2beerguys beer blog

Cody Brewing to re-open in Amesbury-MA

Cody Brewing Company, formerly of Danvers – MA, is currently working out the details to re-open 22 miles away in Amesbury, MA.

After closing down in March/April, Sean Cody is ready to get back to business – in Amesbury. Things will be different this go around. Sean has changed his business model and will operate purely as a production facility. In Danvers, he operated a brew pub, along with the brewery.  He felt the strain of being pulled in too many directions and things became overwhelming. It was a tough decision to close the doors in March/April of 2009, but it was the right decision due to the struggles that he was facing.

History of Cody Brewing Company:

Cody Brewing Company wasn’t the first business that Sean Cody started. In 2006, he started his own BYOB (Brew Your Own Beer) company in Danvers, Ma. Beer Lovers could visit his BOYB to learn how to brew beer and then re-visit two weeks later to bottle and bring their beer home. In 2008, Sean took a leap and converted his BOYB business into a Cody Brewing Company – Brew Pub and production brewery. Sean was running his brew pub, brewing beers and while promoting/selling his beers in the local craft beer market.

After experiencing some difficulties moving this business to a different building across the street and facing economic woes, Sean decided to close the doors.

Reopening:

Sean is currently working with the town of Amesbury to finalize all of the permits and the business side of opening a brewery.  Once all that jazz is completed, the equipment will be moved in and the brewing will begin.  If everything works out, Sean hopes to be brewing this fall. (Sean is a fellow homebrewer and has worked in the beer industry for the past 10 years.  Visit Cody Brewing’s Facebook page for more information: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cody-Brewing-Company)

Good Luck with the new adventure.

Enjoy!!

Sean
2Beerguys.com

Drink Craft Beer, You’ve Earned It!!
(I have included two stories below about the closure and the reopening.)

Brewery eyes downtown building for relocation – By Lynne Hendricks

AMESBURY — The downtown is getting hipper by the day, and with the addition of weekly open microphone nights, a bookstore, live music outlets and a soon-to-open natural food deli, the revitalized mill town seems poised to take its progressiveness to a whole new level.

At least that’s what Sean Cody of Cody Brewing Co. is hoping.

Cody has approached the town about building out a basement unit of 36 Main St. to accommodate the production and packaging of his microbrewed beers — one of a kind ales that have accumulated a small cult following since he began selling them from his Alehouse and Brewery in Danvers Square in October 2007.

“We’re a small craft brewery,” said Cody yesterday afternoon. “We started off in Danvers, and we’re just relocating up to Amesbury.”

With recipes for over 30 signature brews, Cody is actually downsizing with his move to Amesbury, shifting from a tap room business to that of a manufacturing/retail outlet, he said.

“We’re going back to being a strictly production facility,” said Cody, which should allow him and his fellow beer enthusiasts to just “hang out and make some good beers.”

Cody has requested and was granted a hearing with the Planning Board on Wednesday, October 5, on his application for a permit, which would allow him to undertake production and packaging of beer “on a micro level with a small retail access” according to Amesbury’s Clerk of Court Bonnijo Kitchin.

The young entrepreneur’s aim is to circle back to his roots as a strict purveyor of fine craft beers, and he will be bringing along a few favorite ales to please the local clientele. To keep fans interested, he’ll bring out some popular seasonal ales as the year wears on.

“We have about 15 seasonals that we cycle throughout the year,” Cody said.

Enthusiasts who say Cody’s SOS Belgian brew, or his Summer Ale and Imperial brand are better than Sam Adams will appreciate that those brands will be available for purchase at the new facility if all goes well with Amesbury’s Planning Board.

“I’d really love to see us up and going by Thanksgiving,” Cody said.

At that time of year, he usually rolls out an Imperial pumpkin beer called “Sick Pumpkin,” a brew that packs a little more punch than your average corporate ale, he said.

Cody thinks Amesbury is the perfect location for his craft beer, and though he was familiar with the town having grown up nearby, he was impressed during a recent visit by how much was going on in the downtown area.

