Over on the Three Taverns Brewery website, President and Brewmaster, Brian Purcell, has been updating folks on construction at their East Decatur Station brewery as the brew station comes together.

In his most recent entry, Purcell describes the most recent action around the facility – “while the construction team completing the walls and doors throughout the brewery were hard at work, a team of pipe fitters were installing with precision the glycol lines necessary for controlling our fermentation temperatures. But the most inspiring moment came when we fired up Bertha, our 6 ton boiler, and ran steam into our mash tun and brew kettle for the first time.”

But then at the end, this note that will be of interest to local beer thrill-drinkers…

The time is finally here and we start brewing our launch beers next week! With the required time for fermentation and maturing, we expect to be in market and on tap at your favorite spots around town the first of July. Stay tuned for more updates and thanks for journeying with me on the road to Three Taverns. Cheers!

CL’s big feature is week is “Georgia’s Brewed Awakening“, an extensive piece on the challenges and promise of Georgia’s emerging brew-scene.  Decatur’s Blue Tarp Brewing and Ale Yeah! both receive worthy mentions, but it’s Three Taverns that gets the star treatment.   Here’s a sampling of what’s written…

Amid this burgeoning group of beer purveyors, Athens’ Creature Comforts and Decatur’s Three Taverns will likely define the Georgia brewing conversation over the next decade. Stein’s Creature Comforts will initially produce an IPA, pilsner, and a Berliner Weisse (a gently tart, low-alcohol, German wheat beer). For Brian Purcell’s Three Taverns, the focus is on a Belgian IPA and a Belgian-style single to start.

…One painstakingly crafted selection that may lead Georgia’s craft-brewing direction by example is Three Taverns’ Quasimodo. This Belgian-style quadruple ale, which Purcell has been tweaking for six years, will be the brewery’s dark, boozy winter seasonal. …Purcell’s careful attention to detail and restless, perfectionist spirit should be a model for Georgia’s craft-beer community going forward.

The Thursday release party for Blue Tarp Brewing at the Brick Store Pub got my digging for a bit more info on Decatur’s two up and coming craft breweries, the aforementioned Blue Tarp, and Three Taverns Brewery.  Well it just so happens that Atlanta Cuisine posted a Q&A with founders of both breweries earlier this month, in an article titled “Georgia’s New Beer Mecca”.

Lots of good info in there for those watching and waiting for Decatur’s local brew scene to get up and running.  Among the highlights, Three Taverns plans to distribute in both kegs and bottles and plans to begin brewing by the end of March 2013 with a to-market date of May.  Blue Tarp is already brewing – obviously based on the BSP release party – and initially will distribute in kegs with plans to add a canning line.  Blue Tarp first options will be “a more sessionable lower hop lower alcohol red ale called BantamWeight and a hoppy double IPA called Mother Hoppin’.”

 

From an Access Atlanta article about the Atlanta brewing scene…

Three Taverns, a brewery that’s been in the planning stages for more than four years, just leased a building on New Street in Decatur, where construction of a 30-barrel brewery is set to begin by the end of the year.

“We raised 135 percent of the money we needed to open the brewery,” Three Taverns founder Brian Purcell said. “I think that says something about the industry, and I’d like to think it says something about the strength of our business plan.

“We expect to be in the market with our beer by May of next year and maybe sooner.”

The piece also features well-known, Avondale-based Wild Heaven, which says it hopes to open its brewery by next summer.

You may recall our recent post about the coming of Decatur’s first brewery, Three Taverns, located at East Decatur Station.

Well according to Decatur Asst. City Manager Lyn Menne, when the two local residents involved in the operation approached the city about a license they “found that [they] had no license category that fit.”

Consulting with the city’s attorneys, the city identified “two refinements in existing ordinances that are necessary to support craft brewing operations.”  So, tonight the city commission will vote on clarifying the ordinance language, establishing a license category and adding “craft breweries” as a specified use in C3 Heavy Commercial Zoning District. According to the city zoning map (pdf), the only current “heavy commercial zoning district” is located in and around East Decatur Station.

The first refinement could be approved this evening, while the amendment to the zoning ordinance require advertisement and a hearing by the Planning and City Commissions, which probably won’t be considered until August.

The zoning change would limit the number of barrels per year to 100,000.  An email written by the applicant, Chet Burge, says that Sweetwater brews upwards of 100,000 barrels a year, while Terrapin is “probably approaching 50,000 barrels”.

Ms. Menne notes that diversifying business types, with a focus on locally owned, independent, is part of Goal 2 of the 2010 Decatur Strategic Plan.

See page 31 of the city commission meeting materials (pdf) for more detail.