Wilmington Brew Works targets June opening, bringing beer, cider and live music with it

The tanks are ready, the 32-ounce crowler cans have arrived and Wilmington Brew Works is ready to begin producing an array of IPAs, sours and Belgians at its new Ninth Ward brewery.

There's just one hitch: they don't have power yet at the 4,000-square-foot Miller Road brewery, which is hoping to have its electric up and running on June 11 with soft opening events to quickly follow.

Chief Executive Officer and Brewer Craig Wensell says Wilmington's first production brewery in 64 years is on pace to officially open to all by the end of June, transforming a 102-year-old building filled with history.

Not only will the former site of Harper-Thiel Electroplating Co. house the city's second new brewery in three months -- Stitch House Brewery opened on Market Street across from The Grand in mid-March -- but it will also be home to separate food vendors.

La Pizzeria Metro, a new wood-fired pizzeria from the veteran pizza-makers behind Cafe Riviera at the Concord Mall, is slated to be one of eateries, says Ralph Pepe, who owns the site with his wife, Rose, along with Talleyville Towne Shoppes. (Pizza is expected to be added in the fall.)

Pepe says he is also thinking about adding a coffee shop and a pastry-maker, along with a farmers market out front to bring produce into an area of the city where fresh, healthy foods can be hard to find.

Until then, Wilmington Brew Works will team up with food trucks to offer snacks and meals this summer at its rear patio, which sits by the brewery's 107-spot parking lot.

While a food hall-style area or even a full-service restaurant on site could be a draw, Wilmington Brew Works is the star of the show.

Wensell, who is opening the brewery with four partners, expects to pump out more than 500 barrels of his beers each year. He's especially eager to experiment with the tart/sour beers that have been grown in popularity, along with different IPA treatments.

The layout of the brewery will be different from just about any other across the state, offering a beer hall-style set-up. The tasting room bar will have no seats -- it is there only for customers to order and grab their drinks, which will include beer, cider and (eventually) cocktails.

Instead, there are four eight-foot communal tables with long benches, complete with bench legs that make the letter "W" to fit with the brewery's name. There will also be a 10-foot standing table. The tables were made by Challenge Program, which has provided vocational training on professional construction projects for at-risk youth for 23 years.

The idea behind the open layout is to encourage a feeling of community by setting the right conditions for natural engagement between patrons. Instead of a bar where you sit with your friends with little interaction between strangers, this will offer the opposite.

"We're not trying to create an alcoholic paradise. We're more about the atmosphere, the experience people have and creating a different vibe that people want to come back to again and again," Wensell, 42, says of the brewery, which will be open to all ages.

There will also be outdoor patio seating with umbrellas in the front and back of the Spanish colonial-style building with its distinctive red tile roof, all of which was just renovated at a cost of more than $1.5 million. The front patio faces Haynes Park, which sits across Miller Road and oftentimes offers a smell of barbecue from summertime family park gatherings.

Live music will eventually be introduced into the mix at Wilmington Brew Works, injecting entertainment into a part of the city without any. (Wensell is a former music professor and high school music teacher.)

When it comes to taking fresh beer home, 32-ounce crowlers will be immediately available, along with 64-ounce growlers.

The brewery's ownership group is still deciding on their production line path, unsure whether to can their beers, the most popular current trend, or perhaps bottle them. Wensell himself is a fan of large format bottles, including 750 milliliter "bomber" bottles, another option they are considering.

The brewery does have a deal with a distributor, so their beers should eventually land in restaurants and liquor stores.

The No. 1 question that the owners of Wilmington Brew Works hear is, "Hey, are you guys open yet?" They get it from all sides: friends, family, Delaware beer geeks and especially neighborhood folks walking up to their door to check on the progress.

"The amount of support has been incredible," says Derek Berkeley, Wilmington Brew Works' chief operating officer and tasting room manager. "We have long, welcoming tables that we hope they will sit at and have conversations with their neighbors and friends. We're hoping to be an anchor for the community -- a central meeting spot for people to grab a pint and enjoy themselves."

With the new brewery and eateries preparing to open following the extensive renovations at 3201 Miller Road, the historic site is about to come alive again after being a dormant eyesore for nearly two decades.

The Pepes bought the property in late 2015 for $240,00 from the Wilmington Urban Development Action Grant Corp., a quasi-governmental agency that holds abandoned brownfield projects while they are cleaned.

Built in 1916, the building was used by Francis Irénée du Pont as an experimental laboratory. It's believed that inside the building — initially registered under the name The Delaware Chemical Engineering Co. — smokeless gunpowder was developed.

In 1946, the site was sold to Harry Thiel and his wife, who established the Harper-Thiel Electroplating Co. Harper-Thiel closed in 2000 and the site had remained vacant ever since due to contaminants in the ground, which were remediated by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. DNREC spent about $3 million over the past 15 years to make the site safe.

With an ownership group of beer lovers in their late 30s and 40s, there is little chance that Wilmington Brew Works will be a spot where millennials will be raging where du Ponts once roamed.

Instead, it will likely reflect the owners' somewhat more grown-up, professional sensibilities without being stuffy.

"We're the forgotten demographic -- as soon as you hit 36, you might as well not exist anymore," Wensell jokes.

Adds Berkeley: "Our demographic needs some love. Give us some really damn good beer and a cool place to hang out. We're going to have something for everyone, but we're going to target more established professionals and families."

Contact Ryan Cormier of The News Journal at rcormier@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2863. Follow him on Facebook (@ryancormier), Twitter (@ryancormier) and Instagram (@ryancormier).