Yankee Brew News Archive

The Future of Real Pubs in New England

Originally Published: 05/94

By: Dann Paquette

The evolution of the brewing industry in New England in the five years that Yankee Brew News has been in print has been phenomenal. From a few breweries in the 1980's, we currently boast nearly 40 breweries in New England and it looks as if we may reach 50 by next fall or winter. Of the approximately 40 breweries, exactly 20 brewpubs are now open in New England. Current plans put new brewpubs in Newport, RI, Bangor, ME, Manchester, NH, Keene, NH, Springfield, MA, Avon, CT, Salem, MA, and additional ones in both Providence and Burlington, VT in the near future.

During the 1994 Microbrewers Conference in Portland, Oregon last month a speaker addressed a large room of attendees on how to go about opening a brewery. When he asked an estimated four to six hundred people to raise their hands if they were in the planning stages of a putting together a brewery, at least 60% raised their hands. And of those who raised their hands 70% raised them again when he asked who was planning to open a "brewpub".

Back in 1986 when New England first joined the craft-brewing scene, brewpubs nationally accounted for about 7,800 barrels of beer in the United States. Last year that number rose to 201,418 barrels. The market is almost growing exponentially.

With the attitude "if you brew it they will come" brewpubs have nearly done the impossible; put together a sure-hit formula in the restaurant business. At the Microbrewers Conference in Portland it wasn't difficult to recognize the many newcomers who were much more likely to read Inc. and the Wall Street Journal than Zymurgy or American Brewer.

The following articles are intended to explore only two possible futures for brewpubs in New England.

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When the Commonwealth Brewing Company opened its doors in 1986 there was little consensus in the nation never mind New England on how long the beer "renaissance" would last. In the early days micros and brewpubs were at the very least novelties. Some even called them "boutique beers" or "boutique breweries" since the only comparison folks could think of was the boom of California wines in the 1970s.

While brewpubs have grown in number both regionally and nationally, the novelty or trendiness has yet to really fade away. Chances are still that unless you have an active interest in beer or happen to walk by one every day, you haven't been to a brewpub yet.

By still having to be the "ambassadors" to the craft beer industry in New England, brewpubs are generally stuck in a sort of "beer schtick" mode. They seem like they need to say: "as you can see, if you love beer you've come to the right place because WE BREW IT!".

In New England as in most of the rest of the country, a "brewpub" is still a word that means the same thing to both restaurateurs and brewers alike. Simply stated it means "restaurant". Although it's doubtful that the word "brewpub" has instant recognition to the entire food-service industry, it may mean refuge from a normally not-so-predictable investment.

Peter Egelston opened New England's second brewpub in Northampton, Massachusetts, at a time when they were almost universally still considered fads. He also opened and currently operates New Hampshire's first brewpub in Portsmouth, the Portsmouth Brewing Company, and co-owns the Smuttynose Brewing Company across town. He admits that he has learned a lot in seven years since he started off in Northampton knowing very little about running a restaurant. "You just can't separate brewpubs from the rest of the food and beverage industry," Egelston said by phone from Portsmouth. "Brewpubs live and die by the same rules any other bar or restaurant does. The only thing brewpubs have going for them is the fact that they make their own beer, which is a wonderful advantage, a fascinating thing, but it doesn't make them special in any other way."

The realization that a brewpub is a restaurant, a trendy kind of restaurant, primarily forces one to ask the question: Why can't a brewpub be just that; a pub where you drink good brew? It's a simple question with a lot of answers that sound too pragmatic to be too far from the truth.

Does the future of the pub-brewery really depend on the restaurant industry? Egelston said that although "the profit margin on the beer is much higher than the food," without a full-service restaurant you're looking at a gross revenue that "isn't going to justify the investment". In other words; no restaurant, no brew.

