Dig the translucent trees (also, awesome band name).
Just five years after opening their doors on the Westside of Atlanta, local favorite Monday Night Brewing is planning a new beer barrel-aging and souring facility, complete with tasting room, patio and orchard. The site will face the Atlanta BeltLine’s Westside Trail and is slated to open in the summer of 2017.
“Our barrel-aged beers have won major awards at competitions like the Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup, and we’ve realized we’re pretty darn good at barrel-aging,” explained Monday Night Brewing Co-Founder Jonathan Baker. “Unfortunately we simply don’t have the room to do what we want to do at our current brewery.”
Some 22,000 sq ft of new space should change that, allowing Monday Night Brewing to install multiple barrel-aging and souring rooms as well as open fermentation vessels, which ferment beer using flora in the air around them.
“Spontaneous fermentation opens up a world of possibilities for our limited release beers,” co-founder Joel Iverson added. “The orchard we are planting next to the building will not only provide raw, locally grown ingredients for our new beers, but it will also help with ‘wild’ open air fermentation.” Intentionally souring beers using wild strains of yeast has grown in popularity among craft beer producers in recent years, as has aging beers in spirits and wine barrels.
The new brewery is opening up in Stream Realty’s Lee + White development, also to include local food producers Honeysuckle Gelato, Deux South Pickles and Southern Aged Cheese. The development borders the Atlanta BeltLine’s new Westside Trail, currently under construction.
Paul Morris, CEO of Atlanta BeltLine Inc. said, “We are encouraged by the steady growth and expansion of local businesses all around the Atlanta BeltLine, because it results in investment that lifts up neighborhoods.”
The Westside Trail will connect neighborhoods such as West End, Adair Park, Gordon White Park, and Washington Park with a pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly trail. Eventually the Westside Trail will become a piece of the planned 22-mile loop inside the City of Atlanta, connecting neighborhoods and parks via former railways.
Monday Night Brewing CEO Jeff Heck was excited about the possibilities that the BeltLine location opens up. “We started as three guys brewing with friends, family, and strangers on Monday nights in my garage. There is something really powerful about beer’s ability to connect people. Our purpose at Monday Night is to build community through beer, and working with the BeltLine on this project is a perfect example of that.”
Monday Night Brewing still has a tough path ahead of them. Southwest Atlanta is still home to its fair share of boarded up houses and unused warehouse space. Kevin Johnson, Senior Vice President of Invest Atlanta, the City’s Economic Development Authority, said this is a step in the right direction. “The addition of new businesses around the Atlanta BeltLine will help Westside communities flourish through greater economic activity, job opportunities, and mobility along the Westside Trail.”
