New Sudbury brewery features local beer and food

A new space for craft beer is now available in Sudbury.

Spacecraft Brewery officially opened on Friday in the Nickel City. It not only offers its own beer, but other brews from across the region, as well as local food.

Co-owner Melissa Mehes says to start, the brewery is offering two of its own beers.

"Eventually, our goal is to have half of the 14 taps system of our beer" she explained.

"So that's where we're headed, that's our goal."

Currently, the two beers Spacecraft is making include a Riesling IPA and a hazy citra IPA.

"The citra hop is an aromatic hop, we've dry hopped it," co-owner Dan Carnovale said.

"On the Riesling side of things, we've added 40 litres of white Riesling grape juice to balance that hoppiness with the sweetness of the grape juice."

The two beers will be named at a later date. While the name of the business may lead people to believe the business is space-themed, Mehes says that's not necessarily the case.

"We wanted to incorporate a name that would look at the craft of different offerings that we can have here in Sudbury, whether it's visual art or whether it's the craft of making beer or food," she said.

"We want to encompass all of that in here. So it's a space for craft, although we did incorporate a few elements of actual outer space in here."

Along with local beer on tap, local food is also on the menu.

"We're trying to incorporate as much as possible from the area," Mehes said.

"For example, we have some bar snacks that are from Creative Meats which is out in Warren. We have Perogy Princess perogies, some sourdough or buns from Regency Bakery — as much as possible we want to incorporate local flavours into our menu."

Carnovale says supporting local businesses helps his brewery as well.

"It also helped us eliminate some very expensive kitchen equipment and streamline our process with staff and focus more on the beer," he said.

"Why would we make perogies ourselves if Mary at Perogy Princess is one of the definitive perogy products in the region?"