E-Malt.com News article: USA, VA: Pro Re Nata Brewery Co. to open by the end of this summer

Crozet’s emergence as a tourist attraction spot will advance another step forward this summer when Pro Re Nata Brewery opens in the former Moose Lodge on Rt. 250 close by the Interstate 64 interchange, Crozet Gazette reported on April 4.

Crozet dentist Dr. John Schoeb, joined by two other investors, bought the 3.2-acre Moose Lodge property, which has agricultural zoning, thinking it might work as a boarding kennel. But it turned out that use wouldn’t meet minimum sound distances. Then new state laws meant to stimulate farm enterprise came along. Now they are planting hops instead and transforming the lodge, which came into the world as a truck repair shop, into a small-scale brewery.

“The name Pro Re Nata, or PRN, is a Latin term we use in medicine when we write prescriptions for pain medication,” explained Schoeb. “I would write it like this: Take one or two Percocet every six hours PRN dental pain. So it means ‘as needed.’ So come to the brewery ‘as needed’ for relief.”

He is being closely advised by a Charlottesville-area brewery on the art, science and business of brewing, but Schoeb said they preferred to stay in the background and he declined to name them, referring to them only as “well-known and very willing to help. They are overseeing production for quality.” He credited them with invaluable help in production design.

“We’re going to be a ‘green’ brewery,” said Schoeb. PRN has a well and septic system. Beer production will go into a separate waste system and the used grains will go to farmers as stock feed.

The brewery is expecting to produce 1,200 barrels of beer a year, or 2,400 kegs. It is limited to 15,000 barrels per year by law, he said.


08 April, 2015