You all remember CraftHaus right? Back in May, I had the wonderful pleasure of meeting with (and drinking with!) Dave and Wyndee Forrest, founders of CraftHaus Brewery. At that time, they were just launching their Kickstarter campaign to help with the final funding of their brewery. They’ve since surpassed their goal, and have been sitting quiet while they prepare for their grand opening.
Not satisfied by simply waiting for the brewery to open, I’ve reached out to Wyndee to catch up on where they are in the process, and to get their thoughts on what it’s like to start a business.
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Raise your hand if you were at the beer and chocolate pairing event with Happy Ending Chocolates at Tenaya Creek Brewery. If you didn’t raise your hand just now, go ahead and slap yourself for missing out on an incredibly fun evening enjoying delicious beers and chocolates specially prepared for the event.
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UDATED WITH TAP LIST!
This upcoming Friday, July the 26th, the Nevada Craft Brewers Association is having a tap takeover at the new Aces & Ales on Tenaya. Expect to see most of the local breweries in attendance as they pour specially brewed beers for the event. Additionally, $1 from each pint will be donated to the Nevada Craft Brewers Association.
The event begins at 7PM.
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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: (more…)
Crafthaus currently has $13,540 pledged of their goal of $20,000, or about 68% to goal. There is only 9 days left to raise another $6,460.
We are fans of all the great local businesses here in Las Vegas, especially those that promote craft beer, whether they be bars or retailers. In the case of breweries, we get exceptionally excited.
I’ve agreed to host an “All About Beer” class at the brewery once they open. For a donation of only $30, I’ll take you on a tour of Crafthaus’ brewery and discuss how beer is brewed. We’ll sample the beers and discuss sensory evaluation and food pairing.
Of course, there are plenty of other awesome gifts for other donation amounts, like entry into the Propagation Program.
For more information, read my interview with founders Dave and Wyndee Forrest here, and visit their Kickstarter campaign here.
We are very excited to have another craft brewery joining the Las Vegas community! Below is a press release for CraftHaus Brewery, and their impending Kickstarter launch. Be sure to catch them pouring their beers at Big Dog’s Peace Love, and Hoppy-ness on April 13th, and the Great Vegas Festival
Of Beer on April 27th! (more…)
One week into 2013 and I finally took the time to look back at 2012. I thought I’d reshare several of the most read posts over the past year. I hope you all enjoy this look back!
#drinklocal
An ode to supporting all the businesses here in Las Vegas that promote craft beer across the valley!
The Great Las Vegas Festival of Beer
A recap of the 2nd annual Vegas Festival of Beer. Worth reading up considering the 3rd Festival of Beer is coming up soon!
Hooked on Hops at Tenaya Creek
Last year we held a special food pairing at Tenaya Creek with their Imperial Stout and Goran’s gingerbread stout cake!
An Updated Guide to Aging Beers
Worth reading through a few times if you have any interesting in understanding how to age beers.
Freshness Matters
Worth reading through a few times to understand the importance of drinking beer as fresh as possible.
Kind of contradicts the aging article huh? Nope. Read both and learn why!
Bacon and IPA Spaghetti
Another one of Goran’s food recipes featuring beer!
The Las Vegas Downtown Brew Festival
After the success of the Great Las Vegas Festival of Beer, 2012 saw the premiere of the Downtown Brew Festival!
What The Craft Beer Scene Can Learn From The Metal Scene
Last year saw craft beer fans searching for the most obscure breweries possible, while calling out the pioneers as overrated. Armando shared his thoughts here.
Danny is a Ninja
Right at the tail end of the year, we launched a video mini-series reviewing some beers. The first iteration is New Belgium’s La Folie. We have since added Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA, and Stone Vertical Epic 12.12.12
Tenaya Creek: Tapping their newest beer, God of Thunder Baltic Porter, at 6PM. Sauced Food Truck will be serving food made with the beer, and Tenaya Creek will be raffling a growler of the beer at 7 and 8PM.
Khoury’s Fine Wine: Also tonight at 6PM, Khoury’s will be tapping 3 rare kegs of Ballast Point beers: Victory At Sea (imperial vanilla coffee porter), Barrel Aged Black Marlin (porter), and Abandon Ship (smoked lager). Sausagefest Food Truck will be serving food.
The above hash tag is used often, even by me, on twitter and untappd when talking about local breweries. I want to take a moment and expand this loose definition even further.
First and foremost, I am not trying to discredit any of the breweries here in Las Vegas, or take away from the work that they do. Instead, I want to give credit where credit is due to the other small businesses in town who are also working hard to impact the craft beer community.
First, breweries like Tenaya Creek, Joseph James, and Big Dog’s Brewery do an amazing job of making incredible beers, and distributing these across not just the state, but in other states as well. But don’t forget about everything else they do besides brew great beer. Tenaya Creek and Big Dog’s both operate brewpubs where they not only serve their own beers, but they include guest taps as well. Big Dog’s holds several beer fests each year with incredible beer lists from a lot of great breweries across the country. All three of these breweries are incredibly helpful and supportive of the growing homebrew community and the local homebrew club, SNAFU. Tenaya Creek and Joseph James participate in GABF Pro-Am competitions and offer to brew winning homebrew batches of beer in their breweries. Big Dog’s offers classes for people to come and brew Big Dog’s beer at the brewery, and take home a growler of beer that they helped to brew.
In addition to these breweries, there are several other smaller breweries who also operate brewpubs and beer fests. Altogether, without these companies, not only would we have less beer in Nevada, we’d also have a smaller pool of bars available that offer craft beer. There would be less support for homebrewers, and as a result, there would likely be fewer homebrewers and fewer new breweries in planning.
Second, I think it’s worth mentioning the other businesses who are also deserving of the #drinklocal tag, even if they do not brew their own beer. Places like Khoury’s and Aces & Ales, offer a tremendous service to Las Vegas craft beer drinkers.
Khoury’s not only has a great bottle selection, but they even offer beer on tap and let you drink beer in the store. As a result, Wednesday nights have become a weekly gathering of craft beer drinkers across the the city. Guests are welcome to open and share beers with other guests, whether they are purchased at Khoury’s or not, and best of all, there’s no corkage fee! Wednesday nights also feature local food trucks, and often a brewery tapping or serving of a new beer.
Aces & Ales has the best beer list in the city. Best of all, the prices are just right too. They hold several yearly beer fests, and even brewery tap takeovers, like the yearly Stone Domination, featuring Stone CEO Greg Koch. They offer several weekly specials, like discounted growler fills on Sunday, and Tuesday Night Tastings, which feature a specially prepared dish paired with a featured beer. In addition to their tap list, they also offer a range of beers available in bottles, including several aged beers.
Both Khoury’s and Aces & Ales, among others like Money Plays, The Dillinger, and even Public House and Todd English’s PUB, are helping to spread cask ales, double dry hopped beers, beer sharing, food pairing, aged vertical tastings, and beer fests across Las Vegas.
Supporting these local breweries and businesses also supports craft beer in Las Vegas. The more support we can give to our retailers and restaurants who serve craft beer, then the more we are building a stronger craft beer community in Las Vegas, and the more distributorship this city will get, the more craft beer events will be held, the more breweries will get started, and more retailers and craft beer bars will open. Support your local businesses and #drinklocal!