Mighty Squirrel Brewing is opening a Fenway location this week
Mighty Squirrel Brewing Co. is expanding into the Fenway.
The Waltham brewery best known for its massively popular New England-style IPA, Cloud Candy, will open a second location this week in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood, a block away from Fenway Park. The two-story, 13,000-square-foot space will feature four bars, a lineup of beers, hard seltzers, and hard smoothies, and a full kitchen serving pizzas, salads, tacos, and more.
Mighty Squirrel cofounder Naveen Pawar says developers have been in constant contact with the brand ever since Cloud Candy, one of the top-selling craft beers in Massachusetts, took off. Pawar was on a run and went past one possible development a couple of years back when he called business partner Henry Manice and said they had to tour the space.
The space in question is at 1 David Ortiz Way. If you went to the Fenway a couple of years back and haven’t been since, you might be surprised to learn that nearly everything is different. In this case, the new Mighty Squirrel brewery occupies the ground floor of a development by the Haynes Group and Phase Zero Design. Above (but on the ground floor coming from Beacon Street) is the new Eastern Standard restaurant.
“When we talked to [Eastern Standard restaurateur Garrett Harker] — who is the nicest guy ever — he said if we can open right here, then this could be great. We can build a nice ecosystem here,” says Pawar.
Mighty Squirrel has come a long way. When I first met Pawar and Manice back in 2015, it was in a WeWork office across from South Station. At the time they were making a protein-enriched beer and had no physical brewery.
“We would say we are a local brewing company, and then we would say we were at 745 Atlantic Ave., on the 10th floor,” says Pawar. “As you can imagine, people were not able to understand what we were doing.”
The protein beer didn’t sell, but the founders were confident in what they were doing, given that a protein-enriched beer was harder to make than traditional brews. In 2018, riding the success of Cloud Candy IPA, Mighty Squirrel opened a Waltham taproom. They went from brewing 300 barrels (a barrel is 31 US gallons) of beer annually to more than 15,000. Just recently, they were able to fulfill all Cloud Candy orders for Massachusetts, allowing them to expand to nearby states. They’ve been contemplating opening a second location for a while now.
Mighty Squirrel Fenway will have a 10-barrel brewing system, meaning freshly brewed beer should always be available on site. In Waltham, the beer styles range from lagers to IPAs to Belgian quads. Expect more of the same at Fenway, including on-site exclusives as Pawar says the brewery will be down for even more experimentation.
If you’re heading to a game or concert and not into beer, Mighty Squirrel has you covered with other house-made drinks, nonalcoholic options, and a food menu that leans Latin American.
The brewery’s grand opening is Thursday, beginning at 5 p.m.