Indignant Joins Somerville’s Thriving Brewing Scene

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This fall, a new brewery will emerge in Somerville’s already-booming craft beer scene, as Indignant Brewing Company joins the likes of Aeronaut and Slumbrew. Located at 328 Broadway in Winter Hill, the dual brewery and brick and mortar restaurant will feature the beers of Harpoon and Cape Cod Beer veteran, Jeff Rowe. Joining him in his first independent venture are Bert Holdredge, an alum of The Publick House, and head chef Paul Picillo, most recently of Lulu’s in Richmond, Virginia.

“Me and my partner Bert, this has been our escape plan from our jobs for a very long time,” Rowe says. “We’d always wanted to create the concept, a place that embodied everything we saw lacking from the places we’d worked at before. Finally, around eight months ago, this became a reality when, by happenstance, I walked by this place and saw a broker inside. She told me that Starbuck’s and a number of other businesses were looking at this location, but they wanted to keep it more local. I told them, ‘I live right around the corner, you can’t get more local than that.'”

The two-story, 2,650 square foot space will be equipped with a 5bbl brewing system that will produce upwards of 1,200 barrels of beer annually. A true neighborhood-specific concept, Indignant will offer a rotating selection of four seasonal draft beers and three core selections, including a “bold, hoppy IPA,” a cream ale, and a molasses-infused strong ale called Flood, named after the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. Seasonal offerings in Rowe’s brewing arsenal include a farmhouse saison re-fermented with pomegranate molasses, a high octane imperial stout, and several sour and barrel-aged products, some of which will be bottled in champagne-style 750ml bottles. Rowe says Indignant will have a small self-distribution branch to their operations, but will mostly limit their production to on-site growler fills and draft pours.

“Global domination isn’t on Indignant’s docket,” Rowe says. “It’s more about being a success in Winter Hill, for Winter Hill, and being something Somerville doesn’t have yet. Basically, we’re going to be super choosey about where our beer ends up.”

On the restaurant side of Indignant’s business, Picillo will be crafting a food menu focused on baguette sandwiches (including shareable, two-foot-long subs), as well as Turkish-inspired meze plates. In the morning, between 7 a.m. and noon, Indignant will act as a full-service coffee shop with locally produced pastries, baked goods, and other grab-and-go items. The morning café will be run in conjunction with a yet-to-be-announced, “socially conscious Somerville company” who sources beans from across the globe.

“We were always in love with the notion of a brewpub, but most brewpubs you go to, all you can get is a burger,” Rowe says. “We didn’t want to do that. We wanted to have fresh beer and fresh food, kind of like the old school West Coast model. We didn’t know how to implement that, so we called our friend Paul. After he shot us some mock menus, we started talking with him about his culinary ethos, and it all just seemed to harmonize with what we were doing at the brewery.”

In addition to the “cozy” dining room upstairs, Indignant will have an outdoor patio, something that’s currently under construction. The brewery and restaurant is slated to open in late September.

328 Broadway, Somerville; indignantbrewing.com.