Blue Blaze Brewing Co. planning a brewery for northwest Charlotte | Charlotte Observer

Blue Blaze Brewing Co. is planning to open a microbrewery in Charlotte’s northwest side.

Property records show the beer-makers are eyeing the lower portion of the historic building at 528 S. Turner, right off State Street.

The brewery will add parking and do landscaping and streetscape improvements, according to the records, and will build a new outdoor deck and patio adjacent to the tap room inside.

According to its Facebook page, Blue Blaze specializes in artisan, handcrafted beers made sustainably with organic ingredients. The brewing company was founded in May 2013.

It’s headed by co-founders and brewers Craig Nunn and Sven Giersmann, and its head brewer is Steve Turner, an instructor of fermentation science and technology at Colorado State University, according to a recent interview with the Queen City Brewers Festival.

“I appreciate what Birdsong has done with their taproom, and without having TVs, they’ve created this environment where people can interact where they might not have otherwise,” Nunn said in the interview.

The brewery will be in a part of town near Johnson C. Smith University that has experienced a slowdown of business activity over the years. But revitalization efforts, like a recent grant from the Knight Foundation, aim to turn the historic northwest corridor into a bustling residential and commercial district that connects directly to uptown Charlotte.