Sasanoa Brewing Shed

Sasanoa Brewing at Tarbox farm makes truly outstand beer on Westport Island.  The farm overlooks a corner of the Sasanoa River and those lucky enough to meander down the island to visit will find a welcoming spot beside an antique barn where beer and snacks are abundant.  The Brewery is open to Tasting on the weekends during the summer, patrons can see the very spot where ingredients for the beer are grown.  The lack of space under cover made this was a particularly wet summer challenging.  Master Brewer Kyle had some timbers milled out several years ago and a plan to get a tasting room eventually.  The sticks he had available were something of a practice fun for the miller with a new machine and posed a challenge to our usual technique in laying out joinery.  We used an older method of layout known as line rule to compensate for uneven timbers. 

At the end of the project everything was tight fitting and quite flat.  In the coming summer season Kyle will be able to share the beauty of the farm and flavors from the land in his excellent brews along with the history of timber framing from the old barn to the new tasting area. 

The timber came from the woods right beside the fields which highlights another aspect of timber framing: It keeps production local and much more energy efficient.  The timbers were not transported far and the machines to handle them were not huge.  The tools we use are relatively simple and nothing was kiln dried. A great deal of the energy to cut any timber frame is human hand labor.

We look forward to visiting this frame to check on it, and perhaps have a beer while we inspect how it ages.