"With all of the concern about alcohol consumption and the laws becoming more and more stringent, lowering the blood-alcohol levels and so forth, I think food is actually going to become even more important to brewpubs than less. I think the days of places that are going to get by with just a selection of soup and sandwiches and chili are done," said Egelston. He went on to say that in some states laws make it tough for brewpubs to exist without food. Florida for instance requires the gross revenue of brewpubs to be 60% food. In New Hampshire it's not as difficult where 50% of the revenue for the restaurant area has to be food.

But then the future of brewpubs is on the backs of a fickle restaurant industry. What happens when non-beer enthusiasts decide that a brewpub isn't such a unique idea after all? Will there be enough craft-beer drinkers to fill these now passˇ brewpub restaurants? Will there be enough "gross revenue" to "justify the investment"?

In the future of brewpubs in New England this will happen. Brewpubs may even start closing as quickly as they opened. Maybe those brewpubs that won't survive haven't even opened yet. Maybe the real bandwagoneers are still in their conception stage. And the obvious conclusion would leave behind only the true, great places where the atmosphere and the beer are honest,

There's no question that when everything is said and done Ray McNeill will still be standing behind the bar at his family's pub brewery in Brattleboro, Vermont. Nowhere in New England is there a better example of how everyone is not building a "brewpub" than at McNeill's Brewery on Elliot Street. Housed in what is one of the more interesting structures downtown, the brewery sits in what used to be a fire station, police station and a jail. It's totally void of the par-for-the-course tanks or kettles in the window. In fact the entire brewhouse is located below the pub in one of several sub-basements.

The pub itself is small and laid back, comfortable, even homey. "I've had customers say that to me before," confesses McNeill, "that they view this place as being like their living room except that draft beers are being served. Ask somebody who comes in this bar four times a week how often they go out and they say: 'Oh, maybe once a month'. They don't even think of this place as going out."

Besides the fact that there are usually ten-to-twelve of Ray's beers on tap, several guest beers and a full bar, McNeill's greatest attribute might be that although it does have a light menu which includes among other things homemade chili and sandwiches, it is not a restaurant. As Ray says; "This place is a bar first and foremost and second of all we make beer".

So what about that? How does McNeill's pull it off? Can the future of brewpubs in New England support more places like Ray's? Is the "neighborhood bar" a possibility for pub/breweries? Can a brewpub exist without all of that stuff? Well, in Brattleboro it can.

For what it's worth Ray McNeill had a head start since he ran a bar in the same location prior to the addition of the brewing equipment - for six years. He had a built-in customer base from the day he put his first beer on tap.

But what he would have had no matter when he opened his doors is an honest pub. It's the type of place you can feel comfortable bringing grandma, the kids and the dog and know that everyone can enjoy themselves. McNeill knew exactly what he wanted. After all, he and his wife Holiday have both kids and a dog named "Bo".

When he speaks of what he calls "brewpubs" he isn't usually referring to his own place. "The emphasis is on food," he complains, "and the end result is that the bar isn't user friendly. This place you can go in, you can play checkers. You can pick up the Village Voice or the local paper or whatever. Hang out for a few hours. A lot of these places are not user friendly. You'd be bored to tears sitting there for more than twenty minutes."

And when he speaks of New England bars in general he sounds almost sickened. "There's a general East-coast mentality, not just among pub-brewers but amongst the populace, of the bar being an evil place. They're a place for derelicts, winos and dysfunctional people. I don't know which evolved first: if the attitude evolved from the bars or the bars evolved from the attitude. The end product is that bars in New England suck. They suck. They're horrible places. Most of them are smoky, people sit and the TV drones on and they serve overpriced, grossly overpriced, frozen beer."

The Campaign For Real Ale in Britain published a book in the late seventies called The Death of the English Pub. As the Brits saw their brewing traditions waning they fought back at Britain's larger breweries not only to protect cask-conditioned ales but also the traditional atmosphere in which they would be drinking them. The book was written during those in between years and it could have ended up a eulogy. Thankfully CAMRA won some of those early battles and inspired our own little renaissance here in the States.

