USA, PA: Chatty Monks Brewing Co. planning to open new brewery in Reading

West Reading's Chatty Monks Brewing Co. is planning to open a new brewery in Reading, the Reading Eagle reported on September 30.

While the facility will increase Chatty Monks' brewing capacity and free up space in its West Reading brewpub, it will not initially be open to the public, said co-founder Rob Metzger. A taproom is a possibility down the road, Metzger said, but he and his partners want to get the brewing operations up and running before they focus any attention on that.

"We want to get to that point, but with zoning and everything, it would've held up the entire project had we tried to do it all at once," Metzger said.

The brewery will be located in a section of 101 N. Carroll St., Reading. The building is the former home to Van Bennett Food Co. Inc., which made Betty's Salads and Betty's Potato Filling before closing in February 2015.

Chatty Monks will occupy about 4,300 square feet in the 12,000-square-foot building, which is also home to a roofing company. In addition to a production area, the facility will also have office space and an area for barrel aging.

There are several reasons Chatty Monks is opening the new facility, Metzger said. The biggest reason is the need for more space. At the West Reading brewpub, located at 610 Penn Ave., brewing is done in the basement, which is also used for storage and food prep.

"Ever since we opened up in West Reading, we always knew that we were going to need more space," Metzger said. "It was just so tight."

In addition, Metzger said, the new facility will allow Chatty Monks to start a barrel-aging program: aging beer in different types of wooden barrels, such as bourbon, to impart different flavors in the beer. That is something Metzger said he has wanted to do for a while but just didn't have the space to do in West Reading.

"This is really where craft beer is going, to these premium beers," he said. "A lot of creativity goes into it, whether you're aging it on oak or infusing flavors into it with different spirits."

Chatty Monks' current brewing system, a 3-barrel system, will be moved from West Reading to the new facility. Once it is moved, there will be no more brewing done at the West Reading brewpub.

Chatty Monks has already purchased several additional fermenting tanks, and they plan to eventually upgrade to a 15-barrel brewing system.

"After we get over there and get set up and settled in, then we're going to be expanding to a larger barrel system," Metzger said. "We don't have a hard timeline for it. If I had to guess, it will probably be about a year."

The additional brewing capacity and fermenting tanks will allow Chatty Monks to begin distributing to more bars and restaurants, Metzger said. Previously, the brewpub had very limited distribution because it just didn't have the supply to spare outside of what it used on premesis, he said.

"Since we have opened up, we have had many requests from different places to put our beer on tap, and we've always had to decline them," he said.

This isn't the first time Chatty Monks planned an expansion. Its owners called off plans to open a second location in a former soda bottling plant in downtown Phoenixville in August 2016 after they couldn't come up with the necessary funding. That building is home to Root Down Brewing Co., which opened in May.

03 October, 2017