USA, SC: Magnetic South Brewery already open in downtown Anderson

Two sweeping new anchors in downtown Anderson — a brewery and a hotel — have opened this week, the Anderson Independent Mail reported on September 30.

It'll be the third and largest brewery.

And it'll be the second and largest hotel.

Anderson Mayor Terence Roberts said he is excited at the growth, he went to Magnetic South Brewery during a soft opening last weekend and has seen the hotel's inviting spaces too.

"These are good additions to downtown," he said.

It'll be a family-friendly brewery, said Adam "Cuzzin" Willier, a former brewer with Thomas Creek Brewery and one of the trio of owners.

The Magnetic South building has tall ceilings in an industrial-looking space (a former grocery store and most recently a CarQuest Auto Parts store) with brick walls and large windows. There are a few arcade games, there's a Tonka truck and other playthings.

The idea is to make an inviting space for people, and their dogs, to hang out and spend time, Willier said.

There are several non-alcoholic offerings, including glass Coke products.

There are four garage doors on the side, those will become windows once a city project is finished in a few weeks, creating an outdoor space in downtown.

But it's impossible to ignore that it's a brewery.

Six giant tanks in the back will soon be firing up, they could pump out tens of thousands of gallons of crafted beer a year.

The concept of the brewery's food and beer is to make the staples and make them leap out at people.

"Our big picture, for beer, is we want it to be easy drinking, simple but very, very, very good," Willier said.

With beer they've done hop-heavy pale ales along with the most-popular pilsner and a handful of other styles. It's brewed at a copacker for now, it'll soon be done in house.

For food, their best seller at their soft-opening last weekend was a meat lovers pizza.

It's not hard to find a pizza but these ones are done with local ingredients, said Jon Buck, the chef.

For the pizza and other items, he went with local meats from Providence Farm, dough from La Buona Vita, goat cheese from Split Creek Farms and mushrooms from Dark Spore Mushrooms, all establishments from Anderson or Piedmont.

Willier said there are plans to expand in the next year, locations at Judson Mill in spring and at Clemson's Dockside Project in the fall.

Both of those would be expansions, they wouldn't have the same amount of brewing equipment and brewing going on as the Anderson location, he said, but it would help to spread the same family-friendly hangout space throughout the Upstate.

E-malt.com, the global information source for the brewing and malting industry professionals. The bi-weekly E-malt.com Newsletters feature latest industry news, statistics in graphs and tables, world barley and malt prices, and other relevant information. Click here to get full access to E-malt.com. If you are a Castle Malting client, you can get free access to E-malt.com website and publications. Contact us for more information at marketing@castlemalting.com .