USA, NY: Four Mile Brewing to open by spring

Four Mile Brewing is not opening this fall as originally planned. But the brewery will be churning out craft suds soon enough, oleantimesherald.com reported on September, 27.

“Right now, we’re just waiting for some finances to get in order,” said Gregg Piechota, Four Mile’s founder and head brewer. “But we are still planning to open. I know a lot of people have heard that we’re not, but we are. We’re looking at opening at some point in the spring.”

Currently, Mr. Piechota is waiting to find out if the brewery will get a $90,000 grant from the state to continue work renovating the facility.

“We’re hoping to hear something in October,” he said. “We’d like to use the money to buy a growler filling machine and other equipment for our tap room.”

In the coming weeks, giant holding tanks that can store as much as 930 gallons of beer are expected to be delivered to the brewery followed by fermentation tanks and other beer brewing equipment in December.

Mr. Piechota hopes to start brewing test batches in January and hold several soft-opening events.

“We really want to hold our grand opening in the spring,” he said. “That’ll give us time to get used to our equipment and get the tap room and beer garden ready.”

Earlier this year, Mr. Piechota and brewery partners Jaye Beattie and Nicholas Bohdanowycz spent their spare time renovating their future brewery.

“We’ve basically had to completely gut the entire building,” Mr. Piechota said. “There were a lot of walls we had to take down.”

Despite the delay in Four Mile’s opening, excitement for the return of commercial brewing in Olean has not been lost.

01 October, 2014