Yellow Springs Brewery in early talks to purchase neighboring distillery

The small distillery has operated out of the Millworks on Walnut Street since 2010.

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“As many of you know, this has started off as a difficult year for us, because we will not be able to extend our lease in our current location,” distillery owners Kerry and Hajo Scheuner said this morning. “We have made the decision not to relocate our business (and) are in the very early stage of talks with Lisa Wolters and Nate Cornett about Yellow Springs Brewery purchasing S&G Artisan Distillery.”

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“If things work out as we all hope, we are targeting the end of 2019 for the transition. In the meantime we will continue to produce and sell our products as we have been. We have committed to being part of making this a smooth transition.”

In a phone interview, Kerry Scheuner said Yellow Springs Brewery “is an excellent business, and the owners are friends of ours. We are very excited about this.”

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Scheuner said she and her husband “are committed to teaching them and working with them for as long as they need us to.”

Wolters and Cornett said the talks to purchase the distillery represent “an exciting opportunity.”

“This opportunity feels right as a complement to our current brewery,” the YSB owners told this news outlet this morning. “We are seeing a trend with many breweries adding distilleries all over the country, so the timing seems right. We know that craft beer drinkers also embrace craft spirits, as do we.”

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In February, Scheuner told this news outlet she and her husband had planned to expand and sign a long-term lease with the former Millworks owners as demand for their products has increased, but the new owners of the Millworks wanted the distillery to relocate to a different location on the property where expansion would not have been possible.

Jessica Yamamoto, who bought the property in September 2018 for $1.15 million with husband Antonio Molina,  said in February that, “A company has approached us on manufacturing and creating a craft distillery at Millworks, and we are confident that this small company will provide a dozen new jobs for the village.”