How are you celebrating Mass Beer Week, which kicked off this past Saturday, March 4, and runs through March 11? Sponsored by the Mass Brewers Guild, the weeklong celebration is designed to (per its website) “promote craft brewing and promote the interests of MA craft breweries.” If you haven’t sampled a new brew or toasted the many outstanding local breweries in the Berkshires, hold onto your hops! There’s still time…and Big Elm Brewing—one of the Berkshire’s best-known craft breweries—is a good place (make that two places) to start.
But first, an introduction
Although beermaking is a 7,000-year-old art, Prohibition set it back dramatically in this country from 1920 until 1978, when Jimmy Carter reinstated legal homebrewing for personal and family use. (Raise your hand if you conducted an experiment or two in a college dorm or upstairs bathtub.)
Since the 1990s, craft beer (small production, independent, and traditional) has emerged as a dominant part of the U.S. beer industry and culture, growing 20 to 100 percent year after year to control 25 percent of the market today. And the craft beer movement isn’t slowing down, with more breweries and innovative recipes popping up every day.
Among those is Big Elm Brewing, which celebrated its 10-year anniversary last October. In case you missed that birthday bash, here’s a “fresh from the tap” interview with long-time brewers and owner/operators Christine Bump and Bill Heaton to fill you up.
When I talked with the business partners, it was quickly apparent that Bump’s degree in chemistry and brewing certifications blended well with Heaton’s design and advertising background—just as they found the right formula for their business in the current brewery-and-taproom combination. (They’ve recently expanded beyond their original location at 65 Silver Street in Sheffield with a taproom at 389 Stockbridge Road in Great Barrington.)

How did you two meet and start out in the beer business?
Heaton: “When Christine and I met at Victory Brewing in Philadelphia in 2003, we had both been in the brewing industry for over five years and had dreams of buying and running our own brewery or brewpub someday. At some point in 2005, we decided to set out on our own and open up a business. Having one that was part restaurant and part brewery seemed more conservative than trying to open a production facility.”
Bump: “We both loved New England and spent weekends exploring the region in search of the perfect brewpub. We discovered Pittsfield during the summer ‘Sheeptacular,’ when themed painted sheep dotted the downtown landscape. ‘This town is cool,’ I thought. When we came back in the winter, there were no sheep and fewer people. But that wasn’t the end of the story. We stopped at a brewpub, only to find a ‘closed indefinitely’ sign on the door. We spoke with the owner, who offered to sell it to us for $150,000, fully equipped and recently renovated. And so, two brewers with no restaurant experience made their way to Legacy Bank and asked for a loan—and got one!”
“We ran Pittsfield Brew Works for five years. It was successful, but with low margins and long hours, it wasn’t the way we wanted to spend our lives. So we sold it to pursue our love of production brewing, eventually opening Big Elm Brewing in 2012.”
Location is everything—how did you find the ideal spot for the new brewery?
Heaton: “With proceeds from the sale of Pittsfield Brew Works in 2010 and a bank loan, we began looking for a location for our brewery—[we wanted] a building somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 square feet with high ceilings to accommodate the tanks, a good water source, and lots of electricity. We spent a year and a half looking for the right building in the right location and waiting for everything to fall into place. We looked at properties all over Berkshire County—Pittsfield, North Adams, Lenox, Lee, and all the way down to Sheffield.”

“The building we found on Silver Street in Sheffield was perfect for us. The square footage was bigger than we needed (it’s an 8,500-square-foot building) and the ceilings were quite tall (14 feet at the eaves and 18 feet at the peak), which easily accommodated all of our fermentation tanks. The main thing we had to do was to bring in town water from the main street, which wasn’t hard. The building was in rough shape, however. It was a plastic molding facility before we bought it and there was a lot of cleaning to do.”
Was it easy opening a brewery in the Berkshires?
Heaton: “One of the biggest challenges was navigating zoning laws and having confidence in local planning and select boards to understand how production brewing works.”
Bump: “That was more difficult than either of us anticipated. A few towns just said ‘No, we don’t want a brewery in our town.’ We both found that surprising, given the way things tend to sprout up around breweries. But Sheffield was great—very welcoming. One of the first things we did after we found the building [on Silver Street] was go to the town hall and sit down with the town clerk and building inspector to go over the general business plan and see where we fit into the town bylaws. We can’t adequately state how much the town helped us—they wanted this business in their town. We wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
What’s the story behind the name?
Heaton: “The ‘Big Elm’ has been a Sheffield icon for 400 years (it’s now the town seal). The once-massive tree is known as the place people would meet before there was a town hall. Although the tree no longer stands, its spirit carries on at Big Elm Brewing, a place we hope gives people ‘something with which to gather around and enjoy each other’s company.’”

