Reale Revives Downtown Space; Prepares to Manufacture Craft Beer
Behind the picture windows at 504 Poplar Street, construction is well underway for Cambridge’s newest manufacturing business, ReAle Revival Brewing. Scheduled to open this summer, the much anticipated craft beer manufacturer is Dorchester’s first brewery since Wild Goose was acquired in 1997 and another successful deal brokered by the County’s economic development office with UMES’s Rural Development Center.
Economic Director Keasha Haythe worked with ReAle’s co-owners JT Merryweather and Chris Browhan to help secure $200,000 from the Center’s Revolving Loan Fund. Haythe brought the project to the Fund’s committee after working with Merryweather on the financial application. Comprised of lower shore economic development directors who serve as ‘deal brokers,’ the program is a collaborative economic development initiative and invests in new and expanding companies in the lower four counties.
Center Director Jerry Redden calculates the Fund has supported more than 100 companies (including Dorchester’s Hot Spot Cool Eats and Safe Chain Solutions) since its inception 15 years ago and helped create 6,000 jobs. In the past three months alone, he’s closed four deals.
In addition to ReAle, Redden notes that the Fund recently invested in two other breweries – Berlin’s Burley Oak and Salisbury’s Evolution – emphasizing how the breweries ‘not only create manufacturing jobs, they help cultivate new local crops and become tourism destinations.
For program and eligibility information, contact Haythe’s office at 410-228-0155.