stoneface Brewing Company facility would loop back in all staff members into one unified space. Inside the shared 436 Shattuck Way address, the brewers are separated from the rest of the staff, with the building's other businesses locked in the middle.
"The opportunity to move into a purposeful building is enormously exciting to both of us," Moe said. "Up until now we’ve been able to retrofit and pigeonhole equipment into areas that really aren't functionally very efficient. The biggest difference, the thing we’re looking to most, is getting our whole team in one production area together."
They still think back to the stellar reviews they received for their first IPA in that Boston Homebrew Competition years ago, calling it a catalyst to getting to where they are today.
"Ultimately, that was the push to put pen to paper on a business plan and see if we could get this right," Moe said.
No matter what the future holds, the key to the vision for the future of Stoneface remains the same — making beer to enjoy with friends.
"If we make it a beer that we want to drink, it's likely that other people are going to feel the same way when they drink it," Moe said.
28 January, 2022
