WINNIPEG, MB – The Winnipeg Sun reports that two new breweries are both aiming to open their doors to Winnipeg beer drinkers in December.
PEG Beer Co. is being launched by Nicole Barry, the co-founder of Half Pints Brewing who left that company last year. Planned to be a brewpub with a full service restaurant, it will be located at 125 Pacific Avenue, a space (pictured above) that once housed the indoor skateboarding facility Edge Skatepark.
Barry is hoping for a December 1st opening date, and describes the location to the Sun:
“We’ll have just under 7,000 square feet, so it’s enough space to have a pretty decent-sized brewery and enough seats for an estimated 150-seat restaurant. It’s a beautiful building. The last time I was in the building, I was probably 15 years old — and it really looks the same in a lot of ways, and we’re trying to keep the beautiful building intact as much as possible.”
Planning to open around the same time is Barn Hammer Brewing, founded by Tyler Birch, the co-owner of a local fence-making company. Inspired by his own homebrewing experiments and visiting microbreweries in Phoenix, Arizona, Birch is planning to invest $750,000 into launching the brewery 595 Wall Street, and has brought in Brian Westcott – previously at Alley Kat Brewing – as brewmaster for the new venture.
As for the name, Birch explains it as follows:
“Our cabin (at Lee River) used to be an old farmhouse and it had a barn behind it. One day, my dad decided he would pull the barn down and let’s just say it didn’t work out too well. After that, we started calling the Dodge Jeep that he used in that failed adventure ‘Barn Hammer.’ So, there is a story behind it.”
For more details, see the Facebook pages for PEG Beer and Barn Hammer, where details are expected to be posted as each brewery progresses towards completion.