Wormtown Brewery Mulls Hop To Next Level
Photo/Amanda Roberge
DRINK UP: The team behind the brews at Wormtown: Damase Olsson, part-time brewer; Tom Oliveri, owner of Peppercorn's and co-owner of Wormtown Brewing; Ben Pratt, master brewer; and Ben Roesche, part-time brewer.
Much like a successful marriage, it is a mysterious recipe that makes a business partnership thrive. At the Wormtown Brewing Co., which exists as part of a uniquely symbiotic relationship with Peppercorn’s Restaurant at 455 Park Ave. in Worcester, the union is fueled by really good beer and really good food.
“The brewery helps business at the restaurant, and vice versa,” said Tom Oliveri, who owns Peppercorn’s as part of a longtime family tradition in the restaurant business in and around Worcester.
Tom’s father, Tom Sr., was once the owner of the Worcester deli Bushel & Peck, and is behind the scenes as his son runs both Peppercorn’s and Prezo Grille & Bar in Milford.
Diversified Business
But Oliveri had to think outside the box and beyond the family in order to try something new in the space under the same roof as Peppercorn’s. For some time he had run an ice cream shop in the space, and while ice cream sales were good and the shop was a good fit with Peppercorn’s, Oliveri wasn’t satisfied to have a business that only brought in money three months of the year. Turns out, his instincts were right on and in 2010 he elicited brewer Ben Roesche to become the master brewer and part owner of what is Worcester’s only micro-brewery.
In some ways, business at Wormtown Brewing Co. has been too good for its own good. Having recently completed one renovation that enabled production to double from 1,000 to 2,000 barrels per year, the micro-brewery is already experiencing another round of growing pains.
“We’re at a crossroads,” Oliveri said. “We anticipate, at the rate we’re growing, we have about a year before we have to make some serious decisions.”
The decision, he said, will be to either stay as is and enjoy a long career as a limited-production micro-brewery making high-quality beer, or to seek investors to help fund a much larger-scale operation.
“It’s easy to fall into the trap of keeping up with the Joneses,” Roesche said. “Or you can just try to be a really good small business and make great beer.”
In the beginning, Peppercorn’s was one of the only places to find Wormtown’s brews, but now, said Oliveri, there are more than 100 handles in bars and restaurants surrounding Worcester. And while some establishments are reluctant to sign on with Wormtown because of their belief that supporting the brewery would be akin to supporting their dining competition, Oliveri sees the bigger picture.
“Unlike the restaurant business, the beer business has an all for one and one for all attitude,” he said. “People work together and everyone does better business because of it.”
While the amount of beer that Roesche can crank out is fixed — especially given the fact that some of the more popular lagers take twice as long to make as ales without the luxury of being able to command double the price — demand continues to rise.
And it’s easy to see why. Having grown up in Holden and worked during his early career at a number of Bay State breweries from the Berkshires to Boston, Roesche relishes his current status as the only brewery in Worcester. And he is happy to make that his brand.
All of the brews made at Wormtown Brewing Co. pay homage to the city — from Seven Hills Pale Ale to Turtle Boy Blueberry Ale. The signature hazy golden wheat ale is known as Worcester’s Bravest and a percentage of the profits go to charities set up for the families of the city’s fallen firefighters. These are only three of the brewery’s flagship beers, but they are known to come out with seasonal specialties — including one recent brew that used only ingredients that were locally grown in Massachusetts.
Having garnered multiple awards within its first year of existence, the brewery is proud of the product they’ve been able to achieve.
Oliveri, who keeps an eye on numbers but for the most part does the important job is staying out of the way, is quick to praise Roesche and the other part-time brewers for the success Wormtown Brewing Co. has experienced. Finding a competent and skilled brewer is no small task.
“If these guys went away tomorrow, there would be no more beer,” he said. “It can’t be done without them.”
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