New Memphis brewery wants to ‘change the game’
Anyone trying to visit what will become Grind City Brewing Co. in Uptown would be met with horses grazing near a dead end road, but within a few months, that will change.
By June, that dead end will open up to 83 Waterworks Ave., revealing 4.6 acres of land, a 10,000-square-foot brewery and taproom, a beer garden and stage for outdoor concerts and festivals along with a sweeping view of Downtown Memphis.
The seed that led to Grind City was planted about a decade ago, starting simply as an activity for Hopper Seely, then 13, to do with his father, Bill Seely.
“Growing up, the whole idea wasn’t about trying to teach my son to brew beer,” Bill Seely said. “It was about having time together, talking about life together.” Still, the lessons stuck. By Hopper Seely’s freshman year of high school, he started taking the lead in the home brewing process. By the time he attended a career day event in his junior year, it was settled: Hopper Seely wanted to brew beer for a living.
After high school, he gave the traditional route a shot first studying entrepreneurial management at Boise State University.
“I was signing up for my second semester of classes and they just kept throwing me (general education courses),” Seely said. “I asked my adviser ‘When am I going to do business classes?’ She goes ‘If you’re lucky, junior year.’”
Instead of wasting another second or another dollar of tuition, he wanted to go to Europe for brewing school. There the legal drinking age is 18, and he would be allowed the enroll and learn under the former head brewer for Heineken.
That was around the time the 19year-old picked the name Grind City for the name of his future company.
One of the requirements for graduation was to write a business plan to open a brewery. For Seely, that wasn’t just an assignment. It was the process that helped make his dream a reality.
Seely is the president of the company, but since buying the land in May, he has picked up some other titles as well. He’s also the welder, securing metal siding and the concrete pourer, filling sixfoot holes in the back section of the warehouse that was used by Tri-state Veneer & Plywood, the last company to use the space.
A final round of permits is expected to clear this week then the four-month construction job can begin.
Phase 1 of the project, which includes the brewery, taproom, beer garden and stage, will cost about $1.7 million.
Seely will go before the Center City Development Corp. on Wednesday to request an Exterior Improvement Grant worth up to $55,697 to help cover the cost of new paint outside, a new roll-up door, demolition of a wall and new steeling framing for the entrances.
“Staff is in full support of approving an Exterior Improvement Grant for this project,” a Downtown Memphis Commission staff report said. “Local breweries and taprooms have the power to be catalysts for economic development in emerging neighborhoods.”
That’s what Hopper and Bill Seely, head brewer Mark Patrick and general manager Tyler Nelson are all hoping will happen.
“They’ve got a good stable of beer,” Bill Seely said. “There’s one that’s going to be ‘The One,’ but we can’t give anyone a heads up until it comes because it’s going to change the game.
“These guys think outside the box. They’re not chasing the trends. They’re kind of looking at those and going outside of those to create something even better. Everything they have made just blows me away.”