'Not Your Father's Root Beer' brewers to move to Cary, change name

The Wauconda brewery that created the popular Not Your Father's Root Beer is undergoing some major changes in the next few months, including a new name and a move to a larger facility in Cary.

Jagdish Chevli, one of the company's chief partners along with head brewer Tim Kovac, said he hopes the company will open a new taproom, brewery and distillery at 3300 Three Oaks Road in west-central Cary in late September. Chevli said the company, formerly known as Small Town Brewery, will change its name to “spirit Water,” and its products will feature the name “Iconic.”

Chevli said the brewery had outgrown its current location at 1000 N. Rand Road in a Wauconda industrial park. He said the company's business used to be mainly selling kegs of beer to local restaurants. Owners opened a taproom to get feedback from customers, but Chevli said the Wauconda location doesn't generate enough foot traffic.

“If we wanted to continue this model, we needed a place in a downtown area,” Chevli said. “And that's when we started looking for new spaces.”

Chevli said plans call for the new taproom to have a capacity of about 160 customers, up from just 60 in Wauconda. He said the new facility will let owners expand the brewery operation and operate a distillery. Chevli said they got a distillery license last year and have their first commercial run done.

“Now we're talking to distributors and are getting them into stores,” Chevli said of their new vodkas and other spirits.

Chevli said spirit Water will have 16 beers, eight hard liquors and two sparkling wines in its portfolio, which no longer includes the original Not Your Father's Root beer that brought the company fame. In 2015, Chevli said, the owners licensed the recipe for the 5.9 percent alcohol content root beer as well as the “Not Your Father's” name to a larger brewery; the terms of the deal are not public.

“We sold that, and that's the end of that,” Chevli said.

But while Not Your Father's Root beer is no longer made by Kovac's team, Chevli said the company will sell a root beer product with a higher concentration of alcohol at the new taproom, just as it has at the Wauconda location.

“What we have in the taproom is completely different,” Chevli said. “We have ones that go up to 24.5 percent alcohol.”