A newspaper in North Adams, MA, tucked in the upper left hand corner of the state, is reporting that a few enterprising guys plan to open a new craft brewery there.  The partners, Christopher Post, Allan Duvall, Chris Cuzme and Alex Hall, have applied for a license to open a 15-barrel brewery to be located in a 4,000-square-foot space in Delftree building at 234 Union St.  The team has experience brewing and working at the Chelsea Brewing Co. and Greenpoint Beer Works.  Expect real ale to be a focus of the operation.  Hall is the editor of the Gotham Imbiber and a hardened CAMRA proponent.  He informed the BeerAdvocate readership that the brewery has already ordered 50 firkins.

The guys will go before the local planning board on March 12.  From the article, it appears they will fight the continuing battle against beer ignorance.

“I think it’s a labor of love, more than anything else with these guys,” he said Monday. “They started coming in a year ago, and finally, we thought the proposal was ready. As long as it’s not going to sell beer or have any smells associated with it, then it will be fine.”

The mayor said he was sure any odor issues would be dealt with at the Planning Board meeting.  The mayor in North Adams said of the proposed brewery:

“In no uncertain terms can there be an odor,” he said. “I guess they have ways to prevent that. Seeing all the other breweries don’t have this problem, I don’t think it will be an issue.” 

Best of luck and drop me a line with more details.

I had the chance to speak about The Good Beer Guide To New England and the local beer scene at a recent meeting of the North Shore Brewers at The Tap Brewpub in Haverhill, Massachusetts. It was an enjoyable event and notable for two bits of information. Brewer Steve Bernard is leaving The Tap (where he recently brewed an excellent Berliner Weisse) to run a bottling line at a well-known craft brewery in the Greater Chicagoland area. The big news is his replacement: Mike Labbe. Labbe was the long-time brewer and one time owner of the Concord Brewery of Concord and other Massachusetts locations. More recently, Labbe helped open the Pennichuck Brewing Company in Milford, NH. The move is a bit surprising as Pennichuck is still in its infancy, and to my knowledge, Labbe has never worked as a pub brewer. The Tap has been the home to three very talented brewers (Todd Mott, Dann Paquette, and Bernard) in quick succession. I look forward to seeing what happens under Labbe’s stewardship, whether he carries on The Tap’s tradition of pushing the brewing envelope or chooses to go more traditional as has been his history.