USA, TX: Town In City Brewing puts its brewery in Houston for sale, plans move to larger facility

Town In City Brewing put its brewery and tap room in the Heights up for sale as the locally-owned brewery prepares to move to a larger facility to accommodate growth in its cider business, Chron.com reported on March 26.

“We listed the property today,” co-owner Justin Engle said on March 26. “We’re not able to disclose exactly where we’re moving to. We just know it is going to be somewhere in the city.”

Since opening in August 2015, area residents and out-of-town visitors have enjoyed the outdoor patio and small tap room, which hosts trivia night, open mic night and pop-up kitchens from various chefs. The brewery is looking to move to a warehouse-type space of close to 10,000 square feet, Engle said, and at least initially, it will not be open to the public.

The 3,749-square-foot building, which sits on a 10,000-square-foot lot at 1125 West Cavalcade near North Main Street, is being offered for sale with or without the brewing equipment, according to NAI Partners, the commercial real estate firm hired to market the property. The asking price, without the brewing equipment, is $1 million.

The brewery’s 2,000-square-feet of warehouse space houses four 30-barrel tanks and, by the end of the week, two new 120-barrel tanks purchased for its Houston Cider Co. operations. The cider tanks, which make cider from apples, are about 10-feet wide and 19-feet tall.

“We have more of these tanks coming in,” Engle said. “It’s getting pretty jam-packed pretty fast.”

The brewery will continue operating in the Heights until it relocates. The time frame for the move was not disclosed. The new location will be focused more on production than creating a neighborhood gathering area, and will likely open to the public on weekends only in the future.

“We’re probably not going to be open to the public for a couple of months as we just focus on production,” Engle said.

Houston Cider products are sold in stores such as H-E-B, Whole Foods, Kroger and Spec’s as well as in bars and restaurants. Town In City Brewing’s beer is sold in restaurants, but is not packaged for sale, Engle said. Sales figures were not disclosed, but the cider side, which launched in 2017, is driving the growth.

The departure of Town In City would leave the Heights with a lone craft brewery, Eureka Heights at 941 W. 18th.

Nick Terry and Joe Bright of NAI Partners are marketing the property on behalf of the seller with assistance from Larry Koestler. The property could remain as a brewery or another use such as office, industrial or retail.

“The opportunity to purchase a turnkey brewery in and of itself is pretty unique, not to mention being located in one of Houston’s hottest neighborhoods that also happens to be home to very few others in the industry — technically there’s only one other brewery in The Heights between 610 and I-10,” Nick Terry said in an announcement. “Town In City’s space would be an ideal satellite location for one of our city’s further-flung craft beer producers, and also perfect for a brewery-in-planning.”

Koestler, who helped bring the listing to NAI Partners, said there was room for growth in a market that’s already home to more than 50 craft breweries.

“The growth of Houston’s beer market has been meteoric these past few years—the number of breweries in Houston has more than quadrupled in only five years — and yet there’s still a case to be made that our city is wildly underserved when it comes to beer production,” he said. “It would be great to see an existing brewery make use of this space as a second location — hard to ask for a better location than The Heights — or another newcomer join Houston’s craft brewing ranks.”

Engle, who owns Town In City Brewing with Steve Macalello and other partners, agreed.

“I hope that it’s someone that is a craft beer fan and wants to continue having a brewery within the Heights,” he said.

27 March, 2019