In the fall of 1984, Richard Wrigley, a British transplant from Manchester who once likened Michelob to “a soft drink,” opened a 5,000-square-foot brewpub called the Manhattan Brewing Co. It was located in its namesake borough, in an old electric-company station at Watts and Thompson streets in the not-quite-fashionable-yet Soho neighborhood. Wrigley sold two ales