Bull Spit Brewing owners weighing a sale, as Central Mass. brewery landscape changes

WINCHENDON — Another week, another Central Massachusetts brewery has gone up for sale.

The roving Bull Spit Brewing Company has put its 4 Summer Drive brewery on the market for $875,000, with its owner considering either a clean break or a new partnership.

Bull Spit’s sale would mark the fifth Central Massachusetts brewery to sell or close in the last four months.

Last Fall, River Styx Brewing closed in Fitchburg and Milk Room Brewing Co. shut down in Rutland. In January, Purgatory Beer Co. sold its brewing assets in Whitinsville to Murder Hill, a new brewery created by former Wormtown founder Ben Roesch and his wife Adrienne. Later that month, longtime brewer Wachusett Brewing Co. sold to New Hampshire’s Smuttynose Brewing Co.

First in Lancaster, then Maynard, now here in Toy Town, Bull Spit has struggled to find a permanent home since cattle-farmer Keith Kopley opened the brewery in June 2019 beside his farm’s country store.

Kopley told me Bull Spit’s recent difficulties — tied to delays settling into a new brewery near downtown — and Kalon Farm needing more of his attention prompted the listing.

“We’re looking for a relationship with somebody to carry things through,” he said. “I have a lot, businesswise, going on: a lot of stuff at the farm happening.”

He’d consider an outright sale or a partnership with new investors or other brewers. “I’m open to all situations at this point,” he said.

A bull perpetually on the move

Whether justified or not, Lancaster had given Bull Spit nothing but the horns.

Frequently, Kopley sparred with town officials over permitting and other issues tied to his brewery, so he decided to pick up and leave in 2021 for Winchendon.

In between, he moved Bull Spit to Maynard, occupying an old mill; that taproom and restaurant stayed open for just a year before quietly closing.

“Maynard ended up as a stop-gap and didn’t work out,” Kopley said. It also ended up being Bull Spit’s last indoor location.

The brewery has not been able to construct a taproom in Winchendon, instead setting up fencing and picnic tables for what it calls its “Bull Yard” on Summer Drive.

“Maintaining that year-round following is tough when we just have a seasonal location,” he said.

Back in 2021, when I visited the sprawling property overlooking Tannery Pond, it most closely resembled Chernobyl.

The main factory building had been home to Baxter D. Whitney & Son Machine Shop & Foundry from 1885 to 1947. A handful of businesses arrived after, but by the time Kopley bought the site, it had sat deserted for over a decade.

Expansion woes

Kopley aimed to transform the decaying foundry into Bull Spit’s new brewery and add into the fold a distillery and winery, a massive undertaking given all of the dilapidation, including a half-acre section with contaminated soil.

Winchendon had promised to help to clean up the site, with that work, beginning in 2021, nearly complete thanks to a $150,000 grant from MassDevelopment. The grant allowed Bull Spit to set up its Bull Yard to welcome customers to, at the very least, the grounds.

The other phases of the project, focusing on the brick foundry building, however, remain in the planning stages.

Kopley, should a sale not go through, said he would look to erect a new metal building for Bull Spit to have some measure of a taproom experience, rather than renovating the foundry.

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“Do we have another couple years of telling people, ‘Yeah, we’re working on it,’ or do we just get a new structure up that makes everyone happy?” he said.

Meanwhile, he will search for a buyer for the brewery, in which case he’d retire from the beer business, or a partnership that would breathe new life into it. Until then, Bull Spit’s Bull Yard will open as normal for the summer, he said, likely in May or June.

“You have to put more into than I’m putting into it,” he told me. “We could tread water like we’re doing now, but it’s a matter of whether we want to grow the brand and grow the location. Having someone in there with a fresh set of eyes would be good for it.”

A catalyst for Winchendon

This town of about 11,000 had placed a lot of hope in Bull Spit turning into a destination brewery.

Like so many other former manufacturing hubs, Winchendon’s local economy suffered once the factories moved out. Finding new uses for the rundown former factories has been a priority for years. And the foundry was arguably among the most important of these properties, given its location in the heart of downtown, steps away from a rail trail.

The former town manager, Justin Sultzbach, a few years ago had said he envisioned Bull Spit as “a local economic driver and an anchor for our Central Street revitalization efforts.” The brewery, the town said, would “catalyze further investment.”

Now, though, any excitement for the shining prospects of the Bull Spit project appears to have faded around Town Hall.

Reached last week, the current town manager, Bill McKinney, said he had only recently learned about Bull Spit going up for sale and didn’t know enough about the happenings around 4 Summer Drive to comment.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Beyond Beer: Bull Spit Brewing weighing potential sale