Fast-growing Foothills Brewing is moving closer to establishing a tap room and creating an indoor/outdoor destination for visitors from all over.
The Winston-Salem-based brewery in June closed on the $1.8 million purchase of its 48,000-square-foot brewing facility at 3800 Kimwell Drive, a facility in the Stratford Industrial Park off South Stratford Road which Foothills had long leased.
With the facility purchase comes a 4.5-acre tract of land that Foothills wants to convert into an indoor/outdoor “destination” area with food trucks, live music and bocce ball, said Ray Goodrich, Foothills’ head of marketing. They’ll also be starting a running club.
The goal is to create a destination where visitors can spend time touring the brewery, tasting different beers at the tap room, playing games and hanging out — outside of Foothills’ downtown Winston-Salem brewpub at 638 W. Fourth St.
“Because we’re out here in an industrial park, we realize we’re not going to be one of those, ‘oh let’s go to Foothills,’” Goodrich said.
Architecture firm Walter Robbs Callahan & Pierce Architects PA of Winston-Salem has been hard at work on a design for the tap room, Goodrich said. No contractor has been selected for the project yet.
The goal is to open the tasting room and accompanying facility by the end of the year, though Goodrich said that could be pushed to early 2015.
“One of Jamie’s most famous answers to anything is: ‘sooner than you think,’” Goodrich said, speaking of Foothills Brewmaster and President Jamie Bartholomaus.
But first up is adding several 300-barrel fermenters to the Kimwell Drive facility, which will allow Foothills to expand its production capacity to about 55,000 barrels — up from the about 40,000 it produces now. The first of those fermenters arrives next week.