Summerside craft brewery expected to open by June

The first craft brewery in Summerside, P.E.I., is already beginning to take shape.

Over the past few weeks, crews have been demolishing the interior of the former train station.

Now, they're turning their focus to converting the 90-year old structureinto a business space.

Co-owner Alex Clark said he's excited about the transformation by the architects, engineers and builders. If everything goes as planned, he said the new brewery will be open for business in June and employ as many as 30 people.

"It's just amazing," he said. "To watch something that you put on paper come to life, and for other people, the construction companies and people involved see that vision and they really get it, which is promising to me because so often you write something on paper, but you really never know if it's going to translate, or if anyone else is going to get it. So far so good."

The new brewery will have a retail space, tap room and a restaurant.

The brewing equipment is scheduled to arrive and be installed by the end of March.

'Get the recipe down'

In the meantime, Clark said he has been doing some home brewing of his own, tweaking the recipeofwhat will be the company's signature beer.

"I'm taking it as far as I can with the full setup, trying to get the recipe down for the full scale."

Clark is also looking to hire a brewmaster. He said there's already been plenty of interest.

"What I'm looking for is just the passion and the discipline to pump out a continually great product and a consistent product, so our core beers released are consistently great."

Clark said the focus will be to get the beer flowing with test batchesafter the new equipment is installedin March.

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