South Bend Brew Werks: the theater brewery, and the craft era's first house

2014 — present

The founding: When brewing returned to South Bend as a trade, it returned downtown and small. Andrew "Drew" Elegante, a Notre Dame MBA of 2012, founded the South Bend Brew Werks as what its own filed business plan calls "a 3.5 bbl nanobrewery with taproom and restaurant" — and its first home was a landmark: the State Theatre building at 216 South Michigan Street, where the brewery was the winning reuse in the theater-revival competition whose story the Architecture section tells. The company's own telling, on its site in November 2026, dates its service "Since 2014"; the Scholastic, Notre Dame's student magazine, pins the public opening: "Since the opening on Saturday, Sept. 20" — the 20th of September 2014 was a Saturday — "South Bend Brew Werks has been serving the community with locally made craft beer." Print the founding at that precision: trade accounts date the organized venture to 2013, the room opened to the public on 20 September 2014, and the discrepancy is a paperwork-versus-pouring difference, printed rather than resolved.

Course and present state: The Brew Werks made its giving part of its name: the #Beer4Good program, under which the company reports more than $100,000 donated to local non-profits by 2020, in its own business plan's accounting. Elegante sold the brewery in 2017 to Steve and Michele Lowe; Steve Lowe has been its owner and head brewer since, in the company's telling. The filed plan sizes the house at the decade's end — one of four breweries and brewpubs the plan counts as then operating in South Bend, seven in St. Joseph County, a count printed here as the company's own statement — and in 2021 the brewery moved from the State Theatre to the Hibberd Building at 321 South Main Street, Suite 105B. It stands there in November 2026, operating, its own site live and listing the Main Street address: the craft era's first South Bend brewery is also, on the record reached, its longest-lived.

Sources:

1. South Bend Brew Werks, the company's own publications (southbendbrewwerks.com, read November 2026) — the Main Street address in the Hibberd Building; "Serving Our Community Since 2014"; the 2017 sale to Steve and Michele Lowe and Steve Lowe's tenure as owner and head brewer; the #Beer4Good program; and the company's filed business plan (Form C, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing, 2020) — the 3.5-barrel nanobrewery description, Andrew Elegante as founder, donations above $100,000 by 2020, and the plan's count of four breweries or brewpubs in the city and seven in the county.
2. The Scholastic, Notre Dame student magazine (scholastic.nd.edu) — the opening on Saturday, 20 September 2014, at the State Theatre, 216 South Michigan Street; Indiana on Tap and the theater's architects' project record (shive-hattery.com) — the 2013 dating of the venture and the State Theatre reuse, printed as the conflict above; Architecture section of this history — the State Theatre's revival.