Twin Lakes: Move hasn't changed beer's taste

No sign pointed the way to the Twin Lakes Brewing Co. in Greenville. And, for now, few signs show how to get to its new Newport facility.

That will all change soon, owners say.

The craft brewery, which stopped making beer more than a year ago after its original founders parted ways and the business had to move from its tony Chateau Country property, has been producing its best-selling pale ale for about a month.

“We’re at full production now,” said J. Burke Morrison, a new partner in the business that moved from a Kennett Pike family farm to a warehouse at 405 E. Marsh Lane in the Newport Industrial Park.

Twin Lakes plans to unveil its draft beer in area restaurants in about two weeks. But because the Twin Lakes partners are not yet ready to welcome visitors to the tasting room, now undergoing renovations, they hope to stay hidden in a building in the industrial park near the Tile Market of Delaware for just a little longer.

“People are showing up looking for the beer. We’re on Google now,” Morrison said. He said signs for the new brewery, three times larger than old site, will go up as soon as the tasting room opens daily, possibly by late September.

Twin Lakes, founded in 2006, is a company with a new location, a new outlook and new partners who are eager to reclaim their loyal fans.

Yet, to bring back those customers, and bring in new ones, they might first have to convince them that all of the recent changes have been good.

Gone is Sam Hobbs, one of the company’s original founders who served as its most exuberant cheerleader. The brewery had been located on Hobbs’ family’s sprawling, rural property near Winterthur Museum. The Twin Lakes name, which the brewery has retained, comes from two ponds that had been on the land.

Hobbs told The News Journal in October 2015 that his former partners Jack Wick and Matt Day bought him out of the business, and he asked them to move the brewery from land that has been in his family – his great grandfather was a du Pont – for seven generations.

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The partners have declined to get into specifics about the split other than to say it was a difference of opinion on the future of the business.

“He was a great landlord for more than 10 years,” Morrison said of Hobbs, but he added the company needed more room to expand. “We were in a garage. We were in Sam’s front yard.”

But the move also means a change in the water supply used to make the beer. Twin Lakes Brewery, which produces American-style ales, stouts and lagers, had used water from a deep rock aquifer located on the Greenville farm. It was one of the beer’s selling points.

Wick, who is now Twin Lakes’ head brewer, said for the past year, he has doing research on area water to find the one that tastes most like the water they had used for more than 10 years. He said water used to make Twin Lakes brews now comes from southern Chester County in Pennsylvania. The beer recipe hasn’t changed, Wick said.

“We’re doing everything the same way we did, but with well water,” Morrison added. The source comes from Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, he said. “It’s the same terroir, the same minerals.”

Right now, the brewery is producing Twin Lakes Pale Ale, previously known as Greenville Pale Ale. Production on other beers could begin soon.

“We hope to start showing up in restaurants within the next two to three weeks. We want to go back to the places that got us here,” Morrison said.

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In 2006, Delaware got its first taste of Twin Lakes beers – Route 52 Pilsner and Greenville Pale Ale – at Buckley’s Tavern in Centreville. The restaurant is less than 3 miles away from the former brewery. Hobbs first brought the beer to Buckley’s in a horse-drawn carriage. He continued the charming tradition, on the brewery’s anniversary, for nearly a decade.

Buckley’s General Manager Chuck Lewis says the 5812 Kennett Pike restaurant hasn’t had any Twin Lakes beer for more than a year. Locals, who knew the story of partners’ breakup, have long stopped trying to order it, he said, but “we still randomly have people asking if we have on tap.”

And, when they had it, Lewis said the Greenville Pale Ale was the restaurant’s top seller.

“It out sold every beer we sold by 2-to-1,” he said. “It was a really great product. People are eating and drinking a lot more local. And you couldn’t get more fresh and local than that product. It was our best-selling beer, by far.”

Still, Lewis said it doesn’t mean he plans to automatically return Twin Lakes Pale Ale to the tavern. He isn’t sure if the different water source has changed the beer’s flavor, and that remains to be seen.

“We’re going to taste it and see what it’s like,” Lewis said. “If it’s good, we’ll put it back on.”

Lewis said he’s not sure if the brewery has lost some of its cachet now that it no longer has a Greenville address. “I don’t know. It’s not as local to us anymore.”

The Newport facility is about 10 miles from Buckley’s. But Lewis said Buckley’s customers often, wrongly, assumed the restaurant just picked up kegs directly from the nearby Greenville brewery. The Twin Lakes beer goes first to Standard Distributing Co. and then is delivered by them to customers.

Lewis said while the company’s story behind the beer has changed, he hopes the tastes of the beers have not.

“They’re a different company operating the same business. We really loved their Route 52 Pilsner, but they didn’t brew that all year-round,” he said. “They also had good seasonal beers. They were known for their great water sources. So, we’ll try [the beers] and we’ll have to see.”

Ryan J. Kennedy, director of marketing for Harvey Hanna & Associates, a commercial development company, said he is more than happy to have the Twin Lakes brewery in Newport.

“This used to be our warehouse,” he said, standing inside the 3,000-square-foot building. “The second we heard they were shopping for a property, we jumped at the chance to have them.”

Wick said the company is currently producing about 370 barrels of beer. “We can double that easily. Our goal is to get to 1,000 barrels,” he said.

Day can’t wait to welcome guests to the tasting room. He said it will be 2 1/2 times larger than the original site, a barn that had once been the artist studio of the late George “Frolic” Weymouth, Hobbs’ uncle and the founder of the Brandywine River Museum.

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The new room will have a completely different vibe. Day said the tasting room will have a nautical and lake theme, with a concrete floor painted blue. Canoe paddles and water skis will decorate the walls. He said they plan to sell pints and growlers, have food trucks in the parking lot and will host a daily happy hour from 4 to 8 p.m. It will be much different than Greenville, where the tasting room was only open for a few hours on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

Other changes are in the works, Morrison said. Right now, the partners are working with a graphics team to change the company’s label and redesign the canned beer, which should be back in Delaware liquor stores by late September.

“We won’t have the farm image anymore. It’s disingenuous to show a farm when we’re not on one,” Morrison said.

And while Twin Lakes beers had been named for local Delaware sites and historical figures, Morrison said that might change for future brews.

“It’s now more about the beer,” he said.

Lewis, of Buckley’s Tavern, said after more than a year’s absence, he isn’t sure if Twin Lakes can regain the popularity with the public that it once enjoyed.

“I don’t know. It will probably be tough for them to build back their market. It’s not the same water source, so maybe it’s not the same beer?” he said. “Still, it’s probably the closest beer made to us. If we like it, we’ll carry it.”

Contact Patricia Talorico at (302) 324-2861 orptalorico@delawareonline.com and on Twitter@pattytalorico