BIGGER TASTE OF WESTON

Brewery expanding with hotel acquisition

Jeanette Faubioin Browning
Citizen Reporter/Editorial

The Weston Brewing Company (WBC) family has yet again expanded with the impending purchase of the St. George Hotel.

WBC owners Corey Weinfurt and Mike Coakley last month took possession of the St. George with the sale set to close this week. The hotel, with its 26 rooms, is open for business with the hotel bar expected to open this weekend serving WBC beers.

Over the next few months, Weinfurt said the historic hotel is set to undergo another transformation with the opening of the hotel restaurant and the renovation of guest rooms.

The bar will feature not only WBC creations, but also local wines from Pirtle, Jowler Creek and Riverwood wineries and liquors from McCormick Distillery. The restaurant will start out with a small menu, Weinfurt said, offering breakfast and lunch and will later evolve into a full-service “beer bistro” offering unique foods. WBC also hopes to offer specialty coffees, a bakery and a retail souvenir shop featuring local products in the near future.

“Local people may not want to come here for the hotel, but we want to offer enough other compelling things to get people to visit,” Weinfurt said.

To celebrate this new era, WBC has reintroduced one of the original Weston Brewing Company’s recipes from the turn of the century, complete with a reproduction of its original labeling. Rip Van Winkle beer was dubbed “the richest beer in the world” and served around the country before Prohibition. However, the new Rip Van Winkle beer will only be available at the bar at the St. George, as well as at WBC’s other ventures — O’Malley’s Pub, American Bowman and the Inn at Weston Landing.

Later this year, the WBC team also hopes to begin theming the hotel’s rooms to match the brewery’s brands.