Boxcar Brewing Company is on the move. In the seven years since its inception, the brewers at this small West Chester craft brewery have been steadily refining their ales and hosting their popular summer “Ride the Rail” parties. Their growing legion of fans can order their draft beers in pubs throughout the tri-state area. In addition, fans often stop by the brewery, which is located in an industrial park off of Westtown Road, to fill their growlers on a Friday or Saturday afternoon. Boxcar has surprised local craft-beer lovers with several announcements this year. I wanted to learn details, so I caught up with Jamie Robinson to learn more.
Town Dish: With the news that Boxcar is opening Boxcar Brewpub, we’ve learned that your partner Jason has moved on to pursue other interests. What’s up?
Jamie: Jason wasn’t interested in opening up a brewpub, but really I think he is moving back west where his wife’s family is originally from. They wanted to move back that way.
West Chester folks are excited to have a brewpub in the borough. How much work is it going to take to transform The Note into a brewpub?
There’s certainly a lot of cosmetic work to be done, but we’re not going to be doing a ton of rehab. We’re working on cosmetics like light fixtures, paint, scraping 152,000 stickers off the bathroom walls. We’re going to make it our own; we’re going to brighten the place, to work on making it friendly and family friendly. The biggest thing is going to be changing the attitude, making it welcoming.
And when do you hope to open?
We’d like to have a soft opening in August so we can start running the operation smoothly, and we hope to be fully operational in the fall.
Will you brew beer in the brewpub?
We will. My intention is to have a pilot system in there. I would like to invite different home brewers to come in and test and brew batches and do fun stuff. Do kegs of something and have them help design the recipes.
Will there be bands at the venue?
Absolutely. We’ll definitely support local music when we can. We won’t be able to pre-sell tickets, but we are going to have live music.
It was quite a surprise to see you switched over to cans, but that seems to be the trend for craft brewers. The technology has made canned beer so much better than the old days, and I’ve heard it is easier to create logo designs, store pallets of cans, etc. What was behind your decision to switch to cans?
A couple of different reasons. I’ve always been a can supporter. I like the graphics, the simplicity, I like taking them to the beach. I’m an outdoors guy. I like boating, kayaking. With moving to the pub, the majority of our production is involved with making draft. Running our bottling line is kind of labor intensive, so we have to shift gears. We really just wanted to move to cans.
What’s your most popular beer?
Mango Ginger is our most popular, but I’m interested to see how 1492 does now that it is out in the market with some cans and we just reworked our original ale. We wanted to make it a little cleaner, make it straightforward. It’s going to be called our Passenger Ale.
Ride The Rails grows bigger each summer. The idea of boarding a train to an idyllic park to eat great food, drink stellar beer and listen to live music is catching on! It’s such a great idea. Has it sold out?
Two of the three Ride the Rail Events are sold out. June 28 (tomorrow) still has tickets available.
Boxcar Brewing Company gears up to open its first brewpub in the former home of The Note, found at 142 E. Market St. in West Chester.
Photos credit: Boxcar Brewing Co.; final can shot: Jim Breslin
