USA, GA: Slowdown Brewing Company to become Lawrenceville’s first-ever beer brewery

The business that could potentially become Lawrenceville’s first-ever beer brewery started with a brew of a different sort, Gwinnettdailypost.com reported on September 3.

Marty Mazzawi, who comes from a family of Gwinnett County dentists and is also a dentist, was running a coffee shop with its own special coffee brew in North Carolina. Meanwhile, his brother-in-law, John Reynolds, is a craft beer and home brewing fan. The family even gave him a home brewing kit for Christmas one year.

So Reynolds suggested bringing the two different types of brews together in one drink.

“He’s been brewing his own beers for years so he said, ‘You should try getting a brewery to turn your coffee into a beer,’” Mazzawi recalled. “I just said, ‘Why don’t we just do it ourselves?’”

That idea lead to the formation of Slowdown Brewing Company, which Mazzawi and Reynolds hope to open next to the old train depot in downtown Lawrenceville.

The Lawrenceville City Council will decide at a public hearing on September 7 whether to approve a zoning change to allow the brewery’s owners to operate in an approximately 106-year-old building on North Clayton Street.

Slowdown’s owners want to turn the building into a brewery with a 3,000-square-foot tasting room where visitors can sample the brewery’s beers after taking a tour of the brewing facilities. Georgia law now lets local breweries serve alcohol to visitors, but it must be part of a tour experience where they can see the processes used to make the beer.

“We must at least offer them a chance to take a tour,” Mazzawi said.

There are about 30 breweries in metro Atlanta, and about 44 located across Georgia, according to the Georgia Craft Brewers Guild, but Slowdown would be the first located in Gwinnett County.

That’s because the state is still a newcomer to the craft brewing industry, Mazzawi said. That’s also why Slowdown’s owners headed west — to Portland, Ore. — to buy brewing barrels that will be used to make the brewery’s beers.

“That’s the mecca of craft brewing,” Mazzawi said. “It’s been big out west for a while and it’s been making way east.”

Mazzawi said it made sense to pick the location at 407 N. Clayton St. to open the brewery because of his family’s ties to the area. He explained that his mother arrived in Lawrenceville with her parents at the train station across the street when she was 3 months old.

“To me, it’s a sense of nostalgia,” Mazzawi added. “My family has been in the Lawrenceville area for years.”

Even if Lawrenceville officials approve the zoning change, Mazzawi and Reynolds have several more steps to go through before they can open the brewery. Mazzawi explained that they must also file for building permit and then go through steps at the state and federal levels to get permission to open.

Opening a bewery, it turns out, is a much more intensive process than it might seem.

“It’s been a lot of fun working through all of the steps so far though,” Mazzawi said.

But if there is so much work involved in opening a brewery, why go through it all?

“My family has been doing dentistry in Gwinnett County for years and I wanted to be able to build a business of my own,” Mazzawi said. “My mom and dad opened our family’s practice years ago and I’ve got several brothers and sisters who work there with me … I figured this is a way to start something of my own.”

If all of the pieces fall into place and Mazzawi and Reynolds get the green light to open the brewery, Slowdown’s owners plan to focus initially on offering good IPAs, Belgian-style tripels, brown ales and possibly blondes.

He also expects it will take at least a couple of years before beer lovers across metro Atlanta can enjoy Slowdown beers. Until then, they’ll have to come to the heart of Gwinnett County to sample the brews — if the Lawrenceville City Council approves the zoning change this week and the other pieces fall into place.

“We’re going to mainly focus on building our brand in the Lawrenceville area at first, and try to get in some of the restaurants around here like Local Republic, Universal Joint and McCray’s (Tavern),” Mazzawi said. “If the demand is there, then we’ll look at getting a distributor and expand (down to Atlanta). It’s a process that takes a while.”

04 September, 2016