Since the very beginning the long term goal with Atom was to be able to grow as much of our own fruit, herbs, berries, etc to use in our beers. After four and a half years we finally came to the realization that we simply would not be able to do that at our current location. We always wanted to embrace the true Farm Brewery model as much as we possibly could. Not only for the brewery but for our own personal satisfaction and lifestyle.
So after nearly a year of searching for the perfect location to take not only Atom but our personal lives into the next phase we found our new home. We’ve purchased a 45 acre farm in Upstate New York and will be relocating the whole operation there over the next month or two. As with every thing else these days this is changing almost daily but so far we’ve been able to keep things moving forward. Our hope is to be in our new home by early May.
Since we will be moving Atom to a new state we will essentially be starting all over. We’ll need to get all new licensing from the TTB, of course the state of New York and all local gov’t approval. We been in talks with the local gov’t for over a month now and it would be an understatement to say they are very excited for Atom to be part of their community.
As most of you probably know, our current brewhouse is very small, just 500 square feet. One of the most exciting things about the new location is we will be moving the brewery into a 2000 square foot building, not sure what we will do with all that space but we’ll figure it out for sure.
One of the biggest changes that we’ll face is the ability for us to actually have a taproom, thats something to this day we have never had the opportunity to even do. We can say this, we have some pretty cool ideas for the space.
Another feature of the new property is the 100′ x 40′ greenhouse. The possibilities with this are endless. We’ve even been researching the ability to grow citrus in there. We anticipate this to be our primary location for growing various herbs and fruit that may not necessarily grow that well in the outdoor climate in New York. Of course this is all very new to us and we’re only at the very early stages of this whole move so over the coming months, and years we’ll figure out how to best use a greenhouse.
Of the 45 acres roughly twelve of it is farmable. Our plans for this is to plant a variety of orchards, apples, pears, quince and cherries just to start. We’ll also utilize this space to plant as many types of berries as we possible can. With this all being southern facing the exposure should be perfect for the vineyard we plan to plant all over that hill. The varieties of grapes are yet to be determined but we plan on having both red and white grapes. A lot of research and visits to the surrounding wineries will be needed. We know, we know, sounds rough doesn’t it.
Lastly the farm is already outfitted with animal stalls, fenced areas and everything we will need to have horses, goats, pigs and chickens. Perhaps even an alpaca or two. Not only does the property have it’s own well, which with all the early testing we’ve had done so far, is going to be an amazing source for the brewery it also has two streams running through it which we have water rights to for irrigation.
Needless to say there is a lot of work ahead of us. Not only do we need to get our lives settled into our new home and get past all the craziness going on in the world with this virus, but we have a lot of construction, licensing, planting and the list goes on to get accomplished before Atom reopens. When will that be you ask? Honestly right now we can’t say but our target is late Spring 2021.
We want to bring you all along on this amazing journey with us so we plan on having regular blog posts, Instagram updates and even the occasional live video broadcasts to show you what we’re up to.
We can’t thank you all enough for the amazing support you’ve given us over the years. Especially all of our amazing fans in Colorado, without you we wouldn’t be where we are today. This isn’t goodbye by any means, we’ll be back in Colorado at least a couple times a year for festivals and if at all possible we hope to continue to distribute Atom beers within the state of Colorado.
Keep an eye open for future posts. Again thank you all and we hope you are as excited about this next phase as we are.
Cheers!!
Jeff and Chris