Eric Eby: Do you love beer? Of course, you do. I'm Eric Eby with the Curtis Realty Group, and on this week's episode of Naturally NWA, I'm going to take you to my natural choice when I'm looking for a great local brewery that provides a full selection of craft beers, Bentonville Brewing Company. Come with me and let's go check them out here. Here we are in front of Bentonville Brewing Company's brand new location on 14th street in Bentonville, right next to Climb Bentonville. This place is super nice on the inside, but more importantly, that's where they keep the beer. So let's go check it out. This is Katie. She's one of the owners and the COO of Bentonville Brewing Company. Tell me how long have you guys officially been in business?

Katie: Well, we have been operational for five years.

Eric Eby: Okay. And this location is brand new. When did it officially open or when will it officially open?

Katie: Excellent question. So it doesn't have an easy answer. We were going to have our big grand opening, the 4th of April. However, the current COVID-19 crisis has kind of changed those plans.

Eric Eby: Sure.

Katie: Were able to open fortunately for curbside and to go service. So we have been operating out of here since the 1st of April, but we haven't actually had any customers coming in to check the place out.

Eric Eby: And now nobody can hang out in this beautiful taproom yet.

Katie: Not yet.

Eric Eby: Gotcha.

So Katie, this place is obviously set up to be a really cool hangout spot, right? And it's not just for people who want to come in and drink, right? It's really geared towards to being a family out here as well, right?

Katie: Absolutely. So we want it to be a place where you can come and hang out with all sorts of people in the community. And I have two young kids. So I think it's really important that young families get to hang out together. They don't have to choose between hanging out with their significant other or their friends or their children. So we've really built it all inclusive. So there is an inside children's play area with puzzles and a magnet wall and chalkboard. And then outside, we've got a little pump track for kids so they can use stride bikes and like plenty of room to run around and stuff to do.

Eric Eby: Oh very cool.

Katie: So it's really exciting. We even have a little dog run that goes around the patio too.

Eric Eby: Oh cool.

Katie: So people with fur babies can have a beer with their dogs.

Eric Eby: Yeah. Absolutely. This is one of the top five dog friendly places in the country, northwest Arkansas is. I don't know if you knew that.

Katie: I didn't.

Eric Eby: Three, two, one. So Katie, how many different varieties of beer do you guys brew here?

Katie: Well, that's a good question. We have five varieties that we brew right now year round.

Eric Eby: Okay.

Katie: But we do a ton of one offs and like cool specialty, one time things.

Eric Eby: Like seasonal stuff?

Katie: Yes. Like our salted cherry sour, which we just started brewing is one of our most popular summer seasonals.

Eric Eby: Okay.

Katie: We're going to be putting that in bottles this year, but it's typically only on draft in our tap room. But this year we were able to do a little bit more with our new, bigger brew house. It's really enabled us to not make that such an exclusive beer as it has in the past. We also do a special imperial stout, but now that we're in our new, bigger location, we're really excited about being more creative in doing more of these one awesome seasonal beers.

Eric Eby: Got it. So I'm standing here with Lauren. Lauren is the manager of the Burg, which is the food supplier here at Bentonville Brewing Company. Lauren, how's it going?

Lauren: It's going good.

Eric Eby: Fantastic. So, Lauren, I understand that things have because of coronavirus have been a little slow to get opened up and things aren't really normal right now. When are you guys going to be open to start selling food here?

Lauren: We'll be open for service on May 11.

Eric Eby: Okay.

Lauren: We'll be doing dine-in and takeout.

Eric Eby: Okay.

Lauren: And we'll also have plenty of service out on the patio.

Eric Eby: Okay.

Lauren: So you can place your orders online. You can pay online, but we can also handle transactions at our window.

Eric Eby: Okay, perfect. Tell me what kind of food are you guys going to be serving here at the Burg?

Lauren: We are serving German pub fare with a high South twist. So we are working with the executive chef from Tusk & Trotter, Rob Nelson.

Eric Eby: Okay.

Lauren: And he is known for his signature high South style. So you'll be seeing a lot of German classics with Rob's kind of take on that.

Eric Eby: Okay. So kind of gave me some ideas of what would be included in that.

Lauren: we're going to be serving a lot of sausage. Everything is going to be made in house from scratch. We're going to be making our own sausage. We're going to be making our own fermentations. So the sauerkraut is going to be fresh and made here on site. Yeah.

Eric Eby: Okay. Cool. Cool. Very cool. It sounds like it's going to be delicious. I wish I could eat some right now, but I'll be back on the 11th to try some.

Lauren: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Eric Eby: Thank you so much, Lauren.

Lauren: You're welcome.

Eric Eby: I appreciate it.

I told you guys that this place was the natural choice when you're craving some craft beer in northwest Arkansas. If you're interested in checking them out, please be sure to stop by their new location here in Bentonville at 901 Southwest 14th Street. Be sure to also check out their website where you can find a list of other places that their beer is available across northwest Arkansas.

Thank you for watching another episode of Naturally NWA, where we support the residents and local businesses of thriving northwest Arkansas. If you would like to have your business featured on a future episode, please give me a shout. I'm Eric Eby with the Curtis Realty Group at Home Quest Realty, and I can't wait to show you more of our beautiful area on the next step episode of Naturally NWA.