Urbanized
08-29-2016, 02:32 PM
^^^^^^^^
I was wondering the same thing. With on-premises sales and production (and food allowed, yes?) there should be no distinction anymore between brew pubs and craft breweries. If it remains, it seems pretty unfair to the brew pubs, who actually pioneered the re-emergence of local craft beer. One of my best friends is one of the founders of COOP, and we have spoken often that if places like Bricktown Brewery and Belle Isle Brewery had not come into being in the nineties, acceptance of craft beer in OKC would have been much more challenging when the movement emerged. In other words, those places demonstrated to the masses that there was something out there beyond the three or four watered down lagers everyone was drinking before that point. Because of that awakening, more people were ready for true local, craft strong beer when it arrived.
The other side of that coin is that if there had never been so much restriction, places like Bricktown Brewery would probably already be large-scale distributors of strong craft beer. When I visited Oregon earlier this year and a number of the breweries there, it occurred to me that most had started just like BB, but grew to become major craft brewers in time. Deschutes is the perfect example. The original brew pub - started in 1988, just 4 years before Bricktown Brewery - is still open in downtown Bend, and honestly Bricktown Brewery and Belle Isle are both more impressive places. But the beer itself became so popular that it spawned a full-on, separate brewery that is now one of the largest craft breweries in America.
I was wondering the same thing. With on-premises sales and production (and food allowed, yes?) there should be no distinction anymore between brew pubs and craft breweries. If it remains, it seems pretty unfair to the brew pubs, who actually pioneered the re-emergence of local craft beer. One of my best friends is one of the founders of COOP, and we have spoken often that if places like Bricktown Brewery and Belle Isle Brewery had not come into being in the nineties, acceptance of craft beer in OKC would have been much more challenging when the movement emerged. In other words, those places demonstrated to the masses that there was something out there beyond the three or four watered down lagers everyone was drinking before that point. Because of that awakening, more people were ready for true local, craft strong beer when it arrived.
The other side of that coin is that if there had never been so much restriction, places like Bricktown Brewery would probably already be large-scale distributors of strong craft beer. When I visited Oregon earlier this year and a number of the breweries there, it occurred to me that most had started just like BB, but grew to become major craft brewers in time. Deschutes is the perfect example. The original brew pub - started in 1988, just 4 years before Bricktown Brewery - is still open in downtown Bend, and honestly Bricktown Brewery and Belle Isle are both more impressive places. But the beer itself became so popular that it spawned a full-on, separate brewery that is now one of the largest craft breweries in America.