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Lisbon chosen for microbrewery

The former Motorcycle Dream Shop in Lisbon is slated to be home to two businesses: a brew pub and a kitchen cabinet business. (Photo by Patti Schaeffer)

LISBON — The Buffalo man who was interested in locating a microbrewery in town has chosen the village after all.

Mayor Joseph Morenz reported at this week’s Village Council meeting that Philip Campbell has obtained a zoning permit to open a brew pub at 135 B S. Market St., which is the northern half of the former Motorcycle Dream Shop.

Campbell is the young man with local ties who approached the village last year about wanting to locate a brew pub in town that specializes in the production of honey mead. In May 2017, the local Chamber of Commerce reported Campbell was considering sites in other towns in the county after being unable to reach an agreement with any of the owners of properties in downtown Lisbon.

As mentioned above, the proposed brewery would occupy half of the former Motorcycle Dream Shop. The other half of the storefront is supposed to eventually be home to a kitchen cabinet business.

Campbell, who was reached by phone after the meeting, said he has obtained all of the necessary permits except for the state license needed to begin brewing honey mead, which is created by the fermentation of honey with water, and sometimes with various fruits, spices, grains and hops.

He first learned of mead, or honey wine, while visiting Ireland five years ago and began brewing his own at home. “It’s an interesting niche … It’s really in the wine classification but some people call it mead” because the process is exactly the same, Campbell said.

If everything works out as expected, Campbell will be brewing sometime in August and open to the public by fall. “I hope I can get in there and get started in the next two months,” he said.

The plan is to be open Wednesday through Saturday, and customers can stop in for a drink or purchase one of the bottled products to take with them. Campbell said he intends to offer food “down the road, but not right now.”

“It will be like Numbers when it first opened,” Campbell said, referring to Numbers Brewery, the popular craft beer microbrewery that opened on North Beaver Street two years ago.

Campbell is originally from the East Palestine area but his family moved to Buffalo, where he works in IT. He still has family in the area, and while visiting the county he would come to Lisbon.

“We have a lot of family down there and liked the area, so I thought why not,” Campbell said.

Helping Campbell is his father, who accompanies him to Lisbon on weekends to work on remodeling a house they purchased several years ago. He and his father intend to run the mead house themselves for now but will hire workers when they add food.

This would be the fourth new microbrewery and/or restaurant in Lisbon the past two years. As mentioned above, there is the Numbers Brewery and last summer the Scratch restaurant opened on South Market Street. Across the street from Scratch and next door to the proposed mead house is the former Night Court bar, which is in the process of being remodeled and will reopen as the Village Tavern by new owner Russell Saadey, who operates another restaurant in Mahoning County.

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