Cheers to Big Lick Brewing Company As It Readies To Open This Weekend
If the countless “window shoppers” who have been stopping by Roanoke’s newest brewery to check on its progress are any indication, Big Lick Brewing Company is set to have one very successful opening weekend. For the past few weeks, owner and brewer Bryan Summerson has seen many a curious face peering through his brewery’s front door as he has worked tirelessly to ready it for opening. That curiosity is about to be satisfied as Summerson will officially open his doors at 4pm this Thursday, September 18, at its location near the corner of 2nd Street and Salem Avenue in downtown Roanoke.
This past weekend, Summerson invited a few friends and family down to the brewery’s tasting room to take in its cozy, beautiful décor and taste some of the beers that will be making more of a public appearance at the official opening. One of those beers, “This Time IPA”, highlighted Big Lick’s approach – keeping a consistently changing line up of roughly six beers on draft in order to keep things interesting for the brewery’s patrons. The brewery will offer tasting flights, full pours, and growler fills of its beers, depending on the size of the batches.
Changing the available beers on a regular basis fits in well with the constantly changing curiosity of many craft beer fans. While some breweries thankfully do this with one or two offerings, typically available only at the brewery itself, Big Lick plans to vary all of their beers over time, making for a great spot for the truly curious to try different styles of small batch handcrafted beers. In addition, the six taps at Big Lick should offer a wide variety of beers at any one time. This past weekend, for example, the available beers included a Porter brewed with toasted coconut, an English style Brown Ale, an Imperial IPA, a Cream Ale, and a Black Saison in addition to the “regular” IPA.
That IPA, as well as the other selections, was delicious, and sported the kind of pungent, tropical citrus like aroma and flavor that make most fans of the style a little weak in the knees.
Down the line, the entire line up of beer followed suit by being flavorful examples of its style, and in the end, offered another perspective on Big Lick’s potential success – and one much clearer than you would be able to gather by just peering in through the front door.
Check out a few snapshots of inside the brewery below, and visit their Facebook page here!
The Beer Road 