Craft breweries as hermit crabs: Adaptive reuse and the revaluation of place

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the relationship between craft breweries and adaptive reuse processes in small town Ontario, Canada. Drawing together semi-structured interviews, site analysis, and secondary newspaper and planning sources, this paper illustrates that, despite a diversity of structures and locations, there is a consistency in interior design and aesthetics across small town breweries. The visual symbolism and spatial references, included as part of the internal décor, produce a new story of place within the buildings. We argue that these repurposed sites should be valued regardless of age, location, or building type: their interior adaptation signals a revaluation and revival that spills over beyond the shell.

KEYWORDS:

• Craft beer
• small town
• place
• adaptive reuse

Acknowledgement

We’d like to thank the craft breweries that participated in this research during the interview and site analysis stages. In addition, we’d like to thank the undergraduate students from GEOG 3760: The Geography of Beer at Trent University and GEOG 396AN: The Place of Craft Beer at the University of Regina for their engagement and conversations. Jeffrey Powell made the map outlining the location and land use for the breweries in our study. Alexandra Kuhne and Alexis Zederayko provided research assistance in the preliminary stages of the project. This research received funding through SSHRC IDG Grant #430-2019-00172 and the TriAgency Cohort Program at the University of Regina.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In this paper we use the term craft brewery to represent small scale, independently owned, local producers that embody uniqueness, community and environmental responsibility (OCB, 2020; CCBA, 2020; Garavaglia & Mussini, 2020).

2. For the purpose of this study, we classify buildings constructed before 1971 (50 years ago) as “historic.”

3. We classified the 74 breweries according to the primary function of the site as constructed. In other words, if a school was utilized as a restaurant before becoming a brewery, we classified this space as institutional. A small number of breweries (4) had made use of a former agricultural land use, typically a secondary structure on a farm.

4. The authors would like to thank the engaged students from Geography 3760-W-2019 at Trent University for their site visits and insight into this particular brewery.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [430-2019-00172].