Craft Brewery Built in a Century-old Brick Building

Craft Brewery Built in a Century-old Brick Building



Halfway Crooks Beer is a new craft brewery built in a century-old brick building located at 60 Georgia Avenue in Atlanta’s Summerhill neighborhood.

Century-old brick building Main space

The name, Halfway Crooks, is a nod to 90’s hip-hop artist Mobb Deep’s famous song, “Shook Ones,” and also pays homage to the crooks used by sheepherders. The clients, an electrical engineer by training who made a name for himself in the homebrewing scene, and a trained Brewmaster who grew up in Belgium on a sheep farm, came up with the intriguing, contrast-filled name.

Main bar Beer taps and marble counters

Cozy, casual, and a little bit weird is how the architects imagined Halfway Crooks Beer feeling to guests. Like the pilsners and lagers that the brewery specializes in, space strives for comfort and light-hearted accessibility while at once maintaining an elevated sense of craft and nuance. The design draws heavily from the biographies and personalities of the brewer-owners.

Barrel room Mismatched furniture

The grandmotherly patterns and mismatched furniture reference the loved and lived-in Belgian café’s where the client spent many of his younger days. Happily woven into that fabric are hi-fi equipment and techie screens featuring Bainbridge’s glitchy computer coding and graphics by local branding company, Office of Brothers.

Reclaimed heart pine furniture Grandmotherly patterns Handmade Mexican floor tiles

The architects pulled the color palette directly from the old interior plaster walls. They left them largely untouched for their lovely patina. The new color palette is also a hint to the building’s lingering memories which long precede the brewery. The climate and humidity-controlled barrel room are wrapped in traditional molding pieces stacked unconventionally to create an undulating baroque-like mass, with glazed voids providing views to the aging beer. Finishes range from handmade Mexican tile to antique Belgian wallpaper and classic marble counters and baseboards.

Antique Belgian wallpaper in a bathroom Corridor

Finally, the brewery also features an upstairs patio that includes a second bar clad in charred Shi Sugi Ban siding and a new retractable roof system that can be opened and closed according to the season and the weather. The louvered roof system serves as a brise-soleil to cool the space by tempering the sunlight while strong shadows play along the old brick walls.

Roof terrace

Project by Square Feet Studio

Photography by Andrew Thomas Lee