Did the pandemic change your business and business strategies?
Heaton: “When COVID hit and shut everything down in March 2020, we were in a really interesting time with our business. We still had a wide distribution footprint in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Most of our business focus was making, packaging, and selling beer, not working the taproom. But when the world shut down, things quickly changed.”
Bump: “Amazingly, people would come to the brewery and buy a four-pack or case of beer. That was hugely helpful to us because at the time, 30 to 40 percent of our business came from restaurants; when they had to close it was hard for us to survive. That’s when we started to reflect on the strength of our personal customers and local support—and we thought, ‘We have this little taproom in Sheffield, maybe we should think about having a taproom somewhere else.’”
What goes into brewing the many varieties you produce?
Heaton: “So, the world of beer is broken down into two main categories, ale or lager, determined by the yeast that’s used to produce the beer. Ale yeast is generally found in the warmer climates of the world, and it makes more fruity, full-bodied beers. Lager yeast, which evolved in the cooler climates of the world and ferment at cooler temperatures, is a little crisper, a little cleaner.”

“The color and alcoholic strength of the beer are based on the raw materials that we use to make the beer. Beer is made from grain. You can use any cereal grain in the world to make it—barley, wheat, rice, sorghum, millet, etc. You take those grains and soak them in water, which converts the starch in the grain into sugar. We then add yeast, which converts the sugar into alcohol, and it also makes carbon dioxide (the bubbles in your beer). Recipes made with ale yeast have wonderful fruit flavors, and those same recipes made with lager yeast are all of a sudden crisp and clean and very different. It’s quite amazing.”
Bump: “We also brew beer [in a way that’s] crafted to reduce gluten. As we’ve grown older, we’ve found that gluten-heavy foods aren’t as easy for our bodies to handle. We have also found many, many fans of our beers because of the same issue.”
How much of your business is based on production for retail/restaurants vs. selling in your own taprooms?
Heaton: “When we first opened Big Elm Brewing, we figured that 90 percent of our business was going to be selling our beer at wholesale to restaurants, bars, and package stores, and we wouldn’t really sell much beer at our brewery. We didn’t even have a taproom when we opened (that started about four years after we opened in Sheffield).”
“During the pandemic, we decided to refocus on selling our beer locally via the taprooms—they’ve just become a huge driver for any sort of small business. You want people to come to you and have an experience and try new things. It’s always fun to get people to try a beer they think they could never like—say, a Pinot dark beer or something like that—and you get them to try one or two sips, and they might not love it, but you’ve definitely convinced them that there’s a lot more to the beer world than what they’re used to. Sometimes they find something they really love, which is an extra bonus.”

How did the taprooms expand your staff and offerings, and how have these spots been received?
Heaton: “Prior to COVID, we had started offering different things—a little bit of live music, yoga at the brewery (‘put a little hop in your practice’), occasionally food trucks on the weekends so people could come down and grab a beer and maybe a sandwich. Our focus at the time was still mostly production beer. It wasn’t until this post-pandemic phase that we really started to concentrate more on the taproom business.”
Bump: “When we opened the Great Barrington taproom, we were a close family of four, and the thought of adding more employees was a little scary. But we really lucked out. During COVID, we offered Coaster Club perks to teachers on Friday nights to thank them for all the extra effort they were putting in. Because of that, we got to know a lot of the local teachers and school nurses, who are not only caring and patient but also very creative. We quickly found great part-time employees! We allow our staff creative freedom and are very open to their ideas. Almost all the events (including Trivia Night, ‘Tapiyoke,’ and Meet the Makers) came from a seed planted by our part-time staff. They come up with the ideas and execute them all on their own!

Beyond those special events, how are you involved with the local community?
Bump: “We try to be involved in our community as much as possible by supporting local programs and organizations like the Sheffield Farmers’ Market, Trail Magic with the local churches, and Dewey Hall. We have also hosted local fundraisers for the Humane Society, Multicultural Bridge, The Elizabeth Freeman Center, and The Good Samaritan Fund.”
You clearly throw a lot of support to neighboring breweries. Is that typical of the Berkshire brewing community?
Heaton: “To support other local breweries is definitely not unique to Big Elm or the Berkshires. The craft beer community has always—always—been very open and welcoming to any new brewery in the area. We’re all in the same boat together. When Christine and I were starting out 25 years ago, it was more David versus Goliath, the little brewer battling the large corporate mega brewers of the world. Things have changed now.
“There is probably more beer out there than there’s shelf space for, so it does get a little intense at times. But here in the Berkshires, most stores have a local beer department (or shelf or cooler). We’re in a very tourist-centric area, so the first thing you hear anybody say when they come here is ‘Do you have a local beer? Is this a local food? Do you know where this is made?’ That’s really cool and unique to the Berkshires.”

