Loyalist City Brewing Opens Storefront In Uptown Saint John
SAINT JOHN – A Saint John-based craft brewery is opening its doors to the public with its newly opened storefront in uptown Saint John.
Loyalist City Brewing Co opened its storefront, based out of its brewery at 60 Water Street, last week.
It will be open Wednesday through Saturday from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. and sell Loyalist City’s canned products, as well as their growlers.
The brewery has been based in the Water Street location since it started back in 2016, but co-owner Mark McGraw says the decision to open a storefront partly came from customer requests.
“[We heard from] the craft beer community and there’s a big part of the craft brewing industry that is beer tourism. We would get emails, phone calls and Facebook messages saying, ‘Oh, I’m coming in from Virginia’ or ‘I’m coming in from Florida’ or even European travelers that visited on the cruise ships that would say ‘I’d love to see the brewery,'” says McGraw. “But without having a public-facing storefront, we couldn’t even let them sample the beer to buy a growler or cans or anything like that.”
There was also a desire to open the space up to the public and add to the recent rejuvenation of Water Street. The street has seen several other businesses open up shop over the past few years, such as the BunkHaus and Gahan House‘s Barrell Room.
“I’ve always personally wanted to see this space open to the public because so much of Water Street for so many years has either been seasonal come-and-go stores or vacant,” says McGraw.
“That really played a big part of it too. I think Water Street has the potential to be the busiest street in the city as we realize that potential. You have to take a bit of a risk to be part of it at the start.”
Loyalist City plans to use their store to lend a hand to new craft breweries. Right now, they are sharing the space with Hampton Brewing Co, which has a growler station in the shop. They will also have rotating taps featuring other local breweries. McGraw says when Loyalist City first started, other local breweries helped them out.
“From the day we started selling kegs, other breweries supported us, whether it was carrying our kegs at their stores, which Picaroons and Graystone Brewing had done, to selling our cans … big things like that, or even little things like if we needed a piece of equipment,” he says.
“We’re hoping that we can give back a bit in that sense. Having a store will allow us to sell our cans, but also cans and bottle products and merchandise from any brewery in the province, as well as growlers.”
The store had its soft opening last Friday with a busier-than-expected response.
“The reception was so positive from locals, but also tourists that would come in,” says McGraw.
“Talking about the beer is a big reason why the craft beer industry has separated itself from the previous mainstream beer. Customers want to know the history of a beer,’ says McGraw. “They want what they should be tasting, the depth of flavours, they want to be a part of the experience as opposed to just drinking a refreshing beer that’s relatively subtle.”