Ryan Wattenbarger and Hilary Bird will be ready to share

their craft brews and love of soccer with the Tri-Cities in May.

The Tri-City couple are opening Moonshot Brewing at 8804 Victoria Ave., Suite 130, in Kennewick, near the Gage Boulevard and Steptoe Street intersection.

“I think we can be open in the first half of May,” said

Wattenbarger, whose last day as head brewer at Snipes Mountain Brewery &

Restaurant in Sunnyside was March 29.

It’s a dream come true for the couple, who met at a friend’s

wedding in Boise. They eventually got married and added a baby girl named Norah

to the family.

“We did our business plan three years ago. It took us a

couple of months to put together,” Bird said.

But that wasn’t the hardest part.

“It took 18 months to find a building,” Bird said. “We

looked at buildings where it was more for office space. We looked at older

buildings in downtown Kennewick where it was going to cost too much money to

remodel. We wanted to be centrally located in the Tri-Cities.”

The new $1.2 million building was built by Jason Zook, owner

of Smile-A-Mile Painting of Kennewick, who moved his growing business into the

strip mall in 2018. It’s next door to Garland’s Gymnastics.

Moonshot joins a growing number of craft breweries in the

state, which boasts 402, according to the Washington Beer Commission. That’s

No. 2 in the nation, according to the Brewers Association.

A total of 510,682 barrels are produced in the state per

year. That’s 2.9 gallons of craft beer for every Washingtonian 21 years and

older, said the Brewers Association.

The brewing industry’s direct economic impact, when coupled

with the revenue generated by way of distributors and retailers, totaled more

than $6 billion in 2014, according to the Beer Institute.

For Wattenbarger, who grew up near Sunnyside’s hop fields,

learning the craft of brewing was a natural fit, although it took him a while

to figure it out.

He said he tried teaching as a career “and that was not for

me. I went to study at the Yakima Valley Collect’s Grandview Wine Technology

program. I realized I was good at it.”

He worked at a few wineries, but he wasn’t satisfied.

“Harvest was hard,” Wattenbarger said. “It was three months

of not seeing (Hilary).”

So he found an opening at Snipes Mountain as assistant

brewer. In less than a year, he stepped into the head brewer position.

It was the move that clicked.

“The brewery seeds were planted about five years ago when we

started a website,” said Bird, who will be general manager of Moonshot. 

Wattenbarger agreed: “I think the two of us fell in love

with craft brewing. At Snipes, I was allowed to do everything. I was given

carte blanche.”

That’s why he still enjoys brewing beer.

“For me, when I was making wine, I was ushering the grape to

its best state,” he said. “But in beer, I get the full palette. I can use my

creativity.”

That’s what he’ll do at Moonshot.

He and Bird are already touting three beers on their

website: Sagittarius, their flagship IPA; Flanigan’s Red Ale; and Libra, their

flagship pale ale.

The red ale was an award-winner at Snipes.

At Snipes, Wattenbarger made 15-barrel batches in the tanks,

which created 30 kegs. 

“But if it didn’t work, we’d still have to sell it all,” he

said. 

Beers at Moonshot will be made in a

3.5-barrel Stout system, enabling Wattenbarger to experiment with smaller

batches.

“By using a 3.5-barrel batch, we make four or five kegs. If they

work out, we can make it again,” he said.

He said that they will be experimenting.

“We’ll be barrel aging stuff,” Wattenbarger said. “We’ll use local

fruits. I’ve done a few of those with fresh peaches.”

Wattenbarger said when the brewery opens, it should be able to

seat 100 people in 3,240 square feet of space.

“We’ll probably open with five taps of our beer. But eventually

we’ll have eight to 10 taps for our beer, plus some rotating handles for other

beers,” he said.

There will be no kitchen, but Wattenbarger and Bird would like to

bring in food trucks.

“And with Uber Eats, people can have food ordered and delivered

here,” Wattenbarger said.

For Bird, working as general manager will be a welcome challenge.

“I’m excited to get back to running a business, helping the

community and being involved in the community,” she said.

Moonshot Brewing will be a soccer-themed bar, too, as Wattenbarger

and Bird are serious Seattle Sounders fans.

“We’re huge soccer fans,” he said. “We wanted this place to fill

our needs, where people can support the Sounders. We wanted a place that will

be family-

friendly. Beer and soccer are the only things in my life right now.”

Moonshot also will be dog-friendly to leashed pets.

Moonshot Brewing: 8804 Victoria Ave., Suite 130, Kennewick; moonshotbrewing.com; Facebook; Twitter Instagram.