Will Cleveland

@WillCleveland13

Three Head's multi-million dollar brewery is close to completion.

They expect the new space to be open by April 1.

Three Heads hosts its annual Homegrown celebration this weekend.

Geoff Dale has to pinch himself each time he visits the future home of his brewery. It doesn't feel real, but it soon will be.

What started with the laying of a foundation last summer is slowly inching toward completion, including a new logo that adorns the wood-paneled front facade. When it's completed in the next few months, the Three Heads Brewery, located on Atlantic Avenue in Rochester's Neighborhood of the Arts, will be the newest destination for craft beer lovers in this region.

"This is just surreal, I’m not going to lie," said Dale, one of the brewery's three founders, as they prepare to leave their contract brewing roots and move into their own space. "It still feels like we’re still the doofuses who were brewing in the basement. It’s kind of weird to step back and think, ‘This is ours.’ I honestly don’t believe this is happening. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop or something bad to happen, because this can’t be real life. This can’t be happening."

It's a reality. And it will be opening very, very soon. According to co-founder Dan Nothnagle, they are aiming to open the brewery by April 1. That's optimistic and there are always setbacks, but Nothnagle said that opening date would allow to get their staff in place, including a newly hired brewmaster who they aren't prepared to name publicly yet, and allow them to gain some familiarity with their new brewing system.

"Just to be able to have a place to call our home and do what we want with the beers and have fun in our own room, it’s really exciting," said Nothnagle, surveying the roughly 15,000-square-foot space that will be used for brewing. "After a lot of thinking about it, it’s really close to coming to fruition now. It’s been a long time coming and there are still a lot of steps left to take, but we’re very excited. We’re pumped."

The epoxy floors have been laid in the open brewing section of the building, which features massive ceilings as high as 28 feet. The brewing system, which has already been delayed by two weeks, is scheduled to be delivered during the week of Feb. 9. The bottling line should be in place the week after. Nothnagle said he wants to allow for about four to six weeks to get the new brewing staff acquainted with the system.

Three Heads will move away from the four packs of 12-ounce bottles and also the 22-ounce 'bomber' bottles it now offers. The new space will allow them to produce more beer and to do so more efficiently and most cost-effectively. They will focus on four staple beers — The Kind India pale ale, Too Kind double IPA, Rochestafarian Scotch ale, and an unnamed easy-drinking lager.

Three Heads Brewing building $4 million facility

"Contract brewing, the way we have it set up without a retail space, it’s been really difficult to do the volume of product we do with all the sales that we have, to make it profitable or at least workable so we can stay afloat," Nothnagle said. "We have no economies of scale right now. We are building economies of scale with this venture, so we’ll be able to play in fields that we can't play in now.

"If we want to have affordable six packs out there, we can do that now. If we want to have bigger beers that need a long time to sit, we can do that as well. Really, the sky is the limit. Clearly, The Kind is our bread and butter, so you’ll see six packs and 12 packs rolling out from Day One."

There will also be a 30-barrel fermenter in place to allow them offer different seasonal and one-off beers about every three weeks in the tasting room. The 2,100-square-foot tasting room, complete with a stage and sound system, is also nearing completion. There is also a more than 4,000-square-foot stone patio that will be utilized during the warmer months.

"I think what excites us the most at Three Heads is having our own unique identity," Nothnagle said. "Because we’ve been a contract brewer for so long, even though the recipes are our own, the execution of the recipe is our own, we’ve always been pigeonholed as contract brewers."

Before the new multimillion-dollar home is complete, Three Heads will hold its annual Homegrown celebration at the Lovin' Cup in Henrietta.

"We’ve always been about inclusion, not exclusion," Dale said. "We want to have everyone that we can involved. It’s more than just a beer fest, it’s more than just a food fest. It’s a party to celebrate Rochester."

The event, which is dubbed Homegrown Go (since "go" is the Japanese word for five), will feature more than 30 regional breweries and a combination of local restaurants and music. Admission includes samples from vendors and 12 hours of live music. It all kicks off at noon on Saturday.

WCLEVELAND@Gannett.com