Sinistral Brewing Company plans to open with five signature beers on Nov. 1

Stacey and Blane Perry are about the open Manassas’ next brewery: Sinistral Brewing Company.

Like many in the craft brewing industry, the two are still working full-time jobs and never thought they dive headlong into beer as a business.

Blane is the brewer who got his start, like most, brewing at home.

“It was more friends were brewers, and I would go and watch them brew and be around it. I really started getting into it probably about six years ago…starting to brew at home and more and then we started filling up the house and she told me to get my shit out of the house.”

The idea for the brewery came while the couple was vacationing with their parents in Florida.

“We went out for a pretty, pretty fun night in Key West with [Stacey’s] father and stepmother. And got a little tipsy woke up the next morning went to a little Cuban coffee stand. They went to get Advil…and her dad and I sat and started drinking Bloody Marys, and he asked me what I wanted to do. And I thought that was a pretty odd question. Being that I’m already in my 40’s and I’m married to his daughter, and he’s asking me I think that should come before I marry her…but I think he was just genuinely asking ‘do you like what you’re doing? Do you want to keep doing what you’re doing? Or if you have an opportunity do something else. Would you do it?” said Blane.

Blane’s day job, which he still has, is the Director of Information Services for the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors.

Stacey has a background in event planning.

“We figured you know what let’s do something a little bit different. So we looked at a few different buildings down here in Old Town and ultimately ended up on this one because the set up is really different,” Stacey explained. “Instead of just being an empty box it’s got the three different buildings; it’s got an area for the courtyard. Our brewery can be separate, which is nice and a little different from all the other breweries that you find because we can actually be brewing while people are here as opposed to being like pushed to the back of the box where you because of the temperature and people milling around.”

Sinistral plans to open with five signature beers: pale ale, IPA, amber, a porter and a lager. Other specialty beers will be added later.

There won’t be a food menu, however. But some surrounding restaurants have agreed to deliver food to Sinistral guests if ordered.

“We wanted to get our beer right before we started talking about food,” said Stacey. “I think Old Town has a lot of good restaurants that a lot of people in like other areas of Northern Virginia don’t necessarily know about. So we’re hoping that by getting people out here from like D.C., Arlington, and Alexandria, that they’ll be exposed to those places rather than us putting out mediocre food,” said Stacey.

The couple is less into distributing their beer and getting it onto store shelves and more into becoming a downtown hangout.

“We know our customers we know their favorite beers. We know what they’re going to like, of our specialty stuff that we’re rolling out. They’ll know we’re the local place to come after they’ve played their softball league, or the gaming thing that they’ve got going on, they’re coming here,” said Stacey.

Are there too many breweries popping up in the region?

“No, not at all. Look at Loudoun [County]. There’s what, 30 breweries jam-packed in that one place, and 60 wineries. They’re all charging for it you know. Now some are going to some are going to fall off some of the ones that maybe rushed into it or maybe didn’t get their stuff right. Some There will be some attrition…We had what was four 4,735 breweries or something like that before prohibition with probably a third of the population. Now we have this boomer population, and we only have 5,000 craft breweries. There’s a lot of room for expansion. There’s a lot of room to grow,” said Blane.

Sinistral is located at 9419 Main Stree in Manassas. The company plans to open by Nov. 1, 2017