Red Hills Brewing Company starts construction
Joe Pilleteri is waiting for the next problem.
“It’s been about a week [since the last one], so I’m starting to get worried,” said Pilleteri, owner of Red Hills Brewing Company.
After four years of planning and taking steps toward approval, construction has started at the brewery’s Central Avenue location.
Construction began Aug. 11, and taproom plumbing and bathrooms are being installed. The brewhouse and fermenters were ordered in July, and Pilleteri said they should come in by mid-September.
After the interior and brewing system are setup, there will be a few weeks of work with a brewmaster to get recipes right. Pilleteri said he hopes to tie the beers back to Homewood, bringing in some of the city’s history. One idea is naming beers after the communities that merged to form Homewood – Rosedale, Edgewood, Grove Park, Oak Grove and Hollywood.
The equipment in Red Hills will allow four beers to brew at a time, but Pilleteri isn’t sure which types of beers will be on tap yet. He said he hopes for a pale ale, brown ale and red ale. A fruit beer, such as peach wheat, is also on the table for anyone transitioning to the taste of craft beer.
“IPA is going nuts and I love them, but I want to do something different,” he said.
Most beers will be around 5 percent alcohol by volume, although Pilleteri said there will eventually be a few high-gravity beers.
Opening a brewery in Homewood was the right fit, Pilleteri said, because residents are “Homewood-centric,” frequenting local businesses rather than going elsewhere.
“With this town, if it fails it’s going to be on me,” he said.
Even in a walkable community, Pilleteri said he plans to work out extra parking. There are about 40 spots in front of and behind the building and a few across the street, but the 2,300-square-foot taproom could hold as many as 100 people – depending on what the city says.
The start of construction brings a reality to the project, Pilleteri said, but there is plenty more work to be done. In a notebook filled with to-do lists, Pilleteri has projects that range from designing a tap handle to working with the Alabama Alcohol Beverage Control Board. He hopes the brewery will open in November, but no official date is set.
Pilleteri has encountered hiccups throughout the process, but he said these problems aren’t a deterrent.
“As long as new problems keep coming up, and it’s not the same one over again, I feel like I’ve accomplished something,” he said.
The brewery is located at 2821 Central Ave., adjacent to Little Donkey and Steel City Pops. More information can be found on its website.