Hardywood founders Patrick Murtaugh and Eric McKay cut the ribbon on the brewery's new facility in Goochland County on Monday.
On Monday, the owners of Hardywood Park Craft Brewery unveiled their most recent venture in an increasingly competitive market. The much-anticipated new brewery and entertainment venue, Hardywood West Creek, is located on 24 acres of rural terrain just over the Goochland County border.
At the top of Sanctuary Trail Drive — a street both named and built for the facility — Hardywood’s massive new structure stands tall against the open sky. The building overlooks Tuckahoe Creek and a vast expanse of protected land that surrounds it. Monday’s ribbon cutting was only the beginning of the festivities. A soft opening is planned for February, and a grand opening weekend is set for April 6-8.
This is one of many recent attempts by Virginia craft breweries to expand their reach and meet the marketplace head-on. In 2017, Lickinghole Creek and Strangeways opened additional locations (in Shockoe Bottom and Fredericksburg, respectively), and Petersburg's Trapezium Brewing Co. launched Beale's Brewery in Bedford. Legend Brewing Co., Richmond's oldest brewery, opened another brewpub in Portsmouth. Stone Brewing increased production in its Fulton presence and is now looking to open a bistro-style restaurant. Hardywood's own Charlottesville taproom opened in early 2017.
At a time when brewery culture is increasingly popular but the market is flooded, the pressure is on for breweries to find a niche market in order to become, and remain, relevant. “Small and independent brewers are operating in a new brewing reality still filled with opportunity but in a much more competitive landscape,” writes Brewers Association Chief Economist Bart Watson in a release.
Co-owner of Hardywood Eric McKay recognizes this trend. “Certainly, when new competition enters the market, it creates new challenges. To a degree, the number of openings has outpaced the increase in demand for locally made craft beer.”
Hardywood West Creek, scheduled for a soft opening in February and a grand opening April 6-8
When McKay and co-owner Patrick Murtaugh first opened Hardywood in 2011, Legend was the only other brewery in town. In 2012, Senate Bill 604 was implemented, which allowed breweries to serve and sample beer made on site without having to serve food. This allowance brought home brewers out from their basements and garages and into the public sphere. As Murtaugh recalls, at the time of Hardywood’s inception, there were 40 breweries in Virginia and one in Richmond. Just over six years later, the number of breweries has increased to over 200 in the state, over 30 of which are in the Richmond area.
The increased competition could make anyone nervous, but McKay and Murtaugh, who were here when it began, see it as a good thing. “It certainly encourages you to step up your game and continue reinventing yourself,” McKay acknowledges, “but I think with all the new breweries that have opened, so many of them are making interesting, unique and good-quality beer, and that’s helping earn Richmond a reputation as a craft beer destination. And I think, for us, that’s awesome. It’s exciting to see people start thinking of this city, that really only had one brewery in town when we opened, becoming a place where people are traveling from out of state, and even across the ocean, to come and visit.”
Breweries have indeed become travel destinations. In a recent survey conducted by the Brewers Association, 64 percent of respondents said going to a brewery has become an event all its own, differentiating itself from bar and restaurant visits. As BA economist Watson notes, “demand has grown for integrating beverage alcohol in more experiential occasions (including festivals, brewery visits and outdoors activities).”
One way that Hardywood is breaking into the destination brewery game is by offering a pastoral setting closer to the city. The intention behind the West Creek location, located 20 minutes from downtown, is to bring childhood friends Murtaugh and McKay full circle to their early days as entrepreneurs. Murtaugh, who grew up in New York, hearkens back to the days when he and McKay first started brewing beer at McKay’s parent’s house in Connecticut. “For me it was always that escape from the city … brewing on Eric’s back porch overlooking a lake, that was the feeling we wanted.”
When they saw the proposed West Creek land, Murtaugh says they were blown away by the scenery, “In the summer, it’s amazing … all the flowers and greenery. All you see is trees. We had this sense of, sort of everything we had imagined. … There were 24 acres available, and we were like, ‘Let’s go for it.’ ”
Hardywood, which has been operating at capacity for three years at its original location on Ownby Lane, is overdue for an expansion. They will now be able to brew their flagship beers en masse at West Creek, giving their brewers at the Ownby location more creative license to experiment with new beers. At Ownby, the capacity for brewing is limited to 14,000 barrels annually. At the West Creek location, that number will more than double, with a system that can brew 35,000 barrels per year.
In addition to increasing output for distribution, the new facility will function as an event space and entertainment venue. The space is filled with natural light pouring from floor-to-ceiling picture windows. The bar, doors and furniture are all made from oak and maple trees that were felled from the property. There will be a food truck court, a fire pit and rocking chairs for enjoying the view. An amphitheater and balcony are planned for the spring. The taproom is within view of the brewhouse, the fermentation hall and testing labs. All brewing will be done out in the open, offering total transparency to the curious drinker.
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Gov. Terry McAuliffe raises a glass to the new venture (from left: Hardywood founders Patrick Murtaugh and Eric McKay and Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade Todd Haymore).
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At Monday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, Murtaugh and McKay were joined by Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Virginia Secretary of Commerce and Trade Todd Haymore. In his last public address as governor, McAuliffe lauded the work Hardywood does for the beer community and noted that the new facility is “truly extraordinary.” He then raised his glass of VIPA, the brewery’s IPA made with local hops and barley, and led the crowd in a toast to a promising future.
