Tonewood Brewing Celebrates the Grand Opening of its New Production Facility and Tasting Room
In 2019, Tonewood Brewing founders Eli, Taylor, and Jim Facchinei approached Bohlin Cywinski Jackson with a vision for a highly sustainable facility that represented the company’s core values: Quality, Community, and Sustainability. On Saturday, January 22, Tonewood will open the doors to its new Barrington, New Jersey location.
We worked closely with the Facchinei’s on an adaptive re-use of a 1960’s lumber yard in Barrington to create a state-of-the-art craft beer tasting and production facility. The former lumber yard consisted of a one-story showroom and office building tenuously connected to a two-story warehouse. Transforming the 15,000 square-foot space, we located brewery production in the warehouse to take advantage of its high ceilings and designed an inviting tasting room in the single-story building. A full-height gathering area, with expansive windows facing onto the street, provides transition in scale between the two environments while celebrating the art of production within. A mezzanine overlooking the brewhouse and fermentation tanks offers patrons a sensory experience deeply connected to craft and process at this family-run brewery.
The tasting room design brings together the founders’ love of woodworking, music, and community, and connects to Tonewood’s original facility in Oaklyn, New Jersey, placing visitors in direct sightlines of brewing operations on an even grander scale. The facility offers two bars with 24 beers on tap. Community tables, drink rails, bar seating, and shared spaces help to provide a warm communal feel. Interiors open to a front patio and rear Biergarten for indoor/outdoor connections during warmer months. An observation balcony also allows guests to view all production spaces from above the production floor.
Sustainability was a core driver for the project, and the new brewhouse boasts a 235kW solar array on the roof that will generate most, if not all, of the electrical power for the facility. CO2 captured from the brewing process will be used to carbonate beer brewed on site rather than releasing it into the atmosphere, and Tonewood will benefit from avoiding extra costs and spent carbon associated with purchasing and delivering CO2 for carbonation. This will be the first recapture system of its kind in use at a brewery on the East Coast. The site landscape also features a series of raingardens which will capture 80% of stormwater runoff from the roof.