10 Years of Side Project

On September 28, 2013, we released our first beers as Side Project Brewing. It was a tiny project Karen and I had been working on, and we had no idea what the future held for us, for our beer, and for what would become of our little company.

Before we talk about what 2023 will bring for Side Project, I wanted to first thank all of you for your endless love and support for our beers, our values, our vibe, our places and who we all are as people. We started a brewery because Karen and I are beer people, professional bartenders, lovers of meeting new people, chit-chatting people persons. This industry was made for us, and we are so lucky to not only have found it, but also to have found each and every single one of you reading this blog. Your support over the years has allowed us to modestly grow the production of our beers and to exponentially grow the size of the crew who Side Project can now employ. We have always worked tirelessly to create the best beers possible, and we now can also work on trying to create one of the best work environments possible for our amazing team. You and our team are why we are turning 10 – Thank you!

Side Project now consists of 32 fantastic people, many who have been with us for years! I cannot believe we have been so lucky to have had so many great people join our family and help us share our brewery with you. The pandemic was weird, tough, exhausting to say the least, but because of it, we were able to create positions for new managers and open up spots for new faces, many of whom you can now meet behind one of our bars pouring a beer for you. With all these new people, we didn’t focus on making more beer, but rather focused on making it easier for you to get our beer (online releases, La Coterie, curbside pickups, opening of Shared and their drive through window, etc.), while still being able to have a great experience at The Cellar, The Brewery or at Shared. Our managers, our brew team, our bartenders, everyone who works with us – thank you for being incredible!

So, what does 2023 bring?! I am going to use this year as an excuse to bring back some of my favorite beers, to bring back some nostalgic ones, to release some beers to go that have never left our place and strive to just have more fun with brewing and beer. I am a little older than I was 10 years ago, but I want to approach this year with more freedom and creativity, producing beers which define who Side Project was, is and will continue to be.

10 Year Beers

To officially kick off 10 Years of Side Project, we quietly released the new blend of O.W.K. last week! The 2023 release of this very special beer made for our first-born son is available for on-site enjoyment right now, and we hope that by sharing it by the ounce, more people can come enjoy it. Let this beer mark the start of 10 years for Side Project.

So, what else can you expect this year? We will be sharing several new one-off Side Project beers. On Feb. 15^th, we will release for the first time, and possibly the only time (I have only been able to source these barrels once and have never been able to source them since), the online public packages of Van Winkle Beer : Barrel : Time. For the first time, we blended a BBT release exclusively from a single bourbon producer and showcased how it influenced our non-adjunct “flagship” stout.

I also hope to release some additional first-time beers, but more importantly, we have some awesome collaborations, which should reach maturity this year, with the following beautiful friends – Brad at Private Press, Trevor at de Garde, Averie at Keeping Together, Gabe at Anchorage, Henry at Monkish, Doug at Cycle, Sam at Other Half, Shaun at Phase Three and more still yet to be finalized. This year will be fun to say the least.

Giving Back

In addition to releasing all these exciting beers, we are also going to celebrate our 10-Year Anniversary by supporting one of our favorite local organizations, Friends of Kids with Cancer. Did you know that with your help, we have raised $67,200 for FOKWC since 2017? That’s a number that our entire team is proud of, and we are eager to raise it this year! For our 10^th year of business, we are going to have what you can call “Friends Beers” at all three of our locations. Each month, we will have a Side Project Draft and a Shared Draft listed as the Friends Beers, and $1 from each of these draft beers will benefit Friends of Kids with Cancer. In February, we will launch our monthly Friends Beers with Side Project à la Table Blend #3 and Shared Windjammer Stout! So please feel free to visit us at The Side Project Cellar, Side Project Brewing and Shared Brewing throughout 2023 and ask which Friends Beers are currently available!

10 Year Events

We also plan on having some events and gatherings scattered throughout the year for opportunities to hang out with all of you and share time and beer together. The reason this industry has been so appealing to us and probably many of you for so many years, the comradery cannot be overlooked, and we would like to enable that more in 2023. And once again this year, look for our “official” 10th Birthday Weekend at the Brewery this Fall!

Ten years – I cannot believe it. On one hand, that first release day and those early brews feel like yesterday, but then I think of the growth of The Cellar, The Brewery and Shared and it makes those early days feel like a different lifetime. I cannot believe how many of you were here for that first release, and I still get to see you occasionally enjoying our beer at one of our places. We hope that what we created will continue to resonate with all of you and we can start planning for big things for our 20^th anniversary!

Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts. We hope you have enjoyed these last 10 years and hope you can join us for some fun things this year to help us celebrate the joy of making beer and sharing it.

Cheers and Thank You,

Cory, Karen, and the Side Project Family