Edmund's Oast Brewing Co. will include a restaurant complete with a Polish smokehouse

We don’t know how he’s done it, but somehow Scott Shor has managed to keep his entire staff mum about the many elements going into his new Edmund’s Oast Brewing Co. I mean a Polish smokehouse? How do you not shout that from the rooftops?

The 20,000 square foot operation, opening next door to the Workshop in the Pacific Box & Crate development (1505 King St.) possibly as soon as May, will not only house a brewery, it will also have a 100+ seat restaurant complete with a wood-fire pizza oven, an entire room dedicated to a charcuterie production, and the aforementioned Polish smokehouse.

Chef Geoff Marquardt will run the restaurant which Shor says will have an approachable vibe. Think a bar with 20 taps, three TVs, outdoor seating for 40, and a menu filled with pizzas and sandwiches. “We’ll serve lunch and dinner. It will be a casual, full service restaurant where you can eat in or get it to go,” says Shor. While the brewery will be an extension of Edmund’s overall concept, the restaurant will have an entirely different feel, Shor adds. The idea is to have a place that can have events as well as great food and beer (there will be wine too, though the jury’s still out on cocktails), and that Polish smoker will give Marquadt the chance to manage temperatures to cold smoke things like fish.

As for the beers, brewer Cameron Read has designed a brewer’s dreamscape, a giant space where he’ll operate on a 30 barrel system, a major upgrade from Edmund’s brewpub space at the restaurant that that operates on a 5 barrel system. “We’ll be able to produce twice as fast here and be making five times the quantity,” Read says.

To begin, Read says he’ll brew seven or eight beers including some IPAs and easy drinking styles, and, of course, non-barrel aged sours, barrel-aged sours will come a bit later. It’s all in an effort to bring not just Charleston more Edmund’s Oast beers, but to expand beyond South Carolina. “We think by this time next year we’ll be in a few places outside the state,” Shor says. Edmund’s Oast Brewing Co. beer will be served at Edmund’s Oast restaurant, but, thanks to South Carolina beer laws, the brewpub beer made at 1081 Morrison Drive will not be sold at the brewery.

Of course, you might be thinking, does Charleston really need another brewery? “No,” says Shor. “Quite honestly, no.” But he adds, he and his team don’t believe they’re opening just another brewery. Rather, “we think we’re creating a new type of option in the context of the brewing world. We’ve hit a tremendous localized brewing point. Now we want to take Edmund’s style to a wider audience.”

Look for Edmund’s Oast Brewing Co. to open this spring.