The Champion: Smith eyes Thanksgiving brewery opening

Keep your eyes peeled this fall for a new brewery and public taproom, as construction continues on the inside of what will become Champion Brewing Company. Located on Sixth Street Southeast, near the southern end the of Belmont Bridge near the Downtown Mall, the place is aiming for a Thanksgiving-time opening.

The creator is Hunter Smith, a 26-year-old Suffolk native who enthuses about combining his passion for craft beer, which he honed at Chicago's Siebel Institute of Technology, with his interest in business, which he honed as the marketing manager of his family’s Afton Mountain Vineyard in Afton.

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t confident I could make good beer," says Smith, who, as Hunter Smith and the Dead Men, is also the leader of Americana singer/songwriter act noted by the Hook two years ago as an artist to watch.

A self-described brewing "nerd," Smith says he plans to serve a rotation of five or six beer varieties, with his personal IPA recipe a permanent part of the menu. Champion, he says, will be equipped to produce up to six kegs a day.