Tim Patton and Christina Burris at St. Benjamin’s Brewery.
There are an estimated 1.2 million homebrewers in the US, collectively producing more than 2 million barrels of beer a year. Most of them are content to cook up small batches in the basement to drink or share with friends.
Philadelphians Tim Patton and Christina Burris are not among them.
The two friends, dedicated homebrewers who met at a beer event several years ago, are a few weeks away from opening their own craft brewery, called St. Benjamin Brewery—after Philly’s best known beer lover–in what was, in the early 20th century, Finkenhauer Brewery on Fifth Street near Germantown and Cecil B. Moore Avenues in South Kensington.
With savings from an internet startup he founded with a college and a little crowdfunding, Patton bought the building which had been a German brewery more than once and, at various times, a sewing factory and a warehouse. Today, the heavily graffiti-ed neighborhood (not the usual tagging—it has the feel of at least a couple of years of art school), is on the same hipster path as Northern Liberties, which is just a few blocks away. Adjacent factories have been converted into luxury lofts and the sidewalk traffic is decidedly young professional.
Patton and Burris funneled some of their seed money into a complete utility retrofit. “Nothing was up to code,” says Patton, originally from Boothwyn, who left a job as a software engineer to become a brewmeister. (Burris, a native Texan, is an architectural conservator.)
A few weeks ago, there were four shiny stainless beer vats inside the building waiting to be readied for the first batch of beer, made from recipes Patton and Burris painstakingly developed over the last couple of years. “We haven’t used anyone else’s recipes since 2010,” says Burris.
In fact, they’ve been distributing their own brews for years—for free—just to test those recipes. The law restricts homebrewers to 200 gallons and year, and Patton estimates they hit that. “We’ve been giving it away at public events in the city which has gotten us a lot of good feedback,” says Patton.
They’ve settled on a few key beers, including an IPA, the Transcontinental—an amber beer that’s historically Californian–and the Liaison, a lavender saison, a French/Belgian-style beer made with lavender. And there’s no call for drinkers of Guinness or Bud Light to snort. “Everything with a Belgian influence is going to be good,” says Christina, laughing.
To keep close tabs on consumer preferences, Patton and Burris decided to buy a delivery truck and cart kegs to local bars themselves. “We’re making the kind of beer we enjoy,” says Burris, “but if we find that one particular beer takes off, we’ll know right away and we can focus on that.”
There won’t be any bottles right away, but down the line there will be growlers for sale and, ultimately, a brew pub, right where last century’s brewers stabled their cart horses.
Patton and Burris have no designs on becoming the next Anheuser Busch, with worldwide distribution. They think the key to their success will be to be in place when their chosen neighborhood takes off. “There’s a lot of new things come and we want to be part of it,” says Patton.
