Portsmouth's first brewery proposed for business park

Ragged Island Brewing hopes to open by this fall

Jim McGaw
Posted 6/23/16

PORTSMOUTH — By this fall, you could be tipping back a cool, hoppy IPA while sitting on a stool somewhere inside the Portsmouth Industrial Park off Hedly Street.

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Portsmouth's first brewery proposed for business park

Ragged Island Brewing hopes to open by this fall

Posted

PORTSMOUTH — By this fall, you could be tipping back a cool, hoppy IPA while sitting on a stool somewhere inside the Portsmouth Industrial Park off Hedly Street.

That’s where Matt Gray hopes to open Ragged Island Brewing Co., which would be the town’s first brewery.

“We’re pretty excited for it,” said Mr. Gray, a lifetime Newport resident who plans on opening the one-barrel brewery at 200 Highpoint Ave. in the fall — possibly October — following zoning approval and state and federal licensing. 

“We’re applying for a zoning permit just to make sure we cover all the bases,” said Mr. Gray, who hopes to get on the board’s July 21 agenda. “It’s light manufacturing, but we’re also bottling it.” 

Don’t expect a craft beer company on the scale of Narragansett, Sierra Nevada or Dogfish Head breweries, however. This will be a small-scale operation, he said.

“One barrel produces 30 gallons of beer — a very limited quantity. It’s essentially the smallest commercial-style brewery you can have,” said Mr. Gray.

But there will be room for visitors.

As fate would have it, the brewery is taking over Unit B6 in the business park — where the Greenleaf Compassionate Care Center, a marijuana dispensary, was located before moving further south on West Main Road.

“Considering what they can do, we shouldn’t have too much of a problem,” Mr. Gray joked.

The space is over 4,000 square feet in area — “plenty of room for what we want to do,” he said. “It will also include a tasting sampling room, where we can offer tastings and tours and sell growlers of beer.”

As to how many customers the brewery would be able to handle at one time, Mr. Gray said that will be up to the fire marshal to determine, “but we’re assuming it could be in the 40-to-50-people range.”

Ragged Island Brewing will bottle and sell beer onsite but not initially distribute its product, he said. 

“We thought starting small would really be the best way to start,” Mr. Gray said, adding that employees will have a better grasp on the space’s potential once they move in July 1, when their lease begins. “Then we’ll see if we can go to a larger-scale system.”

Also still to be determined are the styles of beer Ragged Island Brewing will produce. “Our main offering will be an IPA,” Mr. Gray said, adding the brewery plans to offer additional styles within the first few weeks of opening, including a porter.

Brewery team

The brewmaster is John Almeida. “He’s been a home brewer for 30 years,” said Mr. Gray, who said Mr. Almeida’s finely crafted ales have been a hit with friends and family members.

He's the husband of another partner in the venture, Margo Almeida, and they live in Orr's Island, Maine. Also involved are their daughter Liz Donovan and her husband, Patrick, of Portsmouth; as well as Mr. Gray’s wife, Katie Gray.

Mr. Gray is no stranger to the local beer scene. He also runs Gray Matter Marketing, an event management company that handles the Rhode Island Brew Fest, Craft Brew Races, 4 Bridges Ride and other events. 

At some point, Mr. Gray plans on moving the expanding marketing company into the Portsmouth Industrial Park as well. 

He said he looked all over Aquidneck Island for a suitable location for a brewery before settling on the business park.

 “We’re excited to start in Portsmouth.”

You can get updates on Ragged Island Brewing Co. by visiting www.raggedislandbrewing.com or www.facebook.com/raggedisland.

Cidery: Just waiting

Ragged Island Brewing Co.’s announcement comes months after Dan Keating, owner of the 22-acre sloping tract formerly known as the Pierce-Anthony Farm at 2503 East Main Road, received Zoning Board of Review approval to build a cidery there.

Mr. Keating plans on processing both hard and sweet cider and offer public tastings under the same roof — a 40x80-foot building to be constructed near the front of the property on the east side of East Main Road at the bottom of Quaker Hill, just north of the Foodworks plaza. 

The cider would be made from a combination of apples from Mr. Keating’s orchards — fruit specially grown for ciders that are not normally found in stores — as well as the more common dessert apples from other local farms.

It would be the first cidery in Portsmouth, and perhaps in all of Rhode Island.

Construction plans are on hold for now, however, since Mr. Keating is waiting on a key permit from the R.I. Department of Environmental Management for a septic system. He can’t secure a building permit without it, he said.

“It’s not a traditional wastewater treatment thing,” Mr. Keating said Tuesday, explaining the wait. “I’m at the mercy of the state.”

The permit could come any day, he said, or he may have to wait much longer.

If he does receive approval for the system soon, however, Mr. Keating said he could probably start building this fall and open his business by the spring of 2017.

Ragged Island Brewing Gray Matter Marketing Portsmouth Industrial Park

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Meet our staff
Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.