Brewing Company Helps Bring New Life to Downtown RS

Mike Keith and Anita Baker never imagined that they'd be opening a brewery, let alone one that has become a part of its town's history. Spring Dam Brewing Company opened for customers in January 2021, on the 101st anniversary of prohibition, as the first Roaring Spring business to serve alcohol in more than 100 years.

After prohibition ended in the United States in 1933, the borough voted to keep the sale of alcohol illegal - that is, until a 2019 ballot referendum voted 65/35 to approve its sale once again.

Since then, Baker and Keith purchased and renovated the brewery's 1873 building, opened amidst COVID-19 regulations, brewed dozens of their own beer recipes, and quickly become a destination for people from the Cove and beyond. Spring Dam Brewing Company now has over 9,000 followers on Facebook and attracts people every week who come to the area from near and far after searching online for "local breweries."

Their journey started one day as they walked through downtown Roaring Spring and peeked in the window at 269 E. Main Street. Baker saw the brewery's iconic stone wall and said, "This is the one!" They knocked on an upstairs tenant's door to find out who the owner was, and the rest is history.

Keith and Baker purchased the building in January 2020 and spent approximately one year "gutting the whole inside" with the help of Curryville Construction. They also demolished the building next door and constructed their popular outdoor patio area.

The building

The building was built by the Oddfellows in 1873. It has had various uses over its lifetime, including a funeral home and a news stand. The building has not been occupied by a business on the first floor since the 1980s, so there was lots of work to be done. Among many other large scale renovations, the couple removed the previously vaulted ceilings to reveal grandiose high ones. They also exposed the original stone walls, one of which was covered with many layers of plaster.

The renovated interior of the brewery has been modeled after the prohibition era, and Baker has personally seen to all its details. She picked pictures of famous gangsters for the walls, found Gatsby-era silhouettes for the bathroom doors, and worked to clean up the bar, which was once a fabric counter at Roaring Spring Department Store. Even all the brewery's plates are authentic 1920s antiques.

Keith and Baker decided to leave the exterior signage from the former news stand to enhance the "speakeasy look." The next-door patio area, where the neighboring building was demolished, features a multi-tier area where concerts take place and additional guests can visit in the warmer months.

The business

Spring Dam Brewing had its opening day in January 2021 under COVID restrictions, which only allowed 25 percent of their 75-person capacity.

Gradually, as restrictions were lifted and the business grew, the brewery is generally busy most Wednesday through Sunday nights when they're open, sometimes even having a line at the door.

Neither Baker nor Smith had owned a brewery before. Baker sold cars at Blue Knob Auto for most of her career, and Smith did a mix of jobs including construction and bartending. He also helped a friend construct and open a brewing company, 1718 Brewing Company, in Ocracoke, N.C., prior to their business venture. This is where he learned about the brewing process, but he had never actually made recipes on his own.

Since then, Baker and Smith have learned continually and worked to construct 30 brews for the Spring Dam Brewing Company. They've received help and collaboration from other local brewers through the process.

"The brewing community is very tight knit," Smith said.

They have an entire brewing system inside the business, including a fermentation room, and brew about once per week during the current season. One brewing day will produce about 5-6 kegs. In the summer, this will produce about 5-6 kegs. In the summer, this will increase to twice per week to accommodate demand. Eventually, they would like to expand to a bigger system and to sell their brews to local vendors.

The couple has gotten creative with brews and tried to capture the local community in both names and ingredients. One brew, called "Dumb Hundred," is named after a road in Roaring Spring and features raspberries they've picked locally.

While Keith enjoys doing most of the brewing, Baker has worked to create original food recipes.

"We have really, really good beer," Keith said, "And about 95 percent of our food is made from scratch."

From beer cheese formulated with their own brews to weekly special brunches, Baker is constantly assembling new ideas.

As spring approaches, they're excitedly planning for future improvements. In addition to getting a larger brewing system and selling to other local vendors, they'd like to eventually have an outdoor tap/serving station to make it smoother serving their outdoor customers smoother.

Weekly events continue to draw their customer base from the Cove and beyond. They've talked to people coming in from Ohio, Pittsburgh, and more, following a growing trend of people enjoying microbreweries. While they attract people of all ages, they have a large customer base between ages 25 and 40.

Upcoming events include a large Saint Patrick's Day Celebration with music, green beer, and corned beef sliders and an Alaska-themed week this summer, featuring specialty beer and panning for gold.

"We try to have fun," Keith said.

In addition to personal touches and lots of new ideas, Keith and Baker believe that the pure water from Roaring Spring sets the beer itself apart.

"The [Roaring Spring] water makes a big difference in our beer. It makes my job easy," Keith said.

The couple hopes their brewery and its success helps to bring life and business to the borough for years to come.