Now in no way are any of New England's cultural traditions at stake. In fact brewpubs and the entire craft beer movement are not just trying to revive old ways, they're attempting to make new, better ones. New England is not without tradition, but no one would claim any surviving traditions in our drinking establishments. Between Puritans and Prohibitionists and the surviving blue laws that draw tightly on drinkers as a whole, there's nothing for New Englanders to get sentimental over. So New England beer drinkers drink wherever they can. And for craft-beer drinkers it's almost always in the middle of full-service restaurants.

And so the question comes up again: Can't there be a brewpub that's just that--a pub that has good brew?

Maybe in order to better see our future we should look to a region that has had a few more years to evolve. On the outside Portland, Oregon isn't too different from any city in New England. Although it doesn't compare perfectly with one city in particular it is smaller than Boston but larger than Providence, Hartford or our own Portland, Portland, Maine.

Oregon's per-capita consumption is roughly the same as the state of Maine's and lower than that of every other state in New England save Connecticut. The first brewpub opened up in Portland in 1986 in the Bridgeport Brewing Company's one block-long brewing complex. Presently Portland or the greater Portland area is home to nearly twenty breweries, mostly brewpubs or microbreweries that contain their own brewpubs.

Legendary in Portland and throughout the brewing industry are the McMenamin brothers, Mike and Brian. They are responsible for more than their share of these breweries. The McMenamin "chain" now employs 11 breweries and 27 pubs. While there really isn't anything else to call their brewing empire but a "chain", their brewpubs lack the sense of uniformity that makes most chains be like chains.

Instead the McMenamins purposely choose mismatching, incredibly unique buildings as their trademark. Their "Cornelius Pass" location is in an 1866 farmhouse and their "Edgefield Brewery" was a stately "poor farm" which now has vineyards, a movie theater, lodging and of course a brewery and beer garden. Most McMenamin pubs are located in older buildings but there are others that are located in malls.

But if diversity is their trademark then comfort is their middle names. Both their pubs and their brewpubs are without the fanfare and the BREWED HERE brew-ha-ha New England has come to know as part of the deal. The atmosphere is genuine and individual and at a level that everyone can meet at.

In a recent interview in the Pint Post Spring 1994 issue, Mike McMenamin commented that "the brewpub is where you have a lot of potential because there is no limit. Every place could conceivably make their own beer..."

Is the market in Portland that different from New England? Well yes and no. Local beer seems a bit more accepted there. Just about every location that sells beer sells local beer. Even discarded bottles on the streets of Portland are more likely to be micros. Outside possibly Maine, the demand for micro-brewed beer hasn't gained such a sophisticated share of the market here. And it may be a long time, if ever, before someone could have similar success to the McMenamin's, even in a big city like Boston. But if it can happen there in Portland there's absolutely nothing to say it can't happen here.

Peter Egelston knows better than just about anyone in New England. When he says, " I don't know that you're ever going to see that 'bar scene' that you're talking about," it's worth listening to.

Brewpubs are restaurants and anyone crazy enough to get involved in them should probably know that. Whether or not McNeill's is a special case, an exception or a sign of things to come, it will not be going anywhere anytime soon.

If the future has saved room for brewpubs in New England then it's the discretion of the owners and investors whether or not craft-brewed beer remains in the full service restaurant business. But it is the discretion of the drinker that will give them the profit margins.

Pull Quotes:

While brewpubs have grown in number both regionally and nationally, the novelty or trendiness has yet to really fade away.

"There's a general East-coast mentality, not just among pub-brewers but amongst the populace, of the bar being an evil place." - Reagin McNeill, McNeill's Brewery, Brattleboro, Vermont

New England is not without tradition, but no one would claim any surviving traditions in our drinking establishments. Between Puritans and Prohibitionists and the surviving blue laws that draw tightly on drinkers as a whole, there's nothing for New Englanders to get sentimental over.