If you haven’t heard, Aces & Ales will be opening a second location on the west side of town. One thing that they are considering, to make it stand out from the original location, and most bars in Las Vegas, is to not serve any macro beers. They wouldn’t be the first bar to do this, Tenaya Creek comes to mind as bar that only serves craft beer, but I doubt there’s any others, outside of local breweries.

Looking through comments online, some people feel that this is outright beer snobbery at its finest, or that this is a poor business decision. Some things that I think about with this:

– This decision has nothing to do with snobbery. Anyone who runs any business can make any business decision they want. Is it snobbery for a bar to not have a pool table? Beer drinkers love pool tables! Or what if a restaurant wants to make pizzas. Is it snobbery of them to not also offer hamburgers? Hamburgers are America’s trademark food item! How could they not offer hamburgers?!

– Is it snobbery that Bellagio does not offer a McDonald’s restaurant at their resort? No, we would all agree that Bellagio has a focus on fine dining, and as such, they have high end restaurants. Are they restaurants that the average citizen can afford to eat at? No, but then again, Bellagio doesn’t cater to average. Why argue that Bellagio doesn’t have to offer commodity restaurants, but a craft beer bar has to offer commodity beers?

– Aces & Ales even offered up a number: 88% of beer drinkers in Las Vegas drink macro beers, and that they would only cater to the other 12%. It might be easy to argue that alienating 88% of your potential customers is a dangerous move, but are those 88% really Aces & Ales customers? Do 88% of the beer drinkers in Las Vegas currently drink at the original Aces & Ales? No they don’t, they drink at any of the other bars, nightclubs, casinos, etc, that offer macro beers. If the new Aces & Ales offered macro beers, what reason would a macro beer drinker have to go to Aces & Ales? There’s likely a bar that they are more familiar with that offers macro beers too. It’s probably closer to home or work, and maybe they even know their name there. So why go somewhere that has 50 taps of beer that they don’t like?

– This decision has nothing to do with beer snobbery in my mind. Hell, I’m the one that said “all beer is good.” So why do I support this decision? Because I can’t think of a reason why they would have to offer macro beers when there are several locally made beers here that could take the place. Big Dog’s offers a light lager, and Joseph James American Craft Lager comes to mind too. Tenaya Creek offers an awesome pilsner, and all three offer up various wheat beers as well. Why should Aces sell an industrialized, commodity product, when they can offer similar alternatives, that are not only American, but also local? If you promote locally hand made food and beer, it’s not going to be that hard to attract customers.

If you are still unsure of this decision, rest assured, Aces & Ales currently plans to only try this out at the new location. Only time will tell how well this turns out.