Narragansett hopes to brew in RI in 2008

Here's an advance look at part of my beer package in tomorrow's Phoenix:

If sales of Narragansett Beer get off to a strong start in the first quarter of 2008, the brewing operation of the rejuvenated Rhode Island icon could return to the Ocean State in the final half of this year, says company president Mark Hellendrung.

           

“I’m probably overly optimistic about it,” he says, hedging his bets a bit, although the budding beer baron can barely contain his enthusiasm in envisioning a local brewery operation, complete with a beer garden, where people could visit and sample the beer.

 

If this dream comes to fruition, it will be in Providence -- probably on the West Side. “It’s kind of where our heartbeat is today,” Hellendrung says.

           

While Narragansett had been consigned to marginal status not that long ago, things have gone well since Hellendrung and some investors acquired the brand about three years back. Annual case sales have increased to 200,000, from 6000, he says, and the beer claims a respectable 1.5 percent share of the Rhode Island market.

           

During its old glory days, Cranston-based Narragansett, with its familiar slogan (“Hi Neighbor – Have a ’Gansett”), was a Red Sox-sponsoring source of local pride, and sales hit an apex of more than one million barrels of beer in the early 1960s.

 

Because of changes in management, consolidation in the brewery industry, and other factors, the beer’s profile subsequently slipped, and the old Cranston brewery -- which had once employed close to 1000 workers -- closed in 1981.