‘WELL CRAFTED’ VENTURE
Local beer company honored for restoring building, community outreach
LANSDALE >> The first 2020 winner of Lansdale’s Business of the Month award is a local establishment that has created a new destination at what was once one of the town’s most notorious addresses.
Well Crafted Beer Company and co-founders Nica and Doug Bellenger, Joe Provo, Matt Bolton and Rick Solomon were recognized Wednesday night with the borough award, after a roughly two-decade journey landed the group right in the heart of Lansdale.
“There are stories of Lansdale businesses that stretch back decades, and then there are stories of businesses far newer, but equally helping to define what makes the borough such a great place to work, live, and start an enterprise,” said economic development committee member Bruce Schwartz.
Well Crafted opened in the summer of 2018, but their backstory begins almost two decades earlier, when the five co-founders met in the late 1990s as students at the Rochester Institute of Technology and began developing a taste for all things beer.
“With internships in the Philly area — a prime location because of area pharmaceutical companies — all indulged their appreciation at local brew pubs, ordering flights, trying new tastes, and even home-brewing, with promising results,” Schwartz said.
Doug Bellenger, Solomon and Provo began brewing in their basements as a hobby, and by 2007 had begun brewing together to make larger batches, experimenting on weekends with various blends of hops, malts and yeasts to create dif
“We’re grateful to be part of such an amazing team of both local businesses and causes. We’re excited for what 2020 is going to bring, and can’t wait to do more.”
— Nica Bellenger, cofounder of Well Crafted
ferent beer styles. As they experimented, according to Schwartz, the group learned that the water source they used could have a strong impact on the finished product, and eventually the five began thinking about establishing a brewery. The location was waiting for them: 310 Madison Street, the basement floor of the borough’s most notorious building, the former arts center building at 311 W. Main Street, which was built more than a century ago and had been closed, seeking tenants, for nearly a decade.
“They came to Lansdale — the basement of 311 Arts, and the Masonic Temple — and somehow thought it’d be the perfect spot,” said Schwartz.
“It was a walk-down, a flight below street level, accessible not from Main Street but from Madison Street, with walled-off studio rooms and laminated tile flooring, as well as unfinished storage and HVAC areas,” he said.
As public talks continued about the future uses of that building’s upper floors, the Well Crafted team went to work in the basement, converting what had been intended to be classrooms for art and music lessons into an open-floor seating area, with a bar on one side and plenty of brewing space behind.
“They peeled back the floor tiles and scraped the glue by hand, sanded and refinished to get a uniquely patterned concrete look,” said Schwartz.
“They deconstructed the staircase to crane-lift tanks and equipment. The elevator of 311 Arts allows them to bring in pallets of grain and supplies, and remove heavy spent grain to send to a local farm for cattle feed,” he said.
Space constraints led the team to decide to install a small kitchen focused on lighter, healthier foods than traditional fried bar fare, and what they originally hoped would be six months of renovations stretched to nearly a year, before Well Crafted opened to the public in August 2018.
“It’s a place with a distinct family vibe: open, bright and airy, with shelves full of board games, and sofas. It’s not unusual to see tables with kids playing Connect Four, while parents enjoy a sandwich and brew,” said Schwartz, based on the owners’ goal of creating a place where their own kids would feel comfortable.
“And it’s a brewery that takes chances. While a third of their business is IPAs, you’ll find light beers, dark beers, heavy beers, and fruited sours. And then you’ll find tastes like ‘Tiger
Tail’ — made with Frosted Flakes — ‘Blonde Americano’ with Backyard Beans coffee and vanilla, and ‘Cacao Caliente,’ with cacao, chocolate, and just enough hatch pepper to give it a little zing,” he said.
The most unusual ingredient they’ve tried so far? The Pea Flower, a Chinese herb similar to lavender that yielded a bright blue brew the first time they tried it.
“They added lemon juice, and the acid turned the tone purple, and the taste into one of their fastest-selling beers,” Schwartz said.
Since opening their doors, the brewery has created special batches for several local causes, benefiting the Fairmount Fire Company, Knights for Life, the borough freight station restoration project, Manna on Main Street, and more.
“Nica says it’s important to support the local and larger community as they grow, and she says they’re grateful to be where there’s already an incredible group of people working together for the better good,” he said.
Last summer, Well Crafted itself became the good cause, after a leak from a water heater flooded the brewery they had worked so hard to build. For six weeks, the business was closed,
"It’s a place with a distinct family vibe: open, bright and airy, with shelves full of board games, and sofas." — Economic development committee member Bruce Schwartz
but friends and neighbors stepped up to help.
“They staged pop-ups — spur-of-the-moment events wherever they could in Lansdale. Scent & Sip and The Underground hosted them, Round Guys put their beers on tap, Michael Wister opened Smoke Daddy’s door to brews and music, telling them ‘My space is your space,’ Stove and Tap gave their taps over to Well Crafted, and Boardroom Spirits hosted a brunch pop-up,” said Schwartz.
As of Wednesday, Well Crafted has 16 beers on draft, with capacity for 20, and makes about 40 barrels or 100 kegs per month, serving about 200 customers on a typical weekend night. In February, they plan to add more fermentation tanks to expand their offerings, and have already started thinking about a second site, applying the lessons they’ve learned in Lansdale.
“That second location, Nica vows, will be on a ground level, and with parking,” Schwartz said, drawing laughs from the crowd.
As Nica, Doug and general manager Joe Farrell accepted the award from Schwartz, Nica said they were all glad to have found such a welcoming town.
“New to the Lansdale business scene, we didn’t know exactly what kind of neighbors to expect, but we’re incredibly lucky to be in Lansdale, where there are so many great people, and great causes,” said Nica.
She added particular thanks to local event nonprofit Discover Lansdale, which organizes First Fridays
and supports nearly every other local event that has drawn visitors, and customers, to the town.
“We’re grateful to be part of such an amazing team of both local businesses and causes. We’re excited for what 2020 is going to bring, and can’t wait to do more,” she said.
Well Crafted is located at 310 Madison Street and is open from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Tuesdays through Thursdays, from 11:30 a.m. to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, and 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sundays.