The new brewery will be adjacent to Brew Craft Bar & Kitchen. (Mike Platania photo)
More than a decade after opening a beer-focused pub in Chester, a local couple will soon be pouring their own beer recipes next door.
Karen and Matt Verdisco are preparing to open Angry Man Brewing Co. at 6525 Centralia Drive.
The wife-and-husband duo joined the Chester dining scene in 2013 when they opened Brew Craft Bar & Kitchen, which will share a wall with Angry Man Brewing in the Chesterfield Meadows Shopping Center.
Matt Verdisco will be both head brewer and the brewery’s namesake. Karen said the family has joked for years about Matt’s stern look and disposition.
Karen and Matt Verdisco (Courtesy Karen Verdisco)
“Me and the kids always joke like, ‘Oh, he has his angry man face again,’” she said, noting that the brewery’s logo and beer names will be plays on the “angry man” theme.
“He’s not really that angry,” Karen Verdisco said, laughing. “He just has a very serious demeanor.”
The brewery will have capacity for 12 to 16 beers, and Karen Verdisco said it will serve “all the styles you’re used to seeing at breweries.” The couple also is pursuing the appropriate ABC license that would allow Angry Man to make and sell cider and mead.
She said the hope is to have Angry Man Brewing open by mid-December.
The Verdiscos are leasing the 1,000-square-foot space that until last year had been the longtime home to pet shop Pet World. Karen said Angry Man won’t have a food operation but it will be able to bring food over from Brew.
Earlier this year the Verdiscos also opened microbrewery and pizza spot Local Craft Pizza & Beer a few miles down the road, where Karen said they mostly brew beer made by local home brewers. It’s part of a “local brewers project,” in which home brewers brew their own beer on Local’s equipment. After the beer is brewed and sold, Verdisco said they reimburse the brewers for ingredients and donate proceeds from the beer’s sales to a charity of the home brewer’s choice.
“It’s an interesting concept and it’s caught on pretty well,” she said, adding that the program at Local will continue once Angry Man opens.
The Verdisco’s new ventures add to what’s been a busy 12 months in the Chesterfield beer scene. This time last year Hidden Wit Brewing Co. opened in Moseley after five years in the making, and earlier in 2024 Funktastic Meads, a meadery near Chesterfield Towne Center, added a brewing operation.
The county also has seen a few craft breweries close. Steam Bell Beer Works and Dancing Kilt Brewery both ceased operations this year.