Something Wicked is brewing beer in Hanover
If you go
Location: 34 Broadway, Suite 200, Hanover PA
Cuisine: Limited bar food menu
Parking: On street and two municipal lots nearby
Hours: Plan is Thursdays and Fridays 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Saturdays TBD (set to open sometime in April)
Price range: TBD
Accepts: Cash and credit
Takeout: Growlers and kegs eventually
Details: Visit www.somethingwickedbrewing.com/ or "like" their Facebook page
Something Wicked Brewing Company is finishing renovations to the ground floor of a historic building in downtown Hanover and plans to open its tasting room in April.
"A little over a year ago, we started working on the kitchen," said Something Wicked brewer/co-owner Bill Seidler, who entered this venture with five others, including his wife Bridget. "At that point, we had not decided we were going to make a brewery out of it. There was a lot of cleaning up to do just to make it a place we could get together and make our beer. About 10 months ago is when we decided to make this happen."
The tasting room as presently set up should accommodate 40 to 50 people. Eventually, the plan is to move into a bigger room at the front of the building which can hold about 150. Something Wicked is leasing only the middle floor. There is also a 350-person capacity ballroom upstairs that is being renovated and a large basement.
"It's going to give people another reason to come to Hanover," Seidler said. "Warehouse (Gourmet) blazed the way for craft brewing in the area. This will give us four breweries in Hanover (along with Miscreation and Aldus). Maybe people will begin to say, 'Hey, let's go to Hanover and try all four.'"
Seidler said there are parts of the building that date back to the 1800s. There were old tunnels that ran underneath Broadway across to the Hotel Hanover. The local Moose Lodge No. 227 occupied the place for quite a while, but it has been vacant for the past seven or eight years, according to Seidler.
Beer was even once made and distributed from the building before Prohibition, said Seidler.
"The bones of this building are solid," Seidler said. "But everything else, the plumbing, the electrical, all of that, had to be replaced. Every time you touch one thing, then three other things come up as a result. It took a little more time than we thought in the end, but we are in no rush. We want it to be right when we open."
Seidler said the plan is to maintain four Something Wicked anchor beers on tap and compliment that with three taps of their other beers rotating in and out.
"Our recipe portfolio is deep," Seidler said. "We have well over 30 or 40 recipes. If you left it up to me, we would brew a new beer every week. I think most people when they go to a place like this want to know what's new and try something new. That can help with the allure of keeping people coming back in."
The food menu will be basic. Seidler said they have considered having menus from nearby places for people to order out from. A start-up smoked BBQ company also met with Seidler and inquired about setting up outside and selling food on weekends.
"Keep in mind we are not a restaurant," Seidler said. "We'll carry the warm food we need to and have a nice, small menu. Flat-bread pizzas, chicken strips, soft pretzels and stuff like that. We are going to keep it to a minimum and focus on making good beer."
The Something Wicked ownership team is comprised of the Seidlers, Buenzow, Jim Staub and his wife, Cindy, and Scott Pivoris. The brewery will officially be a year old in April, though the group has been getting together to make beer for much longer.
"When we all can take off the construction clothes and put on the brewing clothes, that's when I think we will all be happy," Seidler said.
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