Delaware’s 16 Mile Brewing gets rezoned to make business growth easier

If you’re a craft beer connoisseur, and you’re heading for the Delaware coast (around the Rehoboth and Dewey Beach area), you’re more than likely going to visit Dogfish Head Craft Brewery or its awesome nearby pub and restaurant. But not too far away from the famed Dogfish Head brewhouse is another great craft beer maker called 16 Mile Brewing Co. in the nearby town of Georgetown, Del., which specializes in making a variety of bold and sessionable ales.

According to an article on delmarvaNow.com, the Georgetown Town Council approved a zoning amendment for 16 Mile Brewery that should make it easier for 16 Mile owners Chad Campbell and Brett McCrea to grow their local brewery without jumping through too many bureaucratic brewhahas. According to the article:

“Every time they wanted to do something different to the brewery, they had to come back before us to get that approved,” said Georgetown Mayor Michael Wyatt. “[Now] they can improve and they can make a nice brewery out of it.”

Wyatt and the council seem pretty accommodating, probably because 16 Mile has helped put Georgetown on the map for tourism (it got the CBB crew out there). On the heels of approving the zoning amendment, the town council also approved an ordinance that created definitions for different breweries and their permitted uses. Those are:

• A restaurant or bar are defined as establishments in which the brewing of beer would be an accessory use, with the primary function being a restaurant or bar, respectively. A brewpub is defined as an establishment that produces enough beer for consumption on the premises or for carryout growlers.


• A microbrewery is defined as an establishment that brews no more than 15,000 barrels (bbls) of beer per year.


• A brewery has two sub-definitions: A regional brewery produces between 15,000 and 6 million bbls of beer per year, while a large brewery produces more than 6 million bbls annually.