Northampton Brewery
Northampton, MA | 7 bbl | 10,000 SF
Northampton Brewery
This 100-year-old brick carriage house served as the office for a fuel oil company until it was converted into a brew pub in 1986 by the sister-and-brother team of Janet and Peter Egelston. In 1996, Austin Design Cooperative expanded the kitchen and moved the beer garden to the roof of the main building. Protected from the elements by taut fabric sails supported by metal armatures, the deck feels open, light-filled, and summery. The new roof deck has been enormously popular since its opening and remains one of the few places in Northampton offering outdoor dining.
In 2004, the owner came back to ADCi with the idea of expanding the restaurant’s interior to provide a large room for special events. Instead of taking away from the rooftop space, the new building accentuates the arcing sails behind it with a sweeping roof supported by large, curved beams. The overhang of the addition acts as a protective covering on the roof level: another sail among many. Inside, the high, open ceiling and expansive glass create a light and airy enclosure. The windows open onto garden space, providing natural ventilation and embracing the summer breeze. In the colder seasons, a fireplace lends a cozy mood to the space.
In 2007, as part of a comprehensive deep-energy retrofit renovation, ADCi facilitated the installation of a Limited Use Limited Access (LULA) elevator to provide universal access to the existing mezzanine and roof deck.
Over the winter of 2013–14, the fourth and most ambitious revisioning of the Northampton Brewery was launched. Other than the 2004 sunroom and the second-floor dining room, nearly everything was reconfigured, updated, and expanded. The bar was moved and became a free-standing oval with many more seats; the kitchen was gutted and refitted, adding an open service area with pizza and rotisserie ovens; the brewery itself was completely reworked, adding large windows for daylighting, all-new easily sanitized surfaces, room for a canning line and small tours, and internal viewing from the bar. The rooftop biergarten was expanded once again and a spacious full-service covered bar added.
In 2020, the sunroom was renovated, adding two new accessible restrooms, banquettes, new flooring, and improved circulation pathways. We also renovated the brewery, helping with the layout to convert to an all-electric brewing system, and providing a new discrete seating area adjacent to the brewery with storefront glazing, putting the patrons up close and personal to the brewers and emphasizing that this is not a showpiece, but an actual brewery producing some of the finest beers in the region. The new seating and service areas accommodate an additional 30 people, increasing profit potential for this popular hang-out.