ABOVE: 1865 Brewing Co., photo via Whitteney Guyton’s Facebook page.
HAMPTON ROADS, Va. (AP) | This year, a brewery plans to open in Hampton’s busy Phoebus restaurant district, serving a broad selection of small-batch craft beers at 9 S. Mallory St.
But the brewery will not be Traffic Brewing, which announced two years ago that they would open in that location. That long-delayed project has been sidelined, and a new set of partners, Whitteney Guyton and William Comer, arrived this spring with bold plans for the space.
1865 Brewing Co., slated to open as soon as late summer, will become a brewery themed after the history of the Fort Monroe area. The brewery will also be historic in its own right, as the first Black-owned brewery in Hampton Roads, and one of precious few in the beer industry nationwide.
Soon, the partners also plan to expand with a distillery called Monroe’s just down the street, at 25 S. Mallory St.
1865 will be far from its owners’ first venture. Though only in her 30s, Guyton is already an entrepreneur many times over, with myriad health-care companies to her name, including Synergy Health Systems and Synergy Counseling.
She arrived at her love of brewing relatively recently.
“The funniest thing is, last year I needed a hobby,” she said. “I know that sounds crazy, because I’m busy all the time.”
So she began studying brewing, fermentation and distillery science, not even with an eye toward starting a business. But serendipitously, one of her health-care businesses began working on a building with William Comer. His company, B & B Contracting, builds projects all over Hampton Roads including a number of restaurants and clubs. The two became fast friends.
And so when Comer became aware of an opportunity to take over the location previously slated to become Traffic, he invited Guyton to check it out. When she arrived at the space, she said, it felt right.
“I went to go look at it, and the feeling I had when I walked in – I was like, `I want in. This is magnificent.’ My brain starts Power Ranger activating, putting all these things together.”
The pair put in a winning bid for the space this spring, and Comer took charge of the construction work.
They’ve since hired a brewer, Randy Jones, with two decades in the industry that include stints at Palisade and Black Sky Brewing in the beer mecca of Denver, and a brewing degree from the Siebel Institute. Jones said he plans to brew balanced beers across a broad range of styles.
Jones had already been working to open Traffic, said Comer, before that brewery’s plans fell through.
“Randy was able and willing to come with us,” Comer said. “He’d already been putting his blood, sweat and tears into it.”
The brewery’s location in Phoebus has particular resonance for Guyton, a Chicago native, because of the area’s onetime nickname of Little Chicago, back when the area was a down-and-dirty zone of brothels and speakeasies. She said that during construction they’ve found bottles from Prohibition times they plan to frame and hang in the brewery. They’ve also found some bones.
“We’re hoping they’re horses,” Guyton said.
But 1865 will be devoted to history even older than that. The brewery’s name, says Guyton, is in part a nod to the history of Fort Monroe as Union stronghold in Virginia during the Civil War.
“It’s to pay homage to America as a whole. Those battles were won, and Fort Monroe was a big part of that,” Guyton said. “1865 spoke to me, not just for my Blackness, but as an American, especially with everything going on right now. I look at this as the birthplace of America.”
The brewery, she said, will be designed by her wife, Darmeshia Guyton, known locally in her own right as the former resident designer on WTKR’s Coast Live morning show.
1865 will have a gritty, industrial look steeped in history, “a true homage to America and American culture, and what we were really fighting for,” Whitteney Guyton said.
Ultimately, Comer and Guyton want 1865 to be known first and foremost for its beer, and also for the welcoming atmosphere they plan to create.
“We know we can bring a different twist. We’re excited about bringing something new for Phoebus,” Comer said. “It’s good beers, good IPAs, producing a good product.”
But bringing about more representation for people of color in the beer industry is also important, says Guyton.
“I’m Black, I’m female, I’m gay, I’ve got a whole lot of things,” she said. “But I feel like if someone doesn’t start to change what something is supposed to look like, it will never happen.”
Brewing – much like the rest of the alcohol industry, and professional hockey for that matter – is an arena in which people of color are disproportionately less represented. Only 1% of breweries are Black-led, according to Brewers Association statistics, and the majority of breweries are wholly male-owned.
For Guyton, it’s a matter of broadening people’s notion of what paths are open to them.
“Being the first Black-owned brewery in our area expands the mindset,” she said. “Sometimes I think we don’t realize there are other opportunities you can own and be a part of. You know, they say there are no Black people in hockey: Well, why not?”
