Side A brewer Travis Darney, center, raises a glass in cheers with co-owners Scott McConnell, left, and Travis Hansen to toast the newest beer in the brewing room in La Grande on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. The Fresh Hop IPA had recently won the people’s choice award at the Seattle Fresh Hop Festival.

ISLAND CITY — A big door in the far wall of Side A Brewing’s new taproom slides upward to reveal a brewery, its huge, silver vats gleaming in the ambient light. The whole place is sparkling clean, not a speck of dust anywhere.

As Scott McConnell points out, his taproom customers not only have a view of where their beer is made, they can actually smell it when it’s being produced.

The taproom, after all, is a place that’s been built with beer lovers in mind.

“There are a lot of local breweries that create a reason for people to come and visit,” said McConnell, co-owner of Side A Brewing with Travis Hansen, Baker City. “We’re really hoping this adds to the allure of beer in Northeast Oregon.”

McConnell says the recently-opened taproom and brewery, at 10705 Walton Road, is an expansion of Side A’s business operation. The original pub at 1219 Washington Ave. in downtown La Grande remains open, serving food and the full line of Side A’s award-winning beers.

As a companion piece, the Walton Road taproom, which opened the weekend of Dec. 22, is cozy, intimate and tastefully appointed, with custom woodwork by Cory Miller of Miller’s Tree Service., and stonework by Scott Doren, of Doren Tile and Stone.

The company’s brewing operation, moved here from the Washington Avenue location, is not only shiny, it’s been thoroughly updated.

Both partners believe the improved brewery will lift their business to new heights.

“The new equipment allows us to produce more beer and distribute it locally,” McConnell says.

Adds Hansen, “We’re really excited about the expansion of the brewery. We were very limited in the downtown location. We’ve put a lot of focus on having greater output and efficiency.”

McConnell, Hansen and Nicholas Fairbanks, who were high school classmates back in Alpena, Michigan, started Side A Brewing in 2016, in the building on Washington Avenue that once housed the La Grande Fire Department and later, the Eastern Oregon Fire Museum.

Their brewpub did well from the beginning, and Side A beer, produced onsite by head brewer Travis Darney, has won numerous awards. Sammyville Stout, for instance, captured a bronze medal at the 2020 Oregon Beer Awards; in 2023, Side A’s Fresh Hop IPA won the People’s Choice award at the Seattle Hop Festival.

Fairbanks left the business in 2017, to move back to Michigan. McConnell, In addition to being a partner in Side A, is a professor of economics at Eastern Oregon University. Hansen, the other partner, works as Side A’s executive chef.

McConnell says the taproom and updated brewery have been on the drawing boards for quite some time. The partners bought the building on Walton Road in 2021, with help from Old West Federal Credit Union and backing from Northeast Oregon Economic Development District.

“We decided we wanted to improve the brewery equipment and also purchase property, and this building made sense to us,” McConnell says. “The reason for doing this was to have a traditional tasting room alongside a production facility.”

McConnell says there are plans to add outdoor amenities in the spring, including food dispensed from food carts, and a beer garden with picnic tables made from Oregon Coast cedar.

“We’re just looking forward to continually building this space. I don’t think there will be too many places like it,” he says, adding, “We’re really proud of it. It’s a place where people can try our unique beers and just socialize.”