Page 11 - BusinessWest October 3, 2022

Wilbraham
Commerce (ERC5), Continued from page 9 agreed. The growth she is seeing comes
from people who have taken time to explore their passions; that little business that they thought would be a side hustle is really taking off and being produced on a larger scale. She added that Boston Road and Main Street are the central hubs for activity.
“There’s a lot of great places on Boston Road; it is very well-traveled, and there’s so many won-
more on the way — to make this town a great place to live, work, and start a business.
Draught Choice
Those sentiments describe the thought pro- cess that compelled Avery and Buel to make Wil- braham their new mailing address.
And the location on Main Street essentially sealed the deal, said Buel, because it allows this venture to get to the critical next level in its growth and development.
“We kept hearing about people wanting to come to our brewery, and a lot of people were asking about hosting events, birthday parties, and stuff like that,” he explained. “So there were opportunities there, and we decided we needed to build a taproom. We realized we’re really miss- ing an opportunity there. We decided to look around, and this place on Main Street in Wilbra- ham just looked like the ideal location for us.”
Avery and Buel have been brewing for more than a decade; they are from the area, and their daughters went to school together and played on the same sports teams.
Because they were both interested in explor- ing their passion, Buel started formulating reci- pes, and the partners started brewing beers in the back of Buel’s garage. They quickly outgrew the small system when their brand began to grow momentum. They then opened a brewing and distribution warehouse in Hampden.
Scantic River Brewery has been able to expand its distribution to Long Island, Upstate New York, Cape Cod, and the area east of Worcester; their labels are sold in 150 Market Basket locations around Massachusetts. But with a growing popu- larity comes increasing demand.
MICHELLE BUCK
“There hasn’t been explosive growth; it’s just been steady increase after steady increase.”
derful shops and restaurants and businesses there,” she said. “The Gratti Shop just opened; Sandy from the Scented Garden has been there for so many years. If you’re traveling to and from, you can pull into Delaney’s Market and pick up a meal. We’ve got Fieldcrest Brewery on that strip as well. The roller-skating rink is there ... we’ve got a lot of stuff to do, and there’s a lot of busi- nesses to visit.”
For this, the latest installment of its Com- munity Spotlight series, BusinessWest explores this ‘stuff,’ and how it has come together — with
“The industry changes quite readily in every aspect that you can imagine between ingredient changes and style changes. And as part of those changes, the bottling turned to 16-ounce cans, or cans in general, like overnight,” Avery said. “Within a year, we had to quickly change that. So
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Tuesday, October 18th 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM
Complimentary Retirement Planning Seminar presented by PNCU Financial Services available through CUSO Financial Services, L.P.
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BusinessWest
COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT
OCTOBER 3, 2022 11
Wilbraham at a glance
YEAR INCORPORATED: 1763
POPULATION: 14,613
AREA: 22.4 square miles
COUNTY: Hampden
RESIDENTIAL TAX RATE: $20.49
COMMERCIAL TAX RATE: $20.49
MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: $65,014
MEDIAN FAMILY INCOME: $73,825
TYPE OF GOVERNMENT: Board of Selectmen, Open Town Meeting
LARGEST EMPLOYERS: Baystate Wing Wilbraham Medical Center; Friendly
Ice Cream Corp.; Big Y; Home Depot; Wilbraham & Monson Academy
*Latest information available