USA, GA: Slow Pour Brewing Company to become Gwinnett County’s first brewery

Gwinnett County’s first brewery is getting closer to opening. It’s just a question of when, Gwinnettdailypost.com reported on July 8.

If Lawrenceville-based Slow Pour Brewing Company co-owner John Reynolds has his way, it will be Sept. 1, a symbolic date when a new state law that lets breweries sell limited amounts of malt beverages directly to the public goes into effect. It also gives him, as the brew master, more time to work with the beer recipes and the brewery’s equipment before the doors open.

Others, such as Reynolds’ brother-in-law and Slow Pour co-owner Marty Mazzawi, are eyeing an even sooner opening.

“We’re getting close, but we’ve been saying that for a while,” Reynolds said. “We’re definitely ready to push the ball across the goal line, but we’ve got a few hurdles outstanding that we’re working through. Those hurdles, as they stand today, would be the city and the state liquor license, so we’re working with our attorney to get all of that stuff pushed through.

“We’re looking like that should be done in four weeks or so. As soon as we have those complete, we can start brewing beer.”

Slow Pour is the result of about two years of work by Reynolds and Mazzawi to open a brewery. While the brothers-in-law have been working through the process of getting approval at the city and state levels, and then renovating an old building just off the Lawrenceville Square, they’ve also gone through a few iterations of the proposed name.

They first wanted to be called 1821 Brewing Company.

It ties into Lawrenceville history since the city was officially founded on Dec. 15, 1821, but it turns out those numbers are pretty popular in the beer industry because of another significance. The 18th amendment to the U.S. Constitution established Prohibition while the 21st amendment repealed it.

Reynolds and Mazzawi were not the first people to think of using 1821, or some variant, as a name though.

“We got a notification that we had to move off of that name,” Reynolds said.

Then they tried Slow Down Brewing Company, to represent a philosophy they wanted the company to represent.

“Slow Down was pointing to us living in such a fast-paced environment where everyone is constantly on their phones and constantly plugged in, so they miss out on life,” Reynolds said. “And beer is something that can bring people together and be a conversation starter to sit down and enjoy community with friends and family and the like.

“We thought Slow Down pointed to that kind of mentality (of) slowing down, having a beer with friends and family and community, and fostering that type of environment.”

But it turned out that name was already taken by a beer in Alaska.

Wanting to stay in the same vein as Slow Down, they modified the name and finally became Slow Pour. Reynolds said the name works because it still encapsulates the philosophy they want the company to espouse.

Reynolds and another brewer, Chase Medlin, have been working together to come up with drinks that will be sold.

Slow Pour will begin with three staple beers that include a crisp blonde ale, two IPAs — one of which will be more juicy and crisp and another which will be done in more of a West Coast style — and a seasonal offering done specifically for the brewery’s opening.

The plan is to push the juicy, crisp IPA and the blonde ale to distribution in the area initially before expanding, possibly bringing the other IPA to distribution as well as future offerings.

The Slow Pour team is still working through settling their distribution channels, but they already know they want their beer to be available at businesses around the Lawrenceville Square.

“Our plan right now is to start small and kind of grow organically, and that seems to be the direction all of our distribution partners want us to go as well,” Reynolds said. “Starting small, for us, means servicing our backyard, wanting to take care of the restaurants and bar areas in downtown Lawrenceville.

“That would be Universal Joint, Local Republic, Exhibit Ale, those types of places, and then growing our footprint as we can into (the rest of) Gwinnett and serving Gwinnett as a whole as much as we possibly can. Then, from there, just continuing to grow, pushing down into Atlanta and so on.”

It isn’t just the brewery’s name that has changed over the last couple of years. The building that houses Slow Pour also looks a little different these days. What was once a warehouse now looks like a place that will be both a brewery and social gathering spot.

Reynolds gives credit for that to his brother-in-law because, while he has been more involved on the brewing side, Mazzawi has been more hands on with the design side, coming up with a look and atmosphere for the brewery.

In addition to a new coat of paint — it had once been a blueberry color but it now a light tan — there are new windows, a new roof, new lighting, a revamped entrance and the interior has been overhauled.

“We kind of stripped it down to its bones,” Reynolds said. “We have the original brick walls from the original building that was built in 1910 and the original floor has been patched in certain spots, but we tried to leave the floor as true to the original as we could.”

The interior will include a large, approximately 3,000-square-foot tasting area that will be set up to sort of resemble a bar. It will, in fact, have two bars in it, as well as exposed brick walls, large cypress support beams, wood floors, couches and chairs, and games such as corn hole.

The bars, themselves, will be designed to function somewhat differently.

“One will be a walk-up bar and one will be a sit down and be served bar,” Reynolds said.

Mixing and fermentation tanks made by Portland Kettle Works have been installed in a large brew house in the back of the building — although Reynolds can only do water tests in them until the brewery has the OK to begin making beer.

A beer garden is also slated to be built on the side of the building, where a driveway currently exists.

Reclaimed and reused materials have played a role in various parts of the building. Wood from the old roof, for example, is being reused to build walls for an office space for Mazzawi and Reynolds. The refrigeration unit’s doors are recycled, having once been used as the doors for the refrigeration unit at a Racetrack gas station.

And, Reynolds said the beer tap at one of the two bars in the brewery was bought from the owners of Local Republic when they moved their restaurant to a new location on the square earlier this year.

“I think it’s a really unique brewery experience as compared to what you might find out there now,” Reynolds said. “It’s a different feel being that it’s such an old building. You really get a unique feel walking in that space.”

09 July, 2017