Lesbian-Owned Brewery Closing

A South Royalton-based microbrewery has closed due to lack of interest and unmet funding promises from local and state agencies, according to its owners.

Incorporated by Liz Trott and Janice Moran in 1995, Jigger Hill Brewery, Ltd., also known as Tunbridge Quality Ales, bottled its last batch on Tuesday, December 19.

Trott said the town of South Royalton had promised the brewery a loan of $35,000 in late 1998 to allow them to move into a new building and obtain the equipment they needed to meet increased demand for their beers.

Based on this guarantee, the brewery signed a lease and moved into its current South Royalton location. However, the town never fulfilled its promise, Trott said, and they have been struggling ever since.

“The letters of regret from our discussions and loan applications have [all] been negative,” said Trott. “However, the results of the beer hitting the streets and the public have [all] been positive.” Support from the gay and lesbian community has been especially strong, she added.

Trott believes that the banks and state agencies have been basing their negative decisions on the history of other similar companies and not looking at Tunbridge’s positive projections. “If they are looking at them, they’re not believing them,” she said.

Trott explained that the operation started out under-capitalized, with only her own personal investment and a Small Business Association loan through the Northfield Bank. However, sales of their brews soon increased beyond expectations, and the brewery found itself needing more equipment to meet that demand.

The company did obtain a $15,000 loan in 1997 through the Vermont Economic Development Authority to buy some equipment. However, demand kept increasing and Trott said she had to expand and buy yet more equipment. The brewery still bottles their beer by hand, explained Trott, and it takes four people an hour to bottle 35 cases. With a new bottling machine, it would take only two people to bottle 40 cases in one hour.

However, several local banks, the Vermont Economic Development Association, the Vermont Community Loan Fund as well as the town of South Royalton have all turned their backs on Tunbridge Quality Ales. Despite providing at least a year of positive sales projections as well as letters from customers saying they could not do without Tunbridge beers, none were willing to provide the funds Trott needed to keep going.

Trott and Moran had high hopes when they shipped out their first supply on April 15, 1996, a mere 11 months after officially incorporating.

According to Yankee Brew News, Trott started out brewing beer at home as a hobby. She and her founding partner, Moran, decided to turn her hobby into a commercial venture.

“At some point, I realized that someone was going to start a brewery in this area and I decided, ‘Why not me?’ Home brewing simply involved too much effort for too little results. My friends really started enjoying my beers and there simply weren’t enough of them,” Trott said in the article.

Beers regularly produced by Tunbridge, Vermont’s only lesbian-owned brewery, were Covered Bridge IPA (India Pale Ale), Ox-Pull Stout, Telemark Ale (a British type of mild), Sap Brew (made only in the spring with maple sap instead of water), and World’s Fair Special (named after the 130-year-old Tunbridge World’s Fair).

The brewery has recently produced some test batches of a reformulated Gay Pride Beer. CEO Jenn Lewis of the J. Lewis Company contracted with Tunbridge after the first batch, made by a different brewery, was quickly pulled from distribution because the recipe “did not stand up under production,” said Lewis in an interview earlier this year.

However, Trott said that only a few cases of the Gay Pride Beer were distributed, mostly for use at civil unions and political fund-raisers.

Trott does have hopes for the future. She is investigating the possibility of starting another corporation to produce beer through a contract brewery. The new company would supervise quality control and distribution. In particular, Trott said she would like to keep the Ox Pull Stout and Covered Bridge IPA alive.

If these plans unfold, she also hopes to put a new beer on the market called Vermont Pride. This would be similar to, but not the same as, the Gay Pride Beer.

How does Trott’s partner feel about all this? Moran, a senior program analyst for a mail order software corporation, is ready for Trott to bring home some income, Trott said with a chuckle. “However, she [Moran] has been very patient and wonderful through all this,” she added.

Tunbridge Ales employs four additional full-time people: a chief of brewing operations, a brewer, a driver and an office manager. All will lose their jobs as a result of the closing.