Bold Republic Brewing Relocates to Temple
We visited the original location of Bold Republic in Belton, Texas last summer and when I recently saw a social media post they were closing, I thought they had become another victim of the pandemic. But upon closer inspection, it turns out they were relocating to a much larger space. I caught up with Adriane Hodges, co-founder, to learn more.
Update: Bold Republic welcomes Matt Benavidez to the brewing team as a lead brewer. Benavidez comes from Austin Beerworks where he spent the past 10 years as a brewer, “we are so excited to have him and the experience he will bring to our new location,” says Hodges.
We are very excited to be relocating our entire operation to Temple, Texas. We actually started the project before COVID hit, and it came to a grinding halt, like everything else. We purchased a little over 2 acres in West Temple in the Crossroads Park Complex, which is home to 7 soccer fields, 4 baseball fields, 4 softball fields, tennis courts, hike & bike trails, and 27 hole disc golf course. We love the charm of historic downtown Belton, but the simple truth is we have needed more space since the day we opened, and we have always wanted a truly green outdoor area. We love breweries that are nestled into neighborhoods yet close to major roads, and this location ticked both boxes.
The new facility will house a 15BBL steam-powered brewhouse and 30BBL fermenters and a 30bbl brite. This will allow us to begin self-distributing. We currently have a 3.5 electric brewhouse with 7BBl fermenters and 7BBL brite. The current setup is not at all automated and is more akin to a giant homebrew kettle. That being said, it has gotten us to where we are today and we have a lot of love for the old brewhouse, but we are ready to move on. We sold all of our old equipment to a customer turned friend who will take over our old location and rebrand it as his own “Nolan Creek Brewery”
We put countless hours into designing the new place based on our years of growing pains. Our hope is that the new facility enhances our awesome customers’ experiences. The building is 4200 sq. feet and the attached patio is about 1600 sq. feet, with a parking lot that can accommodate over 50 cars and an additional backyard that is about 3/4 acre. The new building has a full commercial kitchen, and we will be offering farm-to-table food with a low country coastal flair (because I’m from the Chesapeake Bay area and I miss the food I grew up with).
The taproom opens up with 4 glass garage doors onto a large covered patio with ceiling fans, TVs, and is enclosable with vinyl panels for inclement weather. Right on the side of the building by our entrance is where you’ll find our first tap, which is for filling up dog bowls. Inside we feature 32 taps, 8 are dedicated to local wine and cider and the rest are for housemade craft beer and the occasional guest tap. From the taproom, you can see the brewing area, through a glass partition wall. A hallway between the taproom and brewery leads to the bathrooms. We used to have a single bathroom, and now have a total of 6 stalls and 2 urinals, divided into 2 rooms. A door from the hallway will take you back to the back patio which overlooks the hike and bike trail that encompasses the whole backyard, and a full-sized commercial playground for the kiddos. To the left is the future site (completion date Oct 1) of the indoor Black Axe Company axe throwing lanes.
Our goal is to add a permanent stage as soon as we can afford it, rising building costs have given us many sleepless nights as I’m sure you can imagine. But it is ours, we will no longer have a landlord, and we are so excited to finally be making this dream a reality. If you had told us 5 years ago that we would be here, we would probably have laughed. We learned from so many of our mistakes and growing pains and without them, I don’t think we’d be here either.
