From empty church to renovated brewery: Holy Moley Brewing opens in Dennison

DENNISON ‒ A 19th century church that had stood empty downtown for many years has been given new life as the home of the Holy Moley Brewing Co.

The craft brewery is located in the former Grant Street United Methodist Church, 306 Grant St., next to the Dennison municipal building. It opened for business last month.

Holy Moley offers five craft beers and nine wines — five red and four white, from dry to sweet. Everything is made on premises.

It is open from 4 p.m. to midnight Friday, 11 a.m. to midnight Saturday and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday.

"I think it's going to be a great place to come and sit and be with your friends and drink some good wine and beer," said Candy Gribble, who co-owns the brewery with her fiancé, Greg McCullough.

The sanctuary has been converted into a bar room and dining room area. The original stained glass windows remain in place. The pews have been converted into seating for patrons and the table tops are made from pew backs. A bar, made out of material from the old altar, lines the back wall. Above the bar are several flat-screen TVs so customers can watch sporting events.

The front of the sanctuary has a space for live entertainment.

In the warmer months, customers can sit on a patio in front of the church.

Plans for kitchen in the works

McCullough and Gribble have plans to open a kitchen in the near future. Currently, the business works with a local restaurant, where patrons can order food online and have it delivered to Holy Moley. McCullough said they hope to have the kitchen open within six months to a year.

Then, the business will offer hearty sandwiches for beer drinkers, and meat, cheese, bread and cold salads for wine drinkers. They want to source everything out of Amish country.

McCullough handles the duties of brewing the beer.

"I've been homebrewing for about 25 years," he said. "My mentor is Marty Lindon out of Millersburg Brewing Co. He used to have get-togethers at his place before he got involved with his own restaurant. You could just show up, bring a covered dish and he'd have 10 or 15 beers on tap that you could try. I learned to brew all grain from him.

"Since I've been old enough to drink, I've always enjoyed beer with some flavor. It's always been a passion. It was always intended to be a retirement job for me."

McCullough works for the Timken Co. in Stark County and Gribble works in the medical field.

Converting a church into Holy Moley brewery

The church dates to 1895, when construction on the building was completed. After the church closed in the 1990s, it went through several owners. It was used as offices for Trinity Hospital Twin City, storage space for the Dennison Railroad Depot Museum and as a residence.

McCullough purchased the building in 2016 with plans to turn it into a brewery.

"I invited some friends down to try to talk me out of it, talk some sense into me, and they couldn't," he said. He got approval for the project from Dennison council and then went to work renovating the building.

"It needed a lot of love. The walls had holes. The ceiling was stained and had previous water damage," he said.

He and Gribble put up a new tin ceiling, patched and painted the walls, ripped up the floor and installed a new one and added three new bathrooms. It was a long process, interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There were days when you came in and wanted to cry," McCullough said. "It's like a roller coaster ride some days. You felt like you failed, and some days you had big successes. A lot of highs and a lot of lows, but certainly days when I wondered what I was doing. But there was really never a question of quitting or giving up because I was all in on this."

Added Gribble, "I didn't think we were ever going to get here. It seemed like you took two steps forward, five steps back and you just had to keep pushing forward."

Holy Moley joins several other craft breweries in former churches in Ohio, including Bell Tower in Kent, Urban Artifact and Taft's in Cincinnati, Father John's in Bryan, Moeller Brew Barn in Troy and Noble Creature Cask House in Youngstown.

This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: Holy Moley opens in renovated church in Dennison