By Catherine Kempista
After sitting vacant for nearly two decades, the property at 3201 Miller Road gained a tenant with a purpose — to create a space where community could grow and to create a business that builds community. Since 2018, Wilmington Brew Works (WBW) has put their mission to work, breathing new life into a forgotten industrial site and forging partnerships with organizations that are equally committed to building community in Wilmington.
For the Ninth Ward neighborhood, the rehabilitation and reuse of the iconic colonial Spanish revival-style building has been transformative. Prior to 2016, when city officials and the developer started work on remediating the brownfield site, the industrial property was a vacant and deteriorating landmark for passersby traveling from North Wilmington into the city and back.
Despite the dilapidated condition of the site, residents of the Ninth Ward and surrounding neighborhoods knew the building had tremendous potential, including Craig Wensell, WBW founder, CEO, CFO, and master brewer.
“When I first moved to Wilmington, Haynes Park was the first park I found to play in with my son,” says Wensell. “The building was all boarded up, had this fence, and at one point, I told my kids I was going to put a brewery in this building. Then, it was like a year, a year and a half later, the city ended up approaching me.”
The Third Space
In 2018, WBW opened their doors to the public, ushering in a new phase of economic development and community gathering for the once-forgotten space, now called Miller Road Station. With WBW as its successful anchor, the commercial space became home to La Pizzeria Metro in 2019 and Sleeping Bird Coffee in 2021, and public infrastructure investments, including sidewalks and major renovations to Haynes Park, were completed in the surrounding area.
“It was fantastic honestly,” says Jonathan Jones, a WBW Cellarman’s Circle member who lived in the Ninth Ward from 2011 to 2020. “It’s just a complete transformation. It’s not just that it was a brewery moving into the building, but it was a great group of people who really invested time into the neighborhood.”
For Jones, who now lives in The Triangle neighborhood, WBW remains the go-to place to host celebrations, like his wife’s baby shower; grab a beer and pizza with friends; and meet up with his brother, who lives in Brandywine Hills.
“When it’s a brothers’ day out, we’ll meet at WBW, let the kids have some fun, be outside, and just be in a different space,” says Jones.
The concept that Jones refers to is known in sociology as “the third space,” which represents a place outside of your home and workplace that plays an equally important role in gathering and socializing.
“In Friends, it was Central Perk. In Seinfeld, it was the diner,” says John Fusco, WBW’s vice president of creative and brand marketing. “This is the third space for a lot of people in the neighborhood.”
But what makes the experience at WBW unique from other places within Wilmington is the variety of groups that make the taproom their third space, which is a direct result of outreach by the WBW team to create partnerships that appeal to audiences far and wide.
“You start to see people that are having knitting clubs that come in on Sunday mornings or a run club that comes in on Thursday nights,” says Fusco. “We have the ’80s Babies’ meetup group in the taproom and yoga in the Alamo Room.” And that’s just to name a few.
Community Partnerships
WBW’s commitment to building community extends well beyond the walls of their Miller Road location.
“We’re trying to do what we think businesses should do in their community, which is have some tangible support for the greater community,” says Wensell.
Within days of having their license approved in July 2018, WBW staff poured their first beers in Bellevue State Park for patrons of Delaware State Parks’ Summer Concert Series, marking the start of their presence at every Sunday night concert since.
But what patrons may not realize is their community support often translates into financial support for the partnering organization.
“All the beer sales at Bellevue support the Friends of Bellevue State Park,” says Fusco. From the outset, they adopted a model with partnering nonprofits where WBW sells the beer at a wholesale price, allowing the nonprofit to set the price for each pour and keep all the profits for their mission-based work.
WBW has supported Friends of Wilmington Parks in the same way.
“When WBW had just opened, our Wilmington state park superintendent had reached out letting us know that they were interested in partnership opportunities, so she put us in touch with John and the group to talk about what our summer concert needs would be,” says Blair Tkacz, board president of the Friends of Wilmington Parks. “They immediately said let’s partner, and this is how we can support you.”
In addition to the Summer Concert Series at Rockford Park and the Sugar Bowl Pavilion in Brandywine Park, WBW similarly supports their Folk Art Fridays events and donates beer for their annual Jasper Crane Rose Garden Party fundraiser.
Partnering with WBW can also look different depending on where the conversation goes, as is the case with Hagley Museum and Library and its collaboration with WBW for The Fruits of Eleutherian Mills cider production and its Grand-Père Éleuthère Irénée’s Molasses Porter.
“One night in the tap room, Ryan, the cider guy, stopped me to say, hey, did the du Ponts ever make booze? And I’m like, well, yeah, there are historic recipes,” says Lucas Clawson, Hagley Historian. He asked, did they grow stuff on the property? Yeah, they had their own orchard. So, the conversation spun up from there.”
The resulting partnership gave Hagley an opportunity to see its heirloom fruits used in a commercially successful cider and their historic recipes tapped for the enjoyment of a 21st century audience.
“They’re working at all levels in the community and are genuinely out there,” says Clawson.
For Alex Yoh, vice president of operations for the Delaware Blue Coats, the opportunities to partner with WBW have been endlessly innovative and beneficial to both organizations.
“John and Craig are idea people,” says Yoh. “And what’s cool about our business in the NBA G League is we can do a lot of creative things. I think that’s the foundation that led to some pretty cool initiatives.”
Some of their most notable collaborations include a WBW-branded beer garden suite and WBW Courtside Brew House at Blue Coats home games, a Blue Coats-inspired Varsity Brew available at the Chase Field House and in the taproom, and sponsorship of jerseys for Wilmington Blue Bombers tribute nights, which celebrates the history of Delaware’s first professional basketball team founded in 1941.
“WBW got involved in the Blue Bomber tribute nights because it kind of called to exactly what they try to do, too, in a different way,” says Yoh.
This year, the WBW-sponsored jerseys were auctioned off, and proceeds were donated to a charity chosen by WBW — the Friends of Wilmington Parks.
“I think that they know that to create a community, you have to be in the community,” says Leslie Hubbard, executive director of Friends of Wilmington Parks. “And, you know, they do a great job.”