USA, NC: Tall Guy Taproom and Brewery prepares to open in Fort Bragg
Although Patrick Broderick had originally announced the opening in April of Tall Guy Taproom and Brewery, construction delays have pushed that opening to early summer. Broderick now sees that opening date as what happens when a novice starts a business from scratch. Timing is a learned experience, but the steep learning curve hasn’t dampened his enthusiasm, the Fort Bragg Advocate-News reported on April 6.
When the business does open on the corner of North Franklin and East Laurel Streets in Fort Bragg, in the building that housed Sears, those who are counting the days until they can get in the door for that first sip of brew will not be disappointed. The Tall Guy Taproom and Brewery will have something for locals, tourists, and families to enjoy and bring them back for another day and another round.
The building itself is large and rises to an indoor height of eighteen feet in the back, where the tanks will be located. The spacious customer portion will be designed and furnished for various activities while sampling beers and seltzers. “This will be nothing like there is in Fort Bragg. It will be totally unique,” said Broderick.
So far the focus of work has been to strengthen the old bones of the building, start the process of electrical hookups to handle TVs and customer devices, redesign the brewery room and storage areas with concrete ramps for necessary forklift access and slanted floor grate areas for run-off, and build a large, self-contained cooler. The made-to-order equipment needed to craft beer and age it is still being manufactured.
Broderick has hired Michael Delaney, a Portland designer recommended by his brother-in-law. This is a major expense, but Broderick believes a good layout will create the kind of destination place where people will want to be. The overall furniture theme is what Broderick calls “60s, 70s, 80s” and will create different social zones for customers to use at their leisure.
The general plan envisions a rail with stools around the windows, “lots of device outlets, free Wi-Fi, two TVs playing sports, sections with couches, a twelve-foot harvest dining table, more tabletops for standing and game watching, and a vintage shuffle bowl,” he said.
There will be no servers; orders will be taken at the bar. The Fort Bragg Bakery next door will provide baked snacks infused with a beer in the batter. Customers are welcome to bring their own food as well. Broderick has no plans for restaurant service, but he is working to have local food trucks anchored nearby. “I don’t want to focus on food,” Broderick explained.
His goal is fresh beer and fresh snacks, nothing frozen. The beer menu will routinely rotate choices. “I want to keep it simple,” he said. Beer sales will be by the glass only. “I am avoiding any kind of packaging, even kegs,” he continued. One of his slogans will be “If you want the beer, you gotta come here.”
Broderick is no novice when it comes to crafting beer. He came to Fort Bragg in 1992 for a six-month internship with Mark Ruedrich at North Coast Brewing Company. He holds a microbiology degree from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and dabbled in home brewing while in school. “I fell in love with it,” he said.
After thirty years on staff and co-brewer with Chuck Martins for the last six years or so, Broderick still refers to Ruedrich as “my mentor.” He recalls his arrival in 1992 to work with “a pioneer in the industry.” He described the brewery on the corner of Main and East Pine Streets as “the small, original facility,” with a lab in the back of the building where he learned how to keep yeast for brewing.
Broderick remembers those days with Ruedrich. “I was right under his wing where he was training me, standing behind me with his arms folded, telling me ‘No. Yes! No. Yes!’ ” Two years later, Broderick completed the UC Davis Master Brewer Program. He described the course as ” a really good dose of practical, hands-on brewing with book learning.”
The course also trains participants for the nine-hour written exam from the prestigious Institute of Brewing and Distilling in London. The three exam modules focus on engineering and math, brewing science, and microbiology. Broderick targeted his study on engineering as his weak spot. Although he passed two of the three parts, the irony of failing microbiology set his goal to pass it on a second sitting the following year.
During these thirty years, Broderick married “Lisa, a local girl,” took a fifteen-month break as brewmaster for a pub in Utah, and returned to Fort Bragg to later team up with engineer Chuck Martins in August of 2000 as the production half for North Coast Brewery. Mark Ruedrich remained president. Broderick credits Martins with the design of the brewing operation later built across the street from the restaurant.
Broderick felt the time was right to forge out on his own. “All brewmasters want to have their own place,” he explained. He had worked five days a week for the brewery and brewed at home on the weekends. “I have a treasure trove of recipes, and I got to the point where I’m fifty-six years old, been there for thirty years, and I just wanted to do my own thing. I have always talked about doing it,” he added.
Broderick’s taproom will be “a revolving door of brews,” he said. “I like brewing different things.” He sees freshness as the key to excellent beer. He will craft small batches with 200-gallon tanks “designed to run through the product quickly so I will always have fresh beer.” No bottle or keg sales means he will sell by the glass to provide a tap room atmosphere “where people come to drink beer, focusing on the beer.”
Broderick’s first tap choice list for customers will constitute a variety of classic styles. The lineup includes a German Helles, a Mexican lager, a Belgian white, three IPAs, an English porter, and one hard and one soft seltzer with nine sugar-free syrup flavorings. He is currently working on producing classic sodas such as cream soda and cherry cola. Like the beer menu, the soda choices will rotate in and out of whatever Broderick offers at any one time.
Another of his slogans is “Tasty brews crafted weekly.” Customers can return time and again and have the opportunity to taste something new. Broderick doesn’t see the city’s other two breweries as competition. “People come to craft towns to taste at all the breweries. You can’t have too many.” He added, “I think this town could use four or five more breweries. I don’t think that would hurt my business at all.”
One more attraction Broderick plans to provide to customers is a tour of the brewing process, including separate viewing windows of the crafting process and his lab. Plenty of graphics will educate viewers as well. As a draw for tourists, he noted that Tik-Tok already has videos posted of his brewing activities. He wants plenty of photo opportunities for his visitors.
Broderick has relied on local contractors for all construction and remodeling, led by Vince Caccamo Construction, a third-generation company. Even his financial backing is composed almost exclusively of closely bound friends and family, along with a Community Business Grant.
Once all the equipment is in place and electricity and water are both flowing, Broderick will need six weeks to brew his first batches of beers before opening to the public. His website is coming soon.
06 April, 2023
