The Pilgrim Brewer

Brewery Spectrum

This thesis begins by developing a three-way spectrum, which helps to locate the notions of community, experience and process in relation to existing brewery projects.

Three-way spectrum of breweries (Click to enlarge)

There is an area of overlap for the three axes, which becomes the space of investigation for this thesis. This space describes three crucial characteristics: the limitation of scale, the expression of brewing, and the creation of a public room.

The Oland Brewery is not open to the public, and so doesn’t rate along either of the experience or community axes. It is an industrial production facility, proper. Oland mitigates this brewery’s extreme position in the spectrum with the Keith’s Pilot brewery, which is open to the public for Disney-esque tours, but produces very little beer by comparison. The Pilot brewery is not open to the non-touring public, so it doesn’t move along the community axis either. It is disappointing to think that Oland’s has configured their operation in this manner. They put forward a thin veneer of “Nova Scotia Good Times” at their tiny showpiece brewery, while producing almost all of their product in an industrial fashion several blocks away.

Another interesting brewery to discuss is the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, architecturally the most famous such example. It is located firmly at the top of the spectrum, near experience, without moving at all toward the process axis, since it is no longer used as a brewing facility. It is a museum piece, with the miscellaneous brewing vessels serving as billboards and educational displays. The Gravity Bar at the top of the building can be reserved for public purposes, so the Guinness Storehouse can be located just slightly down the community axis.

Herzog and De Meuron’s Dominus Winery is included as the only non-brewery on this list, as a demonstration of a building that makes a mark on the spectrum between expression and process. The winery isn’t open for tours, so the expressive gabion construction is purely for the enjoyment of the vintners, and for whatever architectural cachet might come with such a high profile project.

As is evident from the diagram, no breweries make an attempt to occupy the centre of the spectrum, which is the aim of this thesis.

Process

This thesis has a certain responsibility to the production requirements of the brewhouse. First, the brewing vessels are irrefutable. While it is fanciful to contemplate methods in which the containers might be substituted for architecture, the practical requirements of cleaning and access necessitate the use of cylindrical, stainless steel (or copper) vessels. The architecture contemplated in this thesis focuses on the spaces containing the vessels, rather than reinventing the method for brewing beer.

Fermentation tank

Brew kettle

As a matter of housekeeping, it is important to get a handle on the physical requirements for brewing. Assuming a variable mix of half ales and half lagers is brewed, then a simple Gantt chart can help determine how many vessels, and of which sizes, are required. The mix of beer types is important from a timing perspective, as lagers must be conditioned for longer than ales. (The word lager comes from the German verb lagern, which means to store, or to lie down.)

Gantt chart of brewing cycles, weekly granularity

Brewing vessels come in an array of sizes, and many are custom-made or adapted from agricultural uses, such as dairy farming. The ones illustrated here are common sizes, although their appearances can vary, and final dimensions can be altered as necessary.

Brewing vessels required, with critical path vessels indicated in grey6

The areas around the various brewing vessels have certain physical prerequisites:

While it is important to acknowledge these considerations for the operation of the brewery, the Old Testament Book of the Prophet Haggai, provides a strategy for prioritizing these criteria with the requirements of the architecture. “Go up to the hills and bring wood and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored, says the LORD”7 The approach is to build the temple first, and let the houses for the people-and all their practical needs-come later. The focus of this thesis is less on the functioning of the vessels, and more on the development of the character of the space. These criteria can be met within the confines of this thesis’ developed forms, without dwelling on all of the drawings to demonstrate this.

It is conceived that as the brewery itself need not overly impose itself on its neighbours, the function of brewing need not supersede the patrons of the space. The two programmes can be superimposed, elevating the experience of both.

This is not to say that every function of the brewery should be exposed to the public. There are circumstances-such as in the milling of the malt-where the public should be shielded from the environmental effects of the process. Additionally, the impact of interacting with the brewery will be emphasized by occasionally shielding patrons from the mechanics, delivering a more intensified, meaningful experience at critical moments. In this way, the limitation of access is likened to that of acolytes in a sanctuary. Certain functions and positions are reserved only for the priest during the ceremony, but this does not make the acolytes’ participation any less holy. The ritual requires this restriction.

