Brewpub Build-Outs (Brewing + Kitchen)
A brewpub build-out puts a working brewhouse and a full commercial kitchen under one roof: a Type I hood on one side of the wall, sloped process floors and anchored tanks on the other, and a tap wall fed from the brite tanks. Grandview Contractors builds brewpubs across Salt Lake City and Utah County under a Utah DOPL B100 general contractor license, planning both scopes as one project.
When a brewpub is the right scope, and when a sibling page fits better
This page is for the concept where the food program is real: a cook line under a Type I hood, a dish pit, and a brewhouse that makes most of what’s on tap. If food is a snack menu or a truck out front, the hood and health-department scope mostly disappears and a brewery and taproom build-out is the better starting point. If the beer is bought in and only poured, you’re building a bar and lounge or a restaurant with a serious draft system, not a brewpub. If the kitchen is the whole project, see commercial kitchen build-outs; the full family lives under restaurant build-outs and renovation.
Utah’s alcohol licensing treats manufacturing and retail as separate licenses with their own floor-plan conditions, so the plan your licensing counsel approves decides where the wall, the glass, and the dispensing point go. We build to that plan.
What a brewpub build-out actually involves
Two mechanical systems sharing one air volume. The cook line needs a Type I hood balanced against makeup air; the brewhouse needs a kettle vent and a CO2 monitor in the cellar. Without a combined air-balance plan, the kitchen exhaust pulls brewhouse steam into the dining room. Licensed mechanical contractors perform the hood and exhaust installation; Grandview holds the contract, packages both systems’ roof penetrations for one landlord approval, and checks the balance before the inspector does.
Two floors, two drain systems. The kitchen gets quarry tile or urethane pitched to floor sinks, every fixture draining through the grease interceptor. The brewhouse floor gets saw-cut, re-poured with slope to a trench drain, coved at the wall, and coated in urethane cement that survives hot caustic. Brewery process water is warm and swings in pH, so most Wasatch Front sewer districts want it kept out of the interceptor. That means two underslab drain runs, laid out together before the first cut.
One water-treatment room for both. Utah’s hard water is a brewing problem and a dish-machine problem at once: brewers usually want carbon filtration and often reverse osmosis, the kitchen wants a softener ahead of the dish machine. We plan a single treatment room sized for both through our commercial plumbing coordination, performed by licensed plumbers under our contract.
Utilities and cold storage sized for two trades. Gas load is additive when the kettle and cook line fire the same afternoon, and the glycol chiller usually wants three-phase power the last tenant never had. The food walk-in and the serving cold room behind the tap wall can be one partitioned walk-in cooler or two boxes, depending on whether you pour from brite tanks or kegs.
The wall between them. A brewhouse is a factory occupancy sitting against a dining room, an assembly occupancy. The building official decides how they’re separated under current Utah-adopted code, which sets whether the showpiece glass wall is plain glass or a rated assembly, so we raise it at plan review. Tanks get seismic anchorage engineered for the Wasatch Front; restrooms and seating are laid out for ADA access.
How we sequence a kitchen and a brewhouse in the same shell
- Verify the shell against both equipment packages. Slab thickness, ceiling height over the kettle, sewer lateral, utility service, and a door that admits a fermenter, checked before the lease is final.
- Freeze the brewhouse and cook line together. Drains, interceptor, glycol runs, hood duct, and cold room all key off those two layouts.
- Submit to every reviewer in parallel. Building, health for the kitchen, fire for hood suppression and CO2, and the sewer district for process discharge. Salt Lake City and Provo run predictable reviews; Lehi and Saratoga Springs can queue.
- Underslab, re-pour, cure, coat. Both drain systems and the interceptor go in before the brewhouse floor is poured; rushing the cure on urethane cement is how a floor fails in year one.
- Rough-in, tank set, finishes. Gas, power, glycol, water treatment, and hood duct; tanks anchored with your installer; then millwork, trunk lines, and building, health, and fire finals through certificate of occupancy.
What drives the cost of a brewpub build-out in Utah?
As ballpark planning language rather than a quote: a brewpub carries the restaurant’s hood-and-interceptor budget and the brewery’s floor-and-utility budget in one contract, so plan at the top of the full-service restaurant range per square foot and above it. The saving over building the two separately comes from shared restrooms, water treatment, utility upgrades, and cold storage.
- Brewhouse size and the slab. A three-barrel system in a corner and a ten-barrel system with a cellar are different floor cuts, drains, and anchorage.
- Hood length and roof routing. Hood, duct, and makeup air are among the largest line items; the kettle vent shares the same roof and landlord approval.
- Shell condition. A former restaurant may hand you a compliant interceptor and hood; it almost never hands you a sloped brewhouse floor or three-phase power.
- The showpiece wall. A rated glass wall between dining and brewing costs noticeably more than a plain one.
You’ll get a budget range at consultation, a real estimate once both equipment packages are chosen, and a proposal your lender can read line by line.
Questions we actually get
Can the brewhouse drain through the kitchen’s grease interceptor?
Usually not. Hot caustic and acid cleaning cycles from the brewhouse can liquefy trapped grease and push it into the sewer, which is what the interceptor exists to prevent. Most Wasatch Front sewer districts want brewery process waste routed separately; we confirm your district’s requirement during lease review.
What has to be decided before the kitchen plan is final?
The brewhouse layout. Tank positions set the trench drain, glycol runs, anchors, and cold room, and the cold room sets whether the tap wall pours from brite tanks or kegs. Lock the brewhouse first, then the cook line, then the dining room. Changing tank size after the floor is cut is the expensive version of this project.
Can I convert an existing restaurant into a brewpub?
Often, and the hood and interceptor are worth real money if they pass today’s inspection. The brewery side is where surprises live: a flat slab needs cutting and re-pouring for slope and drains, the chiller needs three-phase power, and the dining room may need a rated separation from the new brewhouse. We assess all three before you budget around reuse.
Tell us what you’re working on
Send us the shell, the brewhouse size, and the target opening date. We reply within a couple of hours during business hours, a day at most, with a straight read on scope, sequence, and budget.