Once a thriving brewery with a 100-year-old legacy, the old industrial building at 840 N. Seventh St. along Route 343 in Lebanon has long sat dormant. Now, thanks to four entrepreneurs, the historic site will soon make and sell beer again.

On Friday, trucks hauling equipment for a 20-barrel brewing system from Atlanta, Georgia arrived at Lebanon Valley Craft Brewery, marking the beginning of the start-up phase for a project that’s been in the works for nearly three years.

The new brewery and a tasting room could be operational and selling beer in as few as six months.

“We kept it low key for awhile,” said Mike Osborne, co-owner and brewmaster at Lebanon Valley Craft Brewery. “Now we have the equipment, we just have to get it up and running and it’s off to the races.”

Building a craft beer destination in Lebanon

With a 20-barrel system, Lebanon Valley Craft Brewery instantly becomes the largest brewery in the county in terms of scale once operational, easily capable of distributing across the city and into neighboring regions.

However, the primary focus at least initially will be creating an experience unlike any brewpub in the area.

“We’re doing this project in phases,” said Dave Koch, another co-owner. Phase one is restoring the brewery and opening the tasting room to the public. Phase two will transform the expansive property entirely, adding a full-fledged pub and a large, outdoor beer garden. Later phases would involve renovating other areas of the building to host events and private parties.

The partnership group envisions the type of facility that, once complete, can attract beer aficionados near and far.

Home again to German-style beers

Of course, the real draw is the beer, and Lebanon Valley Craft Brewery has that covered, too.

Koch and another business partner, Kevin Booth, lauded Osborne, who has over 20 years brewing experience – most recently as the brewmaster at the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire in nearby Manheim – and specializes in European-style beers.

Lebanon Valley Craft Beer will have craft beer staples like IPAs and pale ales. But what Osborne says will set them apart from the competition are bocks, hefeweizens, Oktoberfests, Belgian ales and particularly German lagers.“

A lot of the breweries around here, it’s hard for them to do lagers because lagers take longer,” said Osborne. “They take up more space, more capacity. The smaller systems, you have to keep churning out stuff.

“That’s why we kind of sized our brewery that we can do bigger batches, we can do those lagers and take the time to them right.”

The style of brewing meshes well with the brewery’s history, which was known for producing “Pennsylvania Dutch Old German Beer.”

Celebrating Lebanon Brewery’s heritage

The brewery traded under different names through the years, beginning as Lebanon Brewery in 1856, but each of its owners paid homage to its Lebanon roots.

It became the New Lebanon Brewing Co. after a sale in 1893, operating as such until Prohibition became law and forced its closure in 1920. After Prohibition concluded, operations resumed under Lebanon Valley Brewing Company from 1934 to 1959.

The ownership group behind Lebanon Valley Craft Brewery aims to emphasize the business’ storied past while charting its own path into the future. In addition to the style of beers planned, they’re collecting memorabilia from the brewery’s past that will be displayed in the building.

“We thought it was really neat to have the old brewing buildings here and sort of build on the history of what took place here,” said Koch.

Koch and his wife, Cindy, purchased the building about three-and-a-half years ago, though not necessarily with the intention of opening a brewery. Rather, they were interested in the storage business that also resides on the property.

“When we bought it, we were trying to diversify investments for retirement,” said Koch. “But the big building here really is not set up or laid out for storage.

“We were talking about what would be a good thing to do with this old building, and one of my partners said, ‘Well, did you ever think about putting a brewery in it again?’”

In January of 2017, Koch, Osborne, Booth and Henry Goodwin formalized their partnership and began scheming up Lebanon Valley Craft Brewery. All four bring a valued skill set to the business from their prior careers, from brewing beer to electrical engineering to general contracting.

The foursome had been carefully plotting their course and biding their time – until now. When the opportunity to purchase the brewing system arose, it was finally time to take the next step.