BACK OF THE YARDS — A barrel-aged beer brewery is coming to the South Side, with a long-anticipated brewery now under construction inside The Plant, a sustainable food center in Back of the Yards.
Whiner Brewery will specialize in barrel-aged beer, a centuries-old style that's fast making a comeback, even demanding its own festival here — the popular Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beers, or FoBab.
Ria Neri, formerly the cicerone at Bangers and Lace, is said to be heavily involved in the brewery, though she is mum on details other than that French- and Belgian-style barrel-aged ales will be Whiner's hallmark.
Initially brought on as a consultant, Neri said via email, "Over the past couple of months, my role has evolved and I'm excited to be playing a larger part in introducing the Whiner brand."
Janet Fuller says The Plant aims to waste as little as possible:
Slated for a fall opening, the brewery will take up a substantial chunk — about 17,000 square feet — of the first floor and current lobby area of the 93,000-square-foot building, according to Kassandra Hinrichsen, The Plant's education coordinator.
The brewery is among the projects taking shape in the sustainable food production facility at 1400 W. 46th St., which operates in a circular ebb and flow.
Buildout of a new "living foyer" lobby continues and is projected to be done by summer. Part of the new lobby will be a retail area for foodstuffs made by Plant tenants, among them a shrimp farm and kombucha brewer.
Poop from that shrimp farm, The Salty Prawn, is currently being used to grow algae inside tubular systems set in the lobby windows. The algae, in turn, is mixed with old mushrooms, dehydrated and fed to fish in the on-site aquaponics farms.
When the brewery is up and running, the plan is to pipe carbon dioxide produced by the brewery into those tubes. The algae will essentially eat up the gas, turning it into oxygen, Hinrichsen said.
The brewery also will figure prominently in the operations of the Plant's anaerobic digester, which is about 75 percent complete. Whiner's spent grain will help fuel the digester, producing energy for the entire building. The grain also will be made into fish feed and into briquettes that will fuel a wood-burning oven for one of the building's bakeries.
One of them, Peerless Bread and Jam, closed up shop late last year and moved out, but Hinrichsen said they are in talks to sign on another bakery tenant.
The Plant also is working to expand its fledgling farmers market from once a month (on the first Saturday) to weekly, with a $94,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The market debuted in January.
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