Look Inside Long Live Beerworks’ Boston Taproom

News

Tasty pastry stouts, fruity sours, and crisp lagers are about to arrive in Roxbury: Providence’s popular Long Live Beerworks is awaiting final inspections before opening its second location at 152 Hampden St., says co-founder Jessica deBry.

It’s a colorful, updated look to a space familiar to local brewery fans. DeBry and her partner, company president and brewer Armando DeDona, are the latest tenants of the taproom in the Newmarket Square area, on the ground floor of a renovated, 1850s piano factory owned by surveying company Feldman Geospatial. (Read: free parking after 5 p.m.) Previously an outpost of California-based hard kombucha brewery Flying Embers and originally home to Backlash Beer, the space will soon serve up the flavor-forward styles that have made Long Live a top name in Rhode Island beer.

“We’re trying to match what we’re doing in Providence,” says deBry, about the variety of beers on tap. Expect upwards of a dozen offerings from a rotating roster of double-dry hopped IPAs, thick “frozie” sours made with fruit puree, and more. Customers will be able to try it all with full, half, and five-ounce sample-size pours.

DeDona and Boston-based head brewer John Lattuca have been at work for weeks on the Roxbury brewhouse. (Lattuca’s resume includes Exhibit ‘A’ Brewing and Trillium.) Long Live upgraded a few of the tanks of the existing 15-barrel production system with the goal of producing about 3,000 barrels of beer this year out of each location, deBry says, and they have also started a small barrel-aging program. Long Live has upped its distribution efforts in Massachusetts alongside the taproom expansion, as well.

The Boston taproom will have its own schedule for the brewery’s most anticipated beer releases, such as the double IPA Black Cat Sees All, and will produce exclusives. “There will be carryover of expectations of brand consistency, but also letting [this location] be its own thing,” says Roxbury general manager Brian Toms.

The same is true for the design of the space. Long Live worked with Vision 3 Architects and Haynes Group Construction to re-envision the Roxbury taproom. Decorative elements like wood slats, blue neon, and some of the quartz tabletops “intentionally nod” to the industrial-modern aesthetic of the original taproom in Providence’s West End, deBry says. Other fixtures pick up the vibes honed across dozens of beer labels, while amping up Long Live’s typical color palette. Notice the shimmery emerald tiles underneath the bar and the patchwork mural of geometric shapes by artist Abbie Cates, painted prominently from the entryway up a few stairs (or an accessible lift ride) onto the main level.

Two-top tables and a retail counter for to-go beer cans furnish the lower level. On the main floor, built-in high-tops and a long table for groups up to 12 contribute to an overall indoor occupancy of about 130 people. Two patios will be ready to go with the taproom opening as well, deBry says. (Outdoor dog-friendly licensing, meanwhile, requires more permitting, but it’s also part of the plan.) The Hampden Street end of the building has a fenced-in, triangular outdoor area, and a smaller section of the George Street parking lot will be reserved for food trucks and have a few tables.

“As we’re new to the area, we’d love to hear from food trucks interested in being a part of our schedule,” deBry says. Long Live will also fill glass growlers to go and offer packaged snacks and non-alcoholic drinks for sale.

Toms, the GM, is excited to be part of the neighborhood. The taproom is about a mile from Dorchester Brewing Company and just a few blocks away from Bully Boy Distillers’ speakeasy-like tasting room and Madhouse Café, a fairly new coffee shop attached to a motorcycle garage that has already grown quite a following. “We’ll be recommending people to our other friends down the road,” he says, once Long Live opens. Follow along on Instagram for opening updates in the next few weeks, and stay tuned for a monthly calendar of events, including Bonsai Bar workshops and Skip the Small Talk meetups.

152 Hampden St., Roxbury, Boston, longlivebeerworks.com.