A business that’s well traveled. Solomon’s Furniture is on the move again, this time back to Pittsfield. Page 9
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Berkshire Business Journal APRIL 2023 I VOL. 2, NO. 4
Brewing Berkshires’ beer
STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN
Sarah Real walks through the brewery at Hot Plate Brewing Co. in Pittsfield. Hot Plate, which opened this winter, is one of several establishments that is turning the Berkshires into a haven for craft beer connoisseurs.
New local establishments will enhance an already thriving brewery scene By Liam Gorman Craft beer lovers, rejoice! 2023 is turning into the year of the brewery in the Berkshires. Heralded by the long awaited opening of Hot Plate Brewing Company in Pittsfield this winter, the craft beer business is buzzing throughout the county. In mid-May, Lenox will get on the map with its own entry when Antimony Brewing opens its doors. And let’s not leave out North Adams where Rising Glass Brewing Company is aiming to pour its first pint by late summer. Joining established notables Big Elm, Barrington Brewery, Wandering Star, Shire Beer and Bright Ideas, these new additions will make the Berkshires home to a total of eight breweries, creating an informal beer trail from one end of the county to the other. They add a boost to local economies and a new reason for beer lovers to belly up to the bar in the Berkshires.
For the owners of Hot Plate, locat- data. After all, when she’s not brewing, ing in the Berkshires turned out to be a she handles “consumer insights” for no-brainer. But they needed to do their Paramount. “My job is really to dig into homework first before following their who our consumers are, helping adverdraft dreams. tisers nail down where they want to ad“We started looking at census data vertise”, she said. for different counties throughout MasSo when it came to their business, Real sachusetts, and we dug deep into who found that there was a craft beer customers in really good alignment “Everyone’s got their own the Berkshires might between the craft beer be by asking all the consumer and Berk- style that’s got their own right questions, who shire County,” recalls vibe and their space,” is a craft beer drinker? Brooklyn transplant What does that mean? and co-founder of Hot Rob Trask, the owner of What activities do they Plate, Mike Dell’Aquido? lla. “Then we looked Antimony in Lenox. “So really just at the competitive building the kind of a landscape. And we thought there’s person I thought was in the Berkshires more than a good chance that Berkshire as a craft brewing consumer and having County is underserved from a craft beer that confirmed or not,” she said. perspective.” The data panned out. According to For Sarah Real, Dell’Aquilla’s part- the profile that Real built, visitors to the ner at Hot Plate and in life (the two were Berkshires make for ideal customers. married in 2007) it was all about the “With a median age of 52 years old, these
married, college-educated professionals coming from NYC, Boston, or other parts of New England often travel as a couple and with an annual income of $100,200 they also have the resources to spend money on luxury items like craft beer,” her profile stated. “As that data shows, these are affluent consumers” said Dell’Aquilla. By leaning into the Berkshires as a craft beer destination, he feels the hospitality industry as a whole will benefit. “There is the halo effect that it will benefit the brewers, but it will benefit all of the hospitality businesses up and down Berkshire County” he said. “I think all of New England has really stepped it up”, said Bill Heaton, who runs Big Elm Brewing in Sheffield with his wife, Christine Bump. “People go to Maine, they go to Vermont, Massachusetts just for breweries. It’s crazy. You know, it would have never happened 10 years ago.” BEER, Page 13