Human Robot brewery expands again, with two more locations in the city and the suburbs

Brewerytown residents lamenting the loss of its only brewery — the recently shuttered Crime and Punishment — could breathe a sigh of relief this week upon learning their neighborhood would not be brewery-less for long: The team behind Human Robot has purchased the building at 2711 W. Girard Ave. and plans to reopen the space this summer as Human Robot Girard.

“The hope is we can just kind of flip it and open it like mid-June,” said co-founder Jake Atkinson, who owns the five-year-old brewery with Chris Roller and Ken Correll.

The partners have a busy spring and summer ahead of them: They’re also opening a new Human Robot location in New Hope, in the former Great Barn Brewery’s Farm to Glass Taproom at 12 W. Mechanic St. This new bar will be called Doubles — Atkinson declined to disclose more details about the name at this point — and it will have waterfront seating beside the Delaware Canal Towpath.

Human Robot Schuylkill Banks, the brewery’s surprise third location, will wind down at the end of May, as its sublessor, Spread Bagelry, is leaving the Walnut Street space.

Atkinson said he plans to retain staff from Crime and Punishment at Human Robot Girard. Human Robot also plans to brew an homage to Crime and Punishment’s flagship IPA, Space Race, to keep the brewery’s legacy alive in the space.

“We respect what they did for that neighborhood. They were there 10 years,” Atkinson said. “It’s not like [Crime and Punishment owner] Mike [Paul] was doing badly. He was just killing himself brewing in that little place.”

Human Robot won’t be brewing there; all equipment will be removed to make way for additional seating. The Brewerytown location will also have food from Poe’s Sandwich Joint, whose owner — who goes by NA Poe (born Richard Tamaccio Jr.) — plans to debut a “slightly new concept” there called Poe’s Side Piece. (Poe lives nearby and has been coaching little league for a neighborhood team. He said he is “stoked to feed a lot of the parents and new neighbors I’ve met while they have a few pints of amazing beer.”)

Doubles will be a small tasting room with six taps and cans to-go. It won’t have a food vendor — “we’re surrounded by restaurants there, so it’s like a South Philly situation, there’s plenty of places to eat” — but it will have a different aesthetic than any other Human Robot locations, Atkinson said. “It’s gonna be a very curated, very cool.” The brewery is targeting July 1 for opening.

With the new outposts in Brewerytown and New Hope, Human Robot will have five locations in all, rounding out the original Kensington brewery and (tiny, no-kids-allowed after 2 p.m.) tasting room, the 5,600-square-foot Jenkintown brewery taproom (which is pro-kids, with food from Cantina La Martina), and its South Philly taproom just off East Passyunk Avenue. With that, the brewery has maxed out the storage licenses that allow it to operate satellite locations.

“My brewers might kill me before another one,” Atkinson joked. (He told The Inquirer, “We’re done, this is it!” after opening Human Robot South Philly in 2023.)

Atkinson said that Human Robot — well-known for its long list of lagers (Czech, German, Mexican, Irish, etc.) and its ultra-foamy Milk Tubes — makes just enough beer to supply all these bars. Its production is up to 3,000 barrels a year. (Compare that to, say, Yards, which has the ability to brew 100,000+ barrels a year.)

From its outset in 2020, Human Robot has pursued a different business strategy than many of its craft beer competitors; rather than jockeying for shelf space or draft lines, it aimed to be a neighborhood bar. “We don’t distribute at all. We’re at a couple restaurants, but none of it’s real volume,” Atkinson said. It has proved a durable model even as other breweries vying for distribution have petered out.

Human Robot also throws one of the few annual beer festivals that capture the same energy of craft beer’s 2010s heyday. Log Jammin’, a celebration of lagers now in its fifth year, is a sell-out event held at Cherry Street Pier. This year’s event features more than 70 breweries, including regional makers like Tonewood and The Seed, and will be held June 7, with all proceeds going to the Michael James Jackson Foundation, which funds education and career advancement for Black, Indigenous, and people of color in the brewing and distilling industries.