The Next Draft

Grafton, let’s work together to bring a brewery to town

MATTHEW TOTA

Last Sunday marked my first full week as a homeowner here in the place of small stones.I have but only one complaint.

There are no breweries.

Why point this out? Grafton has strong schools, safe streets, plenty of fine restaurants — don’t kvetch.

I moved from Marlboro, a city with three breweries. The transition from three taprooms to no taprooms has proven especially difficult for this beer columnist.

Grafton has never even received a proposal from a brewery, as far as I can tell. In recent years, the town has focused on netting more biotech companies and now seems a popular location for the marijuana industry.

A brewery would no doubt thrive here. And the town sees the potential economic benefits of one. In 2016, for instance, local officials and residents approved an amendment to Grafton’s zoning bylaws that added specific definitions for breweries and expanded the areas in town where a brewery could open. The amendment came out of a large push by town planners to make Grafton more friendly and welcoming to new businesses.

Four years later and still no brewery. And yet Grafton residents have an obvious thirst for craft beer. You can see it at places like Reunion Tap & Table, which has one of the most dynamic tap lists in Central Massachusetts.

On Sunday morning, I dragged Reunion’s co–founder, Sargon Hanna, away from his family to talk Grafton’s lack of breweries. We met at Reunion, a day removed from its two-year anniversary, and sat outside — the restaurant’s long, impressive draft menu scrawled in marker on big glass windows to our left. Hanna seemed fine with my bothering him at 10 a.m. on his day of rest for this relatively unimportant matter. He drank water, while I — don’t judge — had a double IPA from River Styx Brewing.

One of Hanna’s many duties as coowner of Reunion includes ordering the beer. He loves the local stuff, while also peppering in some of the hard-toget, out-of-state brews, like those from Connecticut’s Fox Farm Brewery and Vermont’s Foam Brewers.

He did not share my surprise over Grafton’s dearth of breweries. A lifelong resident who has served on both the Planning Board and the Board of Selectmen, he said the town had a reputation for being unfriendly to new business, but that has started to change in recent years.

One of the main hurdles for a brewery eyeing Grafton is the town has had no available real estate.

“Our downtown, our commercial zone, is really along Route 122 with a few other spaces in South Grafton,” Hanna said. “But the buildings in those areas have been there for a while. A lot of them are preexisting, nonconforming. And there are a lot of wetlands around them. Most of these buildings can’t move, and many of them are occupied. They weren’t suitable for breweries.”

That landscape is changing, too, owing in large part to projects like the North Grafton Transit Village Master Plan, which would create prime real estate for business and residential development on over 800 acres of land off Route 30.

“There’s a huge opportunity for a brewery to come in and do something there,” Hanna said, highlighting the industrial areas around Westborough Road as a perfect fit for breweries.

When a brewery finds the right location, it will see that Grafton has much to offer. The town has been among the fastest-growing in the state and, with restaurants like Reunion and the Grafton Grill & Crust, has begun to change its bedroom community image.

“A taproom would kill here,” Hanna said, fully embracing any potential competition.

“I don’t think competition is necessarily a bad thing,” he said. “Competition is good for all businesses.

Meet Grafton’s biggest advocates for a brewery opening in town: Reunion Tap & Table owners, from left, Shawn Briggs, Josh Briggs and Sargon Hanna.

MATTHEW TOTA

have to try harder if no one will stop me or no one will beat me? Even if a brewery is a competition, it’s a good thing for me, because that will make me up my game.”

Hanna’s partners at Reunion, brothers Shawn and Josh Briggs, feel the same way. And as the owners of Wicked Twisted Pretzels, they have an intimate knowledge of what it takes to run a brewery, having built relationships with many of New England’s top brewers.

Once, they even tried to open a brewpub here themselves.

“The site was septic, though, and the town wouldn’t let us tie into the sewage system because of our water usage,” Shawn Briggs said.

“I’ve worked in the restaurant industry my whole life, so it made more sense to do a restaurant with a beer focus, rather than trying cut through the red tape,” his brother said.

It hurt to hear that, knowing the success of Wicked Twisted Pretzel. But their example should not turn away potential breweries. And they remain optimistic that Grafton will have a brewery one day.

“I love the idea of a brewery here, and there’s no question there would be a demand,” Shawn Briggs said. “Look at a brewery like Cold Harbor in Westboro. If it can succeed in that small space, in that odd location — a lot of people don’t even know how to get there — there’s definitely a chance for Grafton.”

I find solace in their optimism. Consider Marlboro, my former city: It got proactive to net a brewery in its downtown, actually putting out ads in beer magazines looking for breweries, saying it would help with small business loans and permitting to ensure a smooth opening. And in one year, two arrived.

So, Grafton, let’s follow that example. I’m here for 30 years, at least, plenty of time to lure a taproom or two.