Sarah Real and Mike Dell’Aquila, the owners of Pittsfield’s Hot Plate Brewing, started with a dream of opening a craft brewery that would be a gathering place for the community and where out-of-town visitors could feel at home. Their vision was to create a warm and inviting urban taproom where people could sit and hang out drinking great beer. It would be “as familiar as a good friend’s apartment.”

“We had originally thought about upstate New York just because we would go from our home in Brooklyn to the Catskills with friends for weekends,” Mike said. “But when we thought about living there full time, we thought, ‘This is a little too rural, and it’s a little too desolate.’ We just didn’t see that that matched our lifestyle.”

The couple knew of the Berkshires from previous visits and the creative writing workshops Mike attended each August given by a Williams College professor.

“When I was coming up here, I realized that the Berkshires have the same kind of geography and outdoor activities as upstate New York. But, wow, there are museums and concerts with music going on. The towns are closer together, and there is a lot of activity. We could see ourselves and our business here.”

In addition to being a rare Latina beer brewer, Sarah’s full-time job was as a market researcher for an international company. So, she gathered data and crunched the numbers. Could a brewery work in Pittsfield?

“The demographics of Berkshire County sit right on top of what the craft beer consumer looks like. And then when you look at who comes as a tourist, that adds even more consumers who are our kind of core customer,” Sarah said.

“And there is no doubt in my mind that Pittsfield is going to grow. General Dynamics is growing. Berkshire Medical Center is growing. VidMob is growing. These great middle-class jobs continue to grow in Pittsfield. And that will mean more customers for us,” Mike added.

They looked all over the Berkshires from Great Barrington to North Adams for the perfect spot. Pittsfield was it.

“We really fell in love with North Street. It has a Brooklyn feel with a great hotel and many fantastic restaurants. Putting a brewery on the corner there just seemed really awesome to us,” Mike explains.

“And it seemed like a place we would want to live in ourselves,” Sarah said, “We can get to a hiking trail, a lake, and out in nature in five minutes. Nature is not an hour and a half drive as it used to be for us. So, as we were thinking about making this life change, it worked both personally and professionally.”

Mike and Sarah’s banker suggested they contact Mike Coakley, the city’s full-time business development manager. Mike and Laurie Mick of PERC, the Pittsfield Economic Revitalization Corporation, worked with them every step of the way.

“I emailed Mike Coakley, and I think it was maybe five minutes later he called me back. We had a great conversation. Mike then started introducing us to people who could help,” Mike said.