While most breweries are flocking to Scott’s Addition and other parts of downtown RVA, a developer and longtime brewer are thinking outside the box to open their new production craft brewery, Trapezium Brewing Co., along with a tasting room, and pizza restaurant in historic downtown Petersburg.
While most breweries are flocking to Scott’s Addition and other parts of downtown RVA, a developer and longtime brewer are thinking outside the box to open their new production craft brewery, Trapezium Brewing Co., along with a tasting room, and pizza restaurant in historic downtown Petersburg.
“We had the access to the building, the track record here, and felt like we could do more here in Petersburg than Richmond,” said Petersburg developer Dave McCormack. “The cost of entry here in much cheaper, and as a developer and brewer we can really do both sides of the business we can develop the real estate and the brewery at the same time which is a powerful combination.”
Trapezium Brewing, slated to open in June, is housed in an 18,000 square foot building at 423 3rd St. in Old Towne Petersburg near Croaker’s Spot, the Civic Center, and the Farmer’s Market. The building was a former icehouse manufacturing ice from the late 1800s up until the 1980s.
The building adjacent to the forthcoming brewery was where they sold the ice according to McCormack and will be converted into 17 apartments.
“Somewhere in there they started dealing in coal and this building was in terrible shape it had been abandoned for a long time there were trees coming through the building,” said McCormack. “We basically put it back together, it’s a historic tax credit project.”
The developer purchased the building in 2007 and got the gears turning for the project about three years ago. Last summer they started construction on the $5.5 million project of which will generate about $1 million in historic tax credits.
The brewery will operate on a 30 barrel system with seven 60 barrel fermenters and according to head brewer James Frazer, production wise, that yields between 10 to 11,000 barrels a year.
“It gives us lots of flexibility to what we can do,” Frazer said.
When they open, Trapezium Brewing Co. will have eight styles on tap and will release four beers year around including an IPA, session IPA, a Belgian White, and an Imperial Pale Ale with honey, ginger and lemon.
“It’s a very broad spectrum, we’ll have something for everyone,” he said. “We’re going to try to attract the people who don’t drink craft beer, we’re going to try to convert them through gateway beers, and we’re also going to appeal to the craft connoisseurs as well.”
Frazer said they are going to try to release 30-35 beer styles in three months. The head brewer is excited to experiment with different flavors and he’s already started cooking up some ideas.
“We have many recipes in many different styles of beer we have a lot flexibility on how we can turn it out to people in different ways,” he said. “We’re going to have a barrel program where we bourbon barrel, scotch barrel, and rum barrel beer, we can be very creative here. I’m a big fan of the spice, herb and vegetable and fruit beers, I like to combine ingredients you wouldn’t normally see, I’m a big fan of infusing teas into beers. I still want it to taste like beer, but i want it to have that hidden flavor in there.”
For the last five years, Frazer has been involved in the beer industry. He started out as a homebrewer in 2010, and went on to work as a brewer for Sunken City Brewing Company in Hardy, Virginia. He also spent a decade in the manufacturing industry.
Frazer said he was drawn to this project to put his two skills to work and put out the recipes he’d honed as a homebrewer to fellow craft beer lovers.
“My experience in production and manufacturing kind of propelled me into this project,” he said. “Meeting Dave and sharing his vision with me and sharing my product with him, and being able to share it with the people here, that was very attractive.”
In addition to having beers on tap, Trapezium Brewing Co. plans to distribute their beers around the area as well.
“We’re going to start in a couple of areas,” said Frazer. “We’re turning out Richmond and the Hampton Roads area first and hopefully by the fall we’ll be {in} Charlottesville…”
They will sell four and six packs when they get up and running.
The tanks and production facility sit on one side of the worn building with exposed brick all around, and the other half is the taproom and pizza restaurant. The bar is one large long piece of mahogany that the business partners found in an old building. Behind the bar sits a large brick oven that will be churning out pizzas at 800 degrees in 70 seconds.
“It’s not a full service restaurant,” said McCormack. “We’re not going to have this big expansive menu, it’s going to be limited,but fun.”
The taproom can seat 150 and stairs lead up to a wooden, rustic mezzanine that will hold more seating. Outside sits a large courtyard which will hold a 1950s house boat, for people to sit or walk around and drink their brews.
The logo will go on the enormous silo that sits snugly next to the brick building.
And while some people might be skeptical of putting a brewery in Petersburg, McCormack’s past projects have made him confident that the area is vibrant and attractive to locals and Richmonders.
“What we’ve realized doing a coffee shop, a bakery, barbecue…the demand down here is much, much stronger than anyone realized,” he said. “We would love to have Richmond people come down here, but really the market down here in Southern Chesterfield, Fort Lee, the counties, Prince George, there’s a lot of people in this area that are craving things like this.”
McCormack owns Waukeshaw Develpment which refurbishes houses and buildings, and he oversaw the development of other Old Towne-area businesses including a bakery, Saucy’s BBQ, and Demolition Coffee which opened in 2010 on East Bank Street.
“It’s actually one of the most important projects I’ve ever done,” he said, speaking of the coffee shop. “When we did that project, it’s not on a busy street, it didn’t have a lot of parking, but that business is going amazingly well and I think it proved that there’s not only a market here, but a strong one.”
Now I’m sure, like me, you are curious about the name, “Trapezium.” To my dismay, it didn’t have anything to do with a trapeze or the circus, but it’s still a pretty cool story.
“Theres a trapezium house that’s about three blocks away on Market Street, and we just found it a really intriguing building,” McCormack said.
According to the video below, the Trapezium House was built in the early 1800s with no right angles because the builder was told by his West Indian servant that evil spirits dwell in corners with right angles.
“We saw that as a cool metaphor,” he said. “We took that ideal, and thought about that was what we’re doing here that conventional wisdom says don’t go there, that really resonated with us, kind of cutting against the grain.”
Trapezium Brewing will host a soft opening on June 15th and a grand opening on June 18th. The brewery will be open seven days a week. They plan to host tours of the brewery sometime after their opening.
