Craft beer pub, wood-fired pizza restaurant in works
Craft beer pub and wood-fired pizza place in works
Craft beer pub, wood-fired pizza restaurant in works Craft beer pub and wood-fired pizza place in works Check out this story on marionstar.com: http://ohne.ws/1lGjkhP
John Jarvis Published 4:35 p.m. ET June 29, 2014 | Updated 8:37 p.m. ET June 29, 2014
David Meddings displays a pint of his hand-crafted Irish Heavy Ale, one of five beers he has perfected as a home brewer. Meddings is seeking funding to open a brew pub in Marion which will feature his beers and pub grub standards like wood fired pizza and pulled-pork sliders. James Miller/The Marion Star(Photo: James Miller/The Marion Star, James Miller/The Marion Star)Buy Photo
MARION – A pleasant, full-bodied aroma wafts across the room as David Meddings pours a couple of his craft brews.
The Willowwood Way resident hopes to be filling an exponentially larger number of glasses with beers he will make for customers at Twenty-Nine BrewPub and Wood Fired Pizza.
"I'll brew your darker beers, some stouts and porters, your heavier beers," he says. "We're going to have a full variety of beers, some very light, and we'll also incorporate the seasonal favorites, your holiday ales ... but the flavor combinations are endless. You can do so much with them."
A captain in the National Guard, Meddings hatched the idea for the business enterprise while serving overseas.
"When I was deployed in Afghanistan, I was trying to come up with ways to make Ta Die For flourish," he says, referring to Ta Die For Cupcakes, a cupcake bakery he and his wife, Missy, opened in the winter of 2010. "It's hard to know. I just kept going back to how much I enjoy beer, and I like flavorful beer." He did his research and the "cost analysis just made sense."
Named loosely after Warren G. Harding, the 29th U.S. president, Meddings' establishment will offer six to eight different craft beers daily, along with wood-fired pizzas and pub-style appetizers. Dessert will be gourmet cupcakes from Ta Die For and cookies from Sweet Surrender Cookie Co., owned by Jared and Sarah Robinson, the Meddings' business partners.
"We've been with Missy and David a little over a year now," Sarah Robinson says. "We have a really good working relationship together. They approached us, and we knew this was a dream of his. We just wanted to be part of it and wanted to make it happen."
Meddings says the project has been conditionally approved for a bank loan, and he has investors "coming on board" to help him with "my initial cash injection." He hopes a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, which can be accessed at www.kck.st/1qQzpV1, will yield pledges for $25,000 by July 25 to help secure the loan.
To open Twenty-Nine, the partners need between $400,000 and $600,000 for construction, equipment and operating funds. No one who pledges to the Kickstarter project is charged anything unless Twenty-Nine reaches its goal of $25,000 by July 25.
He says he hopes to have the brew pub open by late fall of this year and is narrowing down a possible site, which he expects to "lock in" within a month.
"We have a couple locations that I'm talking around," he says. "We're trying to negotiate one out on (Ohio) 95 (East), but we're getting a pretty heavy push to come downtown."
He says he began brewing beer as a hobby about five years ago.
"It's the overall taste," he says, explaining his affection for the craft. "I guess when I drink, I'm not going out for the overall buzz. I'm going out for the flavor. One of our thoughts is that beer and wine pair very well with cheese. We're going to have a cheese plate to really bring out the full flavor of the beer. And the brewing process, I have a chemistry background. It's just very fun to dabble to see what you can create."
His favorites are a Kentucky bourbon barrel porter and a pecan nut brown ale, which will be one of the pub's daily flagship brews. He also plans to offer cream ales and IPAs, along with stouts and porters regularly.
Meddings says he will use a three-barrel system, which he configured to allow him to brew in small batches, offering six to eight craft beers daily, with a frequent rotation of the selection and introduction of seasonal beers. Customers will be able to buy beer in a pint glass or by the growler, either a 64-ounce size or a 128-ounce size. He said he plans to approach a local home brewers association about offering one of Twenty-Nine's taps for one of the association's craft beers.
Twenty-Nine will be done in phases, he said. Phase 1 will be the opening; Phase 2, in the spring an "over-the-top" patio will be added; Phase 3, expansion into a larger area or add a secondary location will be sought.
It will join a rapidly growing niche of craft brew establishments, Meddings says.
"In Colorado, they're opening 43 percent higher than the rest of the nation," he says. "Ohio's just really catching on with the amount of brew pubs. Cleveland, Ohio, will have one of the most congested areas (of brew pubs) outside of Belgium."
Sarah Robinson says she's confident the brew pub will be a success.
"Absolutely," she says. "There's nothing like this in Marion. It's a different atmosphere. Marion has just a regular bar scene. Nobody around here has wood-fired pizza. It's a new concept and growing concept, and I think it will take off well."
jjarvis@marionstar.com
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