USA, TN: Smith & Lentz Brewing Company opens in Nashville

Nashville's fast-growing craft beer industry has a new player: Smith & Lentz Brewing Company on the east side, The Tennessean reported on November 5.

The 6,200-square-foot brewery opened last week at 903 Main St. The brewery is separated from the spacious taproom, which has bar seating, high-top tables and picnic-style seating, along with a ping-pong table.

Smith & Lentz is the brainchild of friends Kurt Smith and Adler Lentz, both from Wisconsin who met while living in Austin. Lentz was the head brewer at Hops & Grains and Smith worked as an environmental and risk consultant while homebrewing on the side.

“Once we found out we both watch the Green Bay Packers, we started watching that together and became friends,” Smith said.

Their friendship eventually evolved into a business partnership and they chose Music City as the destination for their neighborhood-focus brewery. The duo are handling all aspects of the business themselves, from brewing to bartending and cleaning.

“One of the biggest reasons we moved here would be just the sheer openness of the market,” Lentz said. “When we were writing a business plan there were maybe 11, 12 breweries. There just wasn’t much here as far as the size of the city goes.”

Today, Nashville has about 15 craft breweries with more than a half dozen on the way. Two other breweries are preparing to open in East Nashville in addition to Smith & Lentz.

Smith said he sees plenty of room for growth in the local beer scene.

06 November, 2015