The flood of new breweries opening in Seattle continues and the newest brewery in town, Standard Brewing, which I only recently found out about myself, is opening its doors today at 4 PM in Seattle’s Central District.  To my knowledge there aren’t any other breweries in Seattle’s Central District, so it’s a great place to add a new one.  Everyone needs a craft brewery close to home!

Standard Brewing’s founder,  Justin Gerardy, who was a former bar manager at Vito’s and The Hideout, has put in a lot of hard work getting everything ready since taking over the space from the previous tenant, the Jerusalem Mini Market.  There was a lot of cleanup to do, as the Mini Market used the side room as a kitchen; but it had carpeting and no vent fan.  Justin says on the Standard Brewing Blog that the smell was so bad when he first leased the space, nobody could stand to be inside for more than a couple of minutes at a time.

After a lot of time and effort cleaning the place up, repainting and getting it set to pass all the necessary inspections, the work has paid off.  According to Standard Brewing:

“Standard Brewing LLC is approved to occupy the building at 2504 S Jackson St for the purposes of making beer and selling it for on premise as well as off premise consumption. It’s been a long, hard battle, but  I’m pretty stubborn.“

A Nano-brewery, Standard Brewing is starting out small and on a budget.  They purchased a 20 gallon brewing system from Bilchmann, setup something called a ‘Coolbot’ (which uses a standard A/C unit to cool the refrigeration area down to 40 degrees), built their own contained fermentation chambers (for fermentation temperature control), and resorted to a little begging (in exchange for free beer) for stools for the small tap room as well as a few freezers and an iPad for point-of-sale.

Standard Brewing’s Brew System

The 20 gallon brew system should allow them to get 4 Cornelius kegs per batch.  That means a lot of hard work and long hours to keep the taps flowing, and Standard is planning on having 8 taps.  That’s pretty ambitious for such a small setup.  They wanted to start off with a 1-barrel system, but space limitations made them scale things back a bit.  After a few early mishaps dialing things in with the brewing system, they’ve worked out the kinks but won’t be at full 8-tap strength by the time they open.  No word on what beers will be on tap for the opening, but Justin is said to be fond of Session Ales and Cascadian Dark Ales.

Standard Brewing’s Taproom

Standard Brewing is located at 2504 S Jackson Street, about 2 blocks off Martin Luther King Jr. Way S.  The grand opening, as listed above, is today at 4 PM.  Regular hours to start will be from 4 PM to 8 PM Wednesday through Saturday.  If you’re in the area, come on by today and check them out.  For more information, be sure to follow Standard Brewing on Facebook and on Twitter.

Drink responsibly and stay safe out there.