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Begyle Brewing Company

Begyle Brewing Company

Begyle Brewing Company
1800 West Cuyler Avenue
Chicago, IL
Tel: 773-661-6963
Designer: moss

Located in the Ravenswood Industrial Corridor, Begyle Brewing’s “Community Supported Brewery” membership program has a farm share’s local focus. Members head to the beer co-op to fill growlers with Begyle’s micro-brewed suds on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis.

“Our goal was to create an inviting space that would encourage people stopping in to pick up a beer share to linger and taste, and return with friends,” said Della Hansmann of Chicago-based architecture studio moss. That meant imparting a clean design without airbrushing the worn-in charm of the new 600-square-foot tasting room. The designers epoxied the existing concrete floor to keep its pattern of stains and spills under a cleanable surface, and repainted exposed plumbing pipes. Not everything in the 5,000-square-foot brewery was preserved. An unsightly garage door was swapped out for a new glass overhead door that lets in natural light and engages the street.

The Kickstarter-funded brewers—Matt Ritchey, Kevin Cary, and Brendan Blume—plan to run a zero-waste facility, and are looking for non-landfill uses for all of their beer’s byproducts. The tasting room design features shelves (sized to hold Begyle’s custom growlers) made from scrap wood found on site. Pendant lights made from old helium tank caps hang over the bar. Even the design itself is community-supported, in a sense—over time, splashes of beer should oxidize the zinc-topped bar, adding more patina to the existing scars of the building’s long industrial history.


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