USA, MD: BabyCat Brewery to open as Kensington’s first brewery this year

Kensington’s first brewery is expected to open this year, according to its owners, the Bethesda Magazine reported on March 17.

BabyCat Brewery, the brainchild of Sam Mussomeli and Terry Redmond, will be at 10241 Kensington Parkway, and will offer beer, wine and hard seltzers. It will have both an indoor taproom and outdoor green space, according to the owners.

BabyCat’s founders were scheduled to appear before Montgomery County’s liquor board on Thursday. They hope to open by November if construction occurs on time.

Redmond and Mussomeli came up with the idea for the brewery near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Redmond said in an interview on Wednesday.

Redmond hired Mussomeli to work at his surgical distribution company a few years back. Mussomeli, already a home brewer at that point, was fine-tuning his craft, Redmond said.

“His beer just got exceptionally good. He started winning local and regional awards,” he said.

Redmond said he brought Mussomeli’s homemade beers to parties, and it wasn’t well-received at first. But it got better over time.

“Then, I started bringing it to parties, and people were like, ‘Oh, my God. That is so good,’” he said.

Eighteen months ago, Mussomeli and Redmond started talking about creating a brewery. Both were spending much of their time working from home.

Initially, Redmond used his business knowledge to give Mussomeli advice on how to start the business. Eventually, the two decided to be business partners.

Redmond said the secluded building, which is currently an auto repair shop, appealed to him as a place to start a brewery.

“It has a big rollup garage door. I looked at that place one day and I thought, that would be such a great place for a sports bar or a brewery,” he said.

The location seemed perfect for a “family-oriented, rustic, cool place to hang out” where people could bring their pets and local musicians could play, Redmond said. That’s their vision for BabyCat.

“We’ll be very community based. We think that’s important,” Redmond said.

Mussomeli said they’ll likely use some local ingredients in their products and likely will use a major distributor. He envisions 6 to 10 types of beer, red and white wine, and hard seltzer.

“It’s a family friendly, pet friendly, outdoor, relaxed farm brewery type feel. So, we are gonna try to keep the brands pretty simple,” he said.

Mussomeli said the name BabyCat comes partially from the fact that 10 years ago, he got a cat who weighed 7 pounds and didn’t grow much.

“For some reason, this animal would sit with me for an entire eight- to 10-hour brew day. And you are largely alone when you’re doing this. So, I ended up talking to this animal and I said, ‘Oh, this is BabyCat Brewery,’” he said.

Mussomeli’s family had many pets when he was growing up, and the name evokes fond memories.

The Moco Show reported on BabyCat’s plans earlier this week.

Kensington Town Councilman Conor Crimmins has frequently asked at meetings when the town will have its first brewery, Mussomeli said.

“There’s been a lot of social media outreach and people I haven’t heard from in forever have been texting me, ‘Hey, I heard about the brewery. Kensington so needs it,’” he said.

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