How big is your production team, and how do you operate?
Heaton: “Big Elm is still a very tiny company. We have four full-time staff. There’s Henry Tirrell, who is our head brewer. Christine is the brewmaster. I generally handle packaging, sales, marketing, and deliveries, and Megan Delphia runs our taproom and also does some bookkeeping and the thousand other things any small business has to deal with. We also have eight part-time employees, mostly handling shifts at both taprooms, but any one of us can be found doing countless things during any given week (which is definitely not unique to a brewery).”
Has your vision for the business changed since you opened?
Heaton: “I don’t think our vision has changed much for the brewery. I mean, the ultimate goal for us was to try to make the best beer possible in the footprint that we had and try to sell it to people that were eager to buy it, and I think that is still the goal today.”
Bump: “At one point, we were selling in four states, but we’ve pulled back since then and now sell only in Berkshire County. We were producing more but losing a lot of money due to cans sitting on the shelves waiting to be sold. Now we focus on our local market, which is much more cost-effective and rewarding.”

What keeps it fun for your small, hard-working team?
Heaton: “I think the fun part of any small business comes from the fact that you can be flexible, and with a brewery that means we get to make different styles of beer. We have about six year-round beers that we always make, and then we get to do some fun things (two or three different beers each month). And the fun things we’ve never made or interesting styles we want to investigate keep it fun for all of us. Christine and Henry get to figure out how to make these beers, I get to create a label or an image, Meghan gets to figure out how to sell these beers to the public in the taprooms. All of those pieces have to come together for us to be successful, and that’s what keeps it fun. There’s always a challenge, but at the end of the day, making and selling beer and talking to people about beer is fun, bottom line.”
How has the craft beer industry changed over the past decade (since you’ve been in business)?
Heaton: “Wow, this is a big question. Craft beer has made so many changes in the last decade. Most notably, though, it has been the explosion in the number of breweries in the country. When we opened in 2012, there were fewer than 2,000 breweries in the United States. Now, in 2023, there are over 10,000 breweries—an amazing amount of breweries, producing an amazing amount of beer and amazing styles!”
What initial challenges have now grown easier, and what new challenges have replaced them?
Heaton: “Initially, the challenge was just being noticed by the local consumers (and especially the local stores) when there was so much beer already out there. I think most consumers find it a little overwhelming having 1,000 different beers on the shelf. I think that’s called the ‘paradox of choice.’”
Bump: “The new challenge now is the cost of goods and transportation. Since COVID, packaging beer has gotten very cost prohibitive. It’s extremely difficult to keep a reasonable price point with how much costs have gone up. The cost to produce a can of beer has doubled!”
With the rise in cannabis and wine consumption in recent years in our area, what would you say makes beer unique to the Berkshire cultural/culinary experience?

Heaton: “Well, beer has always been the beverage of moderation. And we use locally grown hops and local multi-grains in some of our beer. The hops come from [a source in] Hadley and the grain is malted in South Egremont at Turner Hill Malting Co. We get grain from Hadley and Four Star Farms [in Northfield] as well. All of these locations are located within the 413 area code and we’re quite proud of being able to support small, independent local farms that are growing grain and hops and supplying local breweries.”
“But we’re big fans of the local cannabis culture in the Berkshires, too—especially in Sheffield where there’s a lot of growing and cultivating and producing. Cannabis employment in South County is increasing rapidly, as well as tax revenues for the towns.”
How does it feel to have reached your first 10-year milestone?
Heaton: “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the first decade of Big Elm has flown by. As a small business, we are constantly evolving as time goes on. I don’t think anybody knows what the future holds at this point.”
Bump: “Our little brewery will be canning its three millionth can of beer before the end of spring 2023 (probably sometime in May)!”
So, if you’re feeling hazy or hoppy—or it’s getting a little “draughty” wherever you are—don’t sit around waiting for the yeast to ferment. Head on over to Big Elm’s Sheffield or Great Barrington tasting room (open 12-6 Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and 12-7 Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) where you’ll find a variety of fresh, quality beers on tap and a friendly pour waiting to welcome you!
