Friday, January 27, 2017

New West Salem Brewery Opening this Fall

Xicha Brewing Company Principals
The West Salem urban renewal advisory board meets next week, and the meeting agenda itself doesn't look all that interesting necessarily.

But a map and agenda item whose significance wasn't obvious - something about possible investment and the resulting tax base - turned into a very pleasant goose chase, and led to news about a forthcoming brewery in West Salem.

Xicha Brewing Company looks to open a Latin American influenced brewery and pub in West Salem!

The map in the WSRAB packet led to discovering Xicha
(Xincha logo added, of course!)
It will be located in the flats at 576 Patterson St NW - totally bikeable and walkable for the neighborhood and the close-in hill areas.

Maybe too there are other beer styles and traditions that haven't been worked already by northwest brewers, and that Xicha will be something really new and different. (Do you know cerveza styles in Mexico and Latin America? Wasn't somebody brewing some tepache or pulque or something in Portland? It seems like there are some real possibilities here!)

Here's the website and facebook.

Check it out. They look to open this summer fall, November 3rd. Sounds like a great addition to West Salem.

3 comments:

Salem Breakfast on Bikes said...

Oh, this is terrible news. The paper's reporting lead problems:

"Oregon health and safety officials have closed a multi-use commercial building in West Salem after finding extremely high levels of lead.

The building, at 576 Patterson St. NW, houses at least six businesses, including CrossFit West Salem and its daycare center; Little Lois Café; Capitol City Sports batting cages, Roller Fitness Salem, and a home renovation firm. Xicha Brewing, a brewery and restaurant, is under construction in the building.

The facility formerly was used to store and finish batteries.
"

It seems like there was likely a cascading chain of failure at multiple points: New building owners probably should have been more zealous about environmental assessment, the City probably should have had some kind of regulatory or advisory role in saying that food and beverage and kids are not a good combination with a lead-rich light industrial former building use, and maybe current tenants might not have performed adequate due diligence on building history before executing leases.

(Something like this with solvents could be a problem with the old laundry across from Broadway Commons!)

Probably more to come on this story.

Salem Breakfast on Bikes said...

Good news! Abatement was completed and they've set an opening date: November 3rd.

Salem Breakfast on Bikes said...

And also...over at the Beervana blog a couple of pieces about Mexican beer, one, two.