BREAKING: Wise Man Brewing to open in downtown Greensboro

If everything goes as planned, there will be another new brewery opening in downtown Greensboro before long.

Wise Man Brewing plans to open at the former Gate City Motors building next to the Greensboro Children’s Museum on the northeast edge of downtown, according to Sam Victory, one of the proprietors. Back in October, Triad City Beat broke the news that developer Andy Zimmerman had the property under contract. If the deal is finalized, Wise Man Brewing will most likely be one of Zimmerman’s tenants.

“We are very hopeful that the current location will work out and that we will be open by the end of 2015,” Victory said. “If it does work out, we will have 10,000 square feet which will include a 15-barrel system and a very large taproom.”

The brewery held a launch party on Jan. 17 at a crossfit gym in Oak Ridge, letting hundreds of attendees try about a dozen different beers including a saison, two stouts, a black IPA and more. Victory and his partners already had pint glasses and T-shirts emblazoned with the company’s name, giving out glasses to the first guests that arrived.

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The 3.5-acre site at 300 N. Church St. already has four buildings and would likely include a restaurant as well. Victory said Wise Man will focus on beer and won’t serve food. Zimmerman, who runs AZ Development, said in October that he had “a brewery that is more than very interested and was just waiting for me to put it under contract,” but declined to name the company at the time.

Zimmerman also owns the downtown Greensboro property where Gibb’s Hundred Brewing opened in October and a separate building that will house Preyer Brewing Co. and a second Crafted restaurant with a new theme. That location, not far from where Wise Man Brewing would be, is expected to open this March. Brewery equipment for Preyer Brewing began arriving last week, co-owner Nicole Preyer said.

The Triad’s brewery scene is rapidly expanding, with growth at the longstanding Foothills and Natty Greene’s as well as new brew pubs under way. Last week, Triad City Beat broke the news about plans for Brown Truck Brewing to open in High Point this summer.

Wise Man Brewing estimated that more than 225 people turned out for its launch event Saturday, but the new company is still mostly unknown in Greensboro (as its five Twitter followers suggest). That is about to change drastically.