Marlborough Brewer Takes Leadership Role At State Beer Guild

MARLBOROUGH, MA — The chief beer maker at Marlborough's Lost Shoe Brewing is taking a leadership role at a state craft beer organization, where he'll advocate for law changes to benefit the state's breweries.

JP Gallagher will serve as vice president of the Massachusetts Brewers Guild with Norwood's Castle Island Brewing Company Adam Romanow serving as president.

Gallagher will help lead an effort to change state law around two key issues for breweries. The guild wants the state to grant permission for craft beer to be sold at farmers' markets. Only wine and alcoholic drinks like mead can be sold at markets presently.

The guild has also been trying to change a law allowing brewpubs — a subcategory of beer businesses that typically also sell food, like Moon Hill in Gardner — to self-distribute their own products.

“A big reason why I wanted to run for a board seat was because of how much the MBG has helped us as a small business,” Gallagher said in a news release. Lost Shoe has “valued the support that we've been given through the MBG. I want to make sure that other breweries in Massachusetts can benefit from that as well.”

Gallagher and his wife, Melynda, co-founded Lost Shoe along Weed Street in 2019 as a brewery and coffee roaster. The business has become a key part of downtown Marlborough activity, hosting the city's farmers' markets and partaking in the recent September food truck festivals.

About 130 of the state's 230 breweries are members of the brewers guild.