Dorchester Brewing

Month: July 2016

By in Meet Our Team Comments Off on Meet Our Team: Head Brewer, Todd Charbonneau

Meet Our Team: Head Brewer, Todd Charbonneau

In our latest installment of blog series, we’re introducing you to everyone on our team. Get used to us, we’ll be sticking around for quite some time. So, to get started, we’d like to introduce you to the guy responsible for all of that beer you’re drinking. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Todd, he’s one of our co-founders and Head Brewer. You may also know him as the previous Head Brewer at Harpoon. But he’s so much more then that!

Todd’s background in beer started by walking into one of Boston’s premiere breweries 15 years ago and he landed a job on the bottling line. He worked hard, and his dedication paid off becoming Head Brewer for over ten years at Harpoon Brewery. Todd’s not one to brag about himself (or super wordy as you can tell!), so we did a little Q&A so that you could get to know him better.

Todd, how did you get into craft beer?
A friend was a beginner homebrewer and invited me along on a couple of brews in his kitchen. From then on out, I was hooked.
What do you do when you’re not drinking and brewing beer?
During the summer I enjoy spending time with my family at our lake house. Lots of boating and fishing, swimming, etc.
I hear you’re also in a band…
I am in a band called The Winter Project, which began as just that. However we are still practicing and writing well into mid summer!
What is your favorite type of beer to both brew and also to drink?
I really try to be a student of style. When I’m developing a new recipe a lot of thought goes into the history of the style, ingredients used by those that developed the style. Of course I am a huge fan of American-style IPAs and love to brew them.
Do you have any advice for brewers just starting out?
Read as many books as you can. Practice makes perfect. You want to do a lot of brewing on a small scale, volunteer at your local brewery, and keep it fun. Make incremental changes to your recipes to determine how these changes affect your batches of beer.
What do you have in mind for the next few DBco beers?
Will be continuing in the hoppy beer vein with Mass Ave IPA and V1 double IPA. Also in the queue are a Berliner vice, a German Roggenbier, Pilsner, and in late summer, our Oktoberfest!

Want to pick his brain even more? We’re hosting a Meet the Brewer Night every month on the last Thursday of the month! Todd will be on hand to chat about all things beer on Thursday, July 28th from 5pm-8pm. More info at:  //www.dorchesterbrewing.com/events/event/meet-brewer-night/
By in News Comments Off on Thank You and Grand Opening Announcement

Thank You and Grand Opening Announcement

As we move towards our grand opening, we’ve started to think about all of the people and groups that helped us get to this point. For those that might not know, Dorchester Brewing Company started with a vision from our Co-Founders about 2 years ago and our team has worked tirelessly to make our dream a reality. There have been a few setbacks and delays as startups always have, but we’ve been extremely fortunate to get where we are today and that’s all due to the people around us.  So, as we look towards our opening, we also want to take a moment to reflect on everyone who helped get us there.

First and foremost, we want to take a moment to recognize the city of Boston and Mayor Martin J. Walsh. Their support and continued backing of the project has been instrumental in the development of our building construction process and financial patronage. Witnessing their commitment to innovation and development in Dorchester has been a true inspiration and we’re thrilled to be able to give back to Boston and Dorchester and help further the economic development of the area.  Specifically, we’d like to thank John Barros and Adalberto Teixeira at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, Rafael Carbonell, John Lynch and Keith Hunt at the city of Boston’s Office of Business Development, Steve Rumpler at Boston’s ReStore Program, Bill Nickerson at the Boston Local Development Corporation and Sheila Dillon at the Department of Neighborhood Development.

In addition, we would like to recognize the Mass Office of Small Business Development and the Mass Growth Capital Corporation for providing financial support to the project. Special thanks to Nam Pham, Assistant Secretary of Business Development at The Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing & and Economic Development, as well as Larry Andrews, Neil Martin and Rob Williams at Mass Growth Capital Corp for working  tirelessly with us to move the project forward.

Furthermore, many thanks to Beth Chea at Wells Fargo Bank and Eric Bancroft at Northeast Bank who were instrumental in helping DBco gain access to a significant amount of private debt capital, without which the project would not have moved forward.

We also want to thank all of our partners in the project and everyone involved in helping us get to where we are including RODE Architects, Zajac, Thomas Reale Photography, Salmon Studios (signage), College Hype Apparel, Pulp + Wire (website design), All Temp Systems Mechanical, Clean Beer (tap system), Macaran, Edelstein (accounting), Bowditch & Dewey (legal), Gary Barsomian-dietrich (finish carpentry), Roscoe Studio, Outkast Electrical, Allen and Sons (general construction), EH Marchant (plumbing), VFrancis Mechanical, Metro Equipment (site contactor), Galway Interiors (rough carpentry), LVR Corp. (engineering)  and many others who helped play different roles in the development of Dorchester Brewing Company. Also, to our family and friends. You guys have been amazing for putting up with us throughout these last two years as you supported us in our vision.

And lastly, thank you a million times to everyone in the Dorchester community. We are speechless over the countless people who have taken time out of their daily lives to lend a helping hand, voice their support, show up when we asked and overall, just provide continued encouragement over our project.  The pride in the community really stands for itself and at DBco, we promise to give back to the community and continue to celebrate where we live.

For our first step in our Grand Opening announcement, we’ll be hosting a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony with Mayor Martin J. Walsh tomorrow on Wednesday, July 20th to celebrate the opening of our facility.

And for all of you future craft beer drinkers, we are thrilled to announce that we will officially open our Taproom on Thursday, July 21st at 11:30am – 11pm and will continue the grand opening festivities throughout our normal business hours on Friday –  Sat  11:30am – 11pm and Sunday 11:30am – 9pm. Stay tuned for more details on our website!

Cheers and looking forward to seeing you soon,

Matt, Todd, Travis and Holly