Newport Craft’s Expansion is a Game Changer in the City’s North End
Newport's oldest craft brewery unveils a new outdoor patio, with an indoor venue coming later this year.
CEO Brendan O’Donnell pictured in the new outdoor beer garden at Newport Craft Brewing and Distilling Co. (Photo by Lauren Clem)
This time next year, Thames Street, or even Newport’s glittering oceanfront venues, might have to give up their hold on Aquidneck Island’s bustling social scene.
Newport Craft Brewing and Distilling Co., one of the oldest craft breweries in the state, is currently in the midst of transforming its North End taproom with a $22 million renovation project. The project will overhaul both manufacturing and customer experience, expanding production and creating a new, 200-seat indoor event venue.
The company unveiled the first phase of that transformation last week over a busy Memorial Day weekend that saw CEO Brendan O’Donnell slinging drinks behind the bar of the new outdoor beer garden.
“Newport Storm was the original microbrewery in Rhode Island. I think at the time there were only 500 to 750 breweries in the country. Now there’s over 10,000,” he says.
The brewery, originally founded as Newport Storm, was started by Brent Ryan and Derek Luke in 1999. At the time, Rhode Island’s craft beer scene consisted of a handful of brew pubs. (Narragansett Beer would not be revived locally for another six years.) Ryan and Luke were instrumental in opening up the state’s craft brewing industry, advocating for legal changes and helping found the Rhode Island Brewers’ Guild in 2013.
In 2017, they sold the company — which also produces Sea Fog whiskey, White Squall vodka and gin and Thomas Tew rum — to 1639 Ventures, a company managed by O’Donnell and his father-in-law, Nicholas Schorsch. A native of New Jersey, O’Donnell worked on Wall Street before pulling a career about-face and purchasing a stake in New York’s successful 310 Bowery Bar in 2015. He and his wife later moved to Newport after visiting the area with family.
The current renovation will expand the brewery’s production capacity from 10,000 to more than 50,000 barrels yearly, along with creating a purpose-built taproom and event space. Like many breweries that predate the taproom era, Newport Craft previously hosted beer and spirit production and customer visits in a single, 10,000-square-foot facility. In addition to separate brewery and distillery areas, the ground floor now includes a 150-person capacity beer garden leading onto a grassy field that will serve as overflow and event space. The field, little more than an overrun parcel when Newport Craft purchased it from the city in 2021, has its own historical pedigree as the site of the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Bob Dylan famously went electric.
Upstairs, an indoor event venue remains under construction, with thirty-seven weddings already booked for next year, according to O’Donnell. Though the facility will not offer a full restaurant, an onsite catering kitchen will allow for large events and pop-ups with local restaurants. Outside, a rooftop deck offers stunning views of the Newport Bridge.
“If it was a busy weekend like July Fourth, between upstairs, the field and [the beer garden], we could have maybe 1,500 people,” O’Donnell says.
The renovation comes as the surrounding North End neighborhood faces significant changes brought about by the Route 138 ramp project and related redevelopment. O’Donnell says he hopes the brewery will become an anchor for the area, luring visitors from the busy downtown scene. Directly outside the building’s doors, a newly built bike path will connect the two neighborhoods, and O’Donnell says he plans to install bike racks and a bike maintenance shed in partnership with Bike Newport on the property to expand transportation options.
“We’re going to plant our flag and show people how great all of Newport is,” he says.
His leadership brings the brewery under the umbrella of the family’s other hospitality holdings, which include the Audrain Automobile Museum as well as La Forge Casino Restaurant, Wally’s Wieners and several other Newport-based food trucks and venues. In addition to Newport Craft, the company also brews beer under the Radiant Pig and Braven Brewing Company labels, brands it acquired since purchasing the brewery.
While the outdoor beer garden is now open for the summer, O’Donnell is targeting a late fall opening for the indoor taproom and venue. He expects the entire project to be complete by Dec. 1. newportcraft.com
A rendering shows the completed renovations with rooftop deck planned for next fall. (Courtesy of Newport Craft Brewing and Distilling Co.)craft
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