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07/24/2018 04:45 PMWhile a grand opening date has yet to be announced, Sam Wagner and Carlisle Schaeffer of Little House Brewing Company in downtown Chester, have begun brewing and are teasing a soft opening for Chester residents before the end of August.
“We’re excited to say that we’re brewing this weekend, and then hopefully we’re looking at mid-August,” Wagner told the Courier last week. “We’re going to start with a soft opening [using] word of mouth for everyone in Chester.
“Once we’ve given our locals a chance to come out and experience it before it gets too busy,” there will be a grand opening, Schaeffer said.
The major construction at the 16 Main Street brewery has been completed and the two are looking at paint, insulation, and a few other final finishing touches before the doors can finally be open to the public. Wagner said that they’ve had to start locking the doors while they work inside because eager passersby have been letting themselves in.
Last weekend the two began their first round of brews. The beers that take the longest to brew will be brewed first, “both a lager-like ale and then a lager, and then a bunch of ales,” said Schaffer.
“So those will hopefully be done all around the same time,” said Wagner.
As far as names for the first batch of brews, “We’ve been keeping it [secret]” said Schaffer, but Wagner agreed to give a sneak peek, sharing the name of one of their first brews, Lumber Snake.
Overall, the duo plans to have a range of styles of beer to offer.
“We’re opening with six or seven [beers]. We can have up to 10 beers on tap, but even within that six or seven we open with, there will be a variety,” said Schaffer. “As we get more and more into the swing of things, we’ll fill in more and experiment.”
As far as the brewery itself, “Knock on wood, it’s been smooth sailing. Little hiccups like all systems,” Schaeffer said.
The front porch has four new red chairs and small tables to match the front door, and inside the bar and stools are in place, followed by the nearly completed beer garden in the back.
The brewery is approved for 20 seats outdoors with another 40-plus indoors (seating numbers will be finalized after their last inspection).
With every improvement and every addition, people are getting antsier for details, the duo said. A kickstarter fundraiser even came in a couple thousand dollars above the original $20,000 goal and drew donations from all over, including Great Britain, Alaska, the Netherlands, and even New Zealand.
“The amount of people that we don’t know yet…all over Connecticut was really humbling and the amount of local support and Connecticut addresses that we got was kind of mind blowing,” said Schaeffer.
As the opening approaches, Schaffer and Wagner are feeling the pressure.
“We’re in crunch mode,” Wagner said. “It’s a mixture of anxiety and stress. We haven’t been sleeping.”
Schaffer said there were a lot of little details, and only a few bigger, to be completed, but it’s all so close. Both agreed that they’re ready to be out of the home stretch.
“Getting our first brew under our belt will be good, because we definitely know what we’re doing, but there’s so much hype and now we gotta do it,” said Wagner.
While no final hours of operation are confirmed—”We’re still kinda feeling it out,” Schaeffer said—they plan to close around the same time as the local restaurants do and be open the majority of the day. They don’t want to be a last stop, but they also want to have as many hours open as possible.
“There has been a lot of support from the local restaurants. They’ve approached us, so that’s something we’re working on,” said Wagner.
“We’re excited to already feel like a part of the community even though we haven’t been open yet,” said Schaffer.
They also plan on eventually having offerings for people who don’t drink beer, such as cider and wine or shop-made sodas.
“We’ve been teetering on that line a while, not wanting to tease people too much,” said Wagner.
But the teasing will have to come to an end soon as the two begin to see the finish line.
“We’ve started saying mid-August, but what’s next from us is saying we’re brewing and you can actually come in the door,” said Wagner. “The main message from us is we’re working on it, slowly but surely.”
“We don’t get to just keep saying ‘Soon,’” said Schaeffer.