An inclusive new brewery in Jamaica Plain
In late December, hours before soft launching her new Jamaica Plain brewery, Liz Nicol was running around putting the finishing touches in place when she was interrupted by a reporter’s phone call asking if she felt ready.
“Well, I’m an engineer,” Nicol started. “I’m like an eternal perfectionist, so I’m feeling fairly unprepared. I think we actually are prepared. It’s just me trying to make sure that everything is just so.”
Drawdown Brewing Company was like a lot of things before COVID: a good idea, a big investment, and, because of the pandemic, something that was put on hold. But in early 2023 brewery construction began, on the ground floor of an apartment complex in a neighborhood that inspires fierce loyalty evident if you’ve ever lived (or known someone who has) in JP.
Nicol is a civil engineer by trade — think drainage and infrastructure, for organizations like MassDOT — but also female and a member of the LGBTQ+ community, noteworthy in a craft beer field made up overwhelmingly of men. She says the brewery project started in her mind in around 2016, following a trip to Europe to see the UEFA Euro 2016 soccer tournament. Stops in France, Belgium, and Germany included many trips to beer gardens.
“They were actually gardens,” says Nicol. “Not just, you know, parking lots. And it was really amazing to see how it could bring the community together. Like you could tell all these people had just gotten out of work, and everyone came to the beer garden. I kind of started to daydream about doing something like that.”
That dream is now a reality, as Nicol’s Drawdown Brewing Company opened up last week. It’s a place of and for the neighborhood, with a 1,000-squarefoot taproom offering beer onsite and in growlers to go. (Drawdown will not distribute to stores.) Nicol wants the space to be welcoming for people who might not traditionally frequent taprooms. Women’s sports will feature on the brewery’s TVs, and Drawdown has a variance from the city to open early to show European soccer games.
“I wanted to be the entry point for all the women and all the people of color, and all the LGBTQ+ community, everyone who’s kind of like, ‘Oh, that’s, that’s not really for me, that’s not welcoming,’” says Nicol. “I want it to be their opportunity.”
Nicol, who has years of homebrewing experience, also plans to feature beer styles that don’t get much play, such as altbier, which hails from Düsseldorf, Germany, in contrast to the now everywhere kölsch from rival city Cologne. There will be a New England IPA, of course, but also a cream ale and a porter. To start, Drawdown will open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays.
“We’ve been working really hard and it’s been something in our hearts for a long time,” says Nicol. “We’re excited to finally share it with everybody.”
‘I wanted to be the entry point for all the women and all the people of color, and all the LGBTQ+ community.’
LIZ NICOL, founder of Drawdown Brewing Company