All seven Plymouth breweries hold Farmer Brewery licenses from the Commonwealth, permitting them to brew, serve, and distribute their beers. Bringing the idea of a Farmer Brewer a little closer to home, Paul Nixon, owner of Independent Fermentation, is the only one of them to grow a portion of the brewery’s ingredients (hops) here in Plymouth. And unique among Plymouth brewers, IndieFerm is home to a brewing supply store, providing the local homebrew community with ingredients and equipment.
Nixon and his partner Rose Forbes began home brewing in the basement of his Cedarville barn in 2008. By 2013, IndieFerm was granted a Farmer Brewery license to brew and distribute beer. In 2015, he moved production to one section of the building at 127 Camelot Drive, where its taproom is now located. Since then, Nixon and Forbes have taken up brewing and fermentation full-time. The home-brew supply store opened in 2016 and a Kombucha (fermented tea) brewing and distribution operation in 2019. Within the past six months, IndieFerm has grown into the entire building; doubling in size. The additional space includes a large retail space for the supply store and added a dozen or so new seats to the taproom, a welcome improvement for taproom regulars. The location isn’t exactly a prominent one – compared with Vitamin Sea, for example – but the quality of the company’s product has generated a loyal following.
Taking the Farmer Brewer idea to heart, IndieFerm has leased land from the Wildlands Trust at 675 Clifford Road in Chiltonville to grow hops. This hop farm includes about 400 bines, as hop vines are called, that yield about 25 percent of the hops used by IndieFerm. It brews about 300 barrels (9,300 gallons) of beer and 85 barrels (2,000 gallons) of kombucha annually. These are canned, bottled, or kegged (and served) onsite.
The supply store offers home brewers everything they need to brew all varieties of ales and lagers. A broad range of ingredients such as hops, yeast, and barley may be found there, as well as a wide variety of equipment helpful when brewing at home. Nixon also offers a Home Brewing 101 course for those interested in trying their hand at creating the perfect beer. Who knows, it could be you. Virtually every successful commercial craft brewer started as a homebrewer.
The kombucha shop is used to ferment a variety of both hard and regular varieties of the fermented tea. The ‘hard’ varieties contain about 3.5 percent alcohol and are regulated, while the regular varieties of kombucha still contain alcohol, but too low in ABV to be regulated.
In the brewery, IPAs such as Plymouth Rocks and Squeezy Wrench appear regularly in the brewing rotation. Nixon, however, prefers to focus IndieFerm’s beer more on the lighter German style beers. These include pilsners (such as IndieFerm’s Pilsnerd), blonde ales (Triumph Blonde), altbiers (Anadromous Ale), and Belgian ales (Honey Tripel). Lighter and slightly tart farmhouse ales (aka saisons) such as Biere De Garden are being brewed more frequently.
IndieFerm has also played an integral role in the development of the brewing community in Plymouth. The founders of Second Wind Brewing got their start assisting with production brewing in Nixon’s barn in Cedarville. Prior to its recent opening in Middleborough, Harper Lane Brewing used IndieFerm’s Camelot Drive facility for its own production. And from time to time, the facility has been shared with both the Forty Second Brew Company in Kingston and Plymouth’s own Llama Nama to assist with their small batch production needs. Recently, IndieFerm collaborated with Plymouth’s Mayflower Brewing to produce Inspired, an American IPA celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Spire Center for Performing Arts on Court Street. And currently, IndieFerm has a batch of its Rye Tavern Rye brewing specifically for the beer’s namesake on Old Sandwich Road. That beer is brewed exclusively with hops grown at the Chiltonville hop farm and is scheduled to be on draft at Rye Tavern by the end of June.
In addition to the Rye Tavern, IndieFerm brew may often be found on draft in other Plymouth restaurants, and at most events at the Spire. Outside of the Camelot Drive tap room, cans of IndieFerm beers may be found in several Plymouth restaurants and liquor stores.
But IndieFerm’s involvement in Plymouth goes beyond the brewing community. During winter and spring it sponsors a recurring Lobby Series Sunday Funday event at the Spire featuring the rockabilly/Americana band Shady Roosters. You can find Nixon on stage with the Roosters playing a mean saxophone.
The tap room on Camelot Drive has 12 taps reserved for beer and three for hard kombuchas and seltzers. It’s open on Tuesdays from 4 to 7 p.m., Thursdays and Fridays from 3 to 7 p.m., Saturdays from 12 to 7 p.m., and Sundays from 12 to 5:30 p.m. The Homebrew Supply Store is open Thursdays and Fridays from 1 to 7 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Paul Boyd, a Plymouth resident, is a retired professor and faculty director of the MBA program at Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island. His research has focused on growth and success in the craft beer industry.