Architect Bernard Tschumi explains how programme can give way to events, two terms to which he assigns specific, separate meanings. Tschumi defines programme as the list of expected occurrences in a building. Events are distinguished from programme by their indeterminate, unexpected outcomes. He supposes that by uncovering potentialities hidden in the programme and corresponding them to appropriate or exceptional spaces, the conditions may be created for events to occur. Through this, commonplace programmatic elements placed in unique and surprising spaces may lead to uncommon—and potentially exceptional—events.8

This approach provides the means with which to test the thesis: whether the process of cross-pollination between the programme, the process, and the urban condition will uncover hidden potentialities in the architecture, heightening the experience of the space.

Expression

The notion of craft versus industry is illustrated in this drawing of the words “John Barleycorn Must.”

Hand-drafted letters (Click to enlarge)

A close examination of these letterforms reveals variations in their shapes and curves, both when compared with computer-generated letters, and when duplicate letters are compared with themselves. Each hand-crafted letterform is unique.

Hand-drafted versus computer-generated letters, and hand-drafted duplicates

These variations do not damage the legibility of the verse. The computer-generated letter—here analogous to an industrial process—is certainly more precise, and neater. The hand-drawn letters convey the same meaning, but do so while containing additional information: the hardness of the pencil, the tooth of the medium, the steadiness of the hand, and the degree of subsequent handling.

Consistency is the hallmark of industry. It is the critical component that enables efficiencies of scale, and interchangeability of parts. These things—while important to the way the world works—need not be important to the way beer is made, or architecture is conceived.

A craft-brewed beer can show the hand of its maker. It can tolerate variations from batch to batch, as long as it maintains its legibility as a beer of the prescribed type.9 Similarly, a craft brewery can depend on the knowledge that beer will be produced regardless of minor product variations, and its architecture can reflect and exalt this.

Community

Memory drawing of North End Halifax’s Bloomfield community

The site for this thesis is an empty lot at the corner of Almon and Isleville Streets, in the North End community of Bloomfield, three blocks south of the Oland brewery. It measures 30 by 22½ meters, and is presently an underused parking lot.

The thesis will endeavour to turn the corner, while making a complete composition for the block, observing the scale and composition of adjacent buildings. It is in a neighbourhood of two-storey houses, with several similarly-scaled commercial and public buildings nearby. The site is on the cusp between residential and commercial zones. The North End typifies this condition: businesses and homes set cheek-by-jowl on the Haligonian grid.

Deep structure of North End Halifax

Despite numerous out-of-scale projects and several gaps in its fabric, it is easy to discern the underlying block structure in the Bloomfield neighbourhood. Falling largely on Halifax’s gridlines, buildings line the block perimeters, making courtyards accessed by the spaces between them. Alleys and laneways are not present.

Any project meaning to make a positive contribution to this neighbourhood must acknowledge this deep structure, and react accordingly. There is no reason an appropriately scaled brewery cannot be woven into this fabric, helping to complete both a block and a street face in the process. As a counter example, the Oland’s brewery dwarfs its neighbours, and makes no attempt to relate to the community’s block structure: it is a monolith, closed on three massive sides, and wide open on its fourth.

Study elevation of Isleville Street, looking west (Click to enlarge)

Study elevation of Almon Street, looking south (Click to enlarge)

A more responsible approach is illustrated in these two study elevations of Almon and Isleville streets, showing a sympathetic scale for a brewery and the completed streetscape. The Almon elevation also highlights the mis-cast apartment building at mid-block, which is outsized and awkwardly set back from the sidewalk. This is another example of a rent in the community’s fabric, resulting from the denial of two of the tenets which are taken as given in this thesis:

Study elevation of Isleville Street, enlarged

Study elevation of Almon Street, enlarged

Site Model

This project fills a hole in the neighbourhood’s fabric, while satisfying the notion that a craft industry can be satisfactorily located close to residential areas, filling local needs. Much of the exterior form-finding for this thesis can be attributed to the location. The brewery provides additional amenities by offering a public room for the neighbourhood, in interesting and engaging architectural surroundings.

Site plan

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