“I was astounded by how well the beer scene has changed up there,” Cody said. “When we were walking around bar-hopping, Amesbury just seemed like a way better fit for us (than Danvers).”

The new site, if approved, may not satisfy the beer drinker seeking a warm neighborhood bar stool to relax with a cold one, but Cody is hoping to make Cody’s Brewing Co. Amesbury’s authentic brewmeister. And he’s hoping Amesbury grants him the ability to retail the beer as other microbrew houses do — through the sale of half-gallon jugs — or growlers as they’re called.

“We’ll be strictly production,” Cody said. “We’re not going to be a tap room where you can come in and have a pint of beer. Our primary business is to keg and sell to restaurants. We’re hoping to have a retail section for people to fill up their growlers.”

When the growler in your refrigerator is empty, “We’ll clean it out and refill it for you,” he said.

Cody told the town that the activities he’ll be undertaking on site will include every stage of the brewing process — steeping crushed malted barley in hot water for a couple of hours, straining the liquid from the steep, adding hops to the boil and transferring the liquid into a fermentation tank. From there, his brew requires a dose of yeast, after which it will ferment for about a week to ten days.

Liquid is then transferred into a conditioning tank, where it sits for another 10 days until it is ready for bottling or to be transferred to a keg.

Besides the finished beer, by-products of brewing include “minor steam” from the kettle during boils and spent grains and hops which Cody plans to remove to a compost pile.

Currently housing Davis Jack’s sandwich shop, Ovedia Artisan Chocolates, and Glow Personalized Skincare, 36 Main St. is a multi-unit building located in the heart of downtown. Cody is hoping to open in unit B-2, a basement location, and has submitted an architectural rendering of the build-out and a site plan review produced by Millenium Engineering in January 2009.

His special permit request is for light manufacturing and accessory retail.

“We produce quality craft beer on a small or micro level,” wrote Cody on his application to the town. “Our primary business is draft but we also bottle. We self distribute.”

Link to article.

Brewer’s had his fill of alehouse life – By Ethan Forman
DANVERS — A few months ago, Danvers Square’s only alehouse, Cody Brewing Company, shut its doors at 62 Maple St., and the owner intended to reopen it in a nearby space within 60 days.

At last night’s public hearing, it was expected manager Sean Cody would ask selectmen to transfer the beer-and-wine license with the addition of cordials to a new location, just across the street at 81 Maple St., toward the back of Cumberland Farms.

Instead, Cody told the board the popular brew pub, with its flagship “S.O.S.” and seasonal ales, its own T-shirts and weekly fun run, would not be back, at least not with Cody behind the bar.

Cody plans to open a “production brewery” somewhere in Danvers and leave the serving of brews up to someone else.

“I loved the alehouse,” he said after the public hearing. “I’m extremely sad it’s something I had to give up.”

He told selectmen he was selling the alehouse and planned to transfer the license, held by BYOB Brewery LLC, to a new owner. He handed the town clerk a signed purchase-and-sale agreement.

After the public hearing, Cody declined to name the buyer, and Town Clerk Joseph Collins would not show the agreement. Cody told the board the purchaser would explain his plans later.

Cody blamed “insufficient financial reasons” for leaving 62 Maple St. and a delay in readying the new space as to why he sold. The board voted to let Cody withdrew his application without prejudice.

Cody is a chef and a graduate of Masconomet Regional High who started in 2005 with a home-brewing company in Danvers Square. He got a license to sell beer and wine in April 2007.

Cody, who is in his mid-20s, had appeared a few times before selectmen shortly after opening the alehouse in November 2007: once after a bartender served 17-year-old girl working as an undercover liquor compliance checker just as the pub opened for regular business, and once after an early morning “shift drink” between employees was noticed by a police officer in January 2008.

The incidents earned the pub a three-day suspension, with another seven days held in abeyance for one year. Cody also had to explain how he had tightened his carding procedures. He later came before the board to win an entertainment license for live music.

“I’m a brewer,” he said. “I’d really like to get back to making beers.”
Link to original article.