MORGANTOWN –Have you ever wondered where your happy hour beer came from? Bill Rittenour, head brewer and owner of Chestnut Brew Works said it can take two weeks for a beer to be born.
Monday, Generation Morgantown hosted their third brewery tour at the establishment nestled in South Park. Generation Morgantown is a chapter of Generation West Virginia, a non-profit that aims to bring together young professionals to network and socialize.
Kristen Calabria, co-chair of Generation Morgantown said holding events like the brewery tour is important because if someone is not from the city they might not know what Morgantown has to offer.
“When you get a lot of young professionals here whether they graduated from WVU or they moved here to intern or fellow – whatever young professional thing that brought them here – they can actually experience the town,” said Calabria.
Rittenour showed the group around the brewery, explaining how beer is made and discussing his own experience as a business owner. He started brewing beer at his house in 2006 while working on his Ph.D. in microbiology.
“I kind of treated it like my own little lab at home. Then I was like, with the ultimate result two weeks later I had beer that I could drink,” he said.
The science and the art of brewing is what attracted him to the craft. He never thought he would one day open the doors to his own brewery. He loves the West Virginia brewing scene. He mentioned Monday that soon the brewery will be working on a strawberry milkshake IPA.
“It’s gonna be hazy. We are gonna add lactose to it, which is common for milkshake IPAs to give it a little sweetness and body,” he said.
To the future, the home of Hallack Pale Ale could grow into a bigger space, he said.
“I always said, if I do it again I’m not messing around. Canning line, big equipment, room for expansion later on. I’ve learned a lot,” he said.
Calabria said promoting local business is important to Generation Morgantown alongside making friends within their get-togethers.
“We really try to highlight the small business owners local to Morgantown,” she said.
She said right now Generation Morgantown is looking to put together another brew tour in August and will hold their third annual West Virginia Black Bears game with a tailgate. They also do Jogger and Lagers and have guest speakers present to groups of young professionals.
Ryan Blair, marketing chair for Generation Morgantown said a lot of the time when people get involved it’s because a friend will tell a friend. He said there’s events for all kinds of interests.
“We try to have different themes to our all guest speaker events so all different people are interested in different things,” he said.
He said when looking at big cities that thrive, Generation Morgantown wants to do the same thing here in Morgantown.
“We try to create that environment for young professionals to hang out,” he said.
