USA, OH: Bascule Brewery and Public House gets state and federal license to sell its beers

The east side of Lorain, Ohio might get a fresh watering hole sooner than the owners thought after Bascule Brewery and Public House received its state and federal licenses to sell last week, the Chronicle Telegram reported on July 1.

Chris Kambouris, co-founder and co-owner with Fred Lozano Jr., said he initially was under the impression that the company had to be operating at full capacity before they could get the go-ahead to start selling beer.

“We wanted to get started, but with no revenue and not feeling comfortable going back to the community for donations, we were drying up,” Kambouris said. “So I went to the state and kind of got some clarification from them as to what they needed before we started manufacturing, and it turns out it wasn’t as extensive as we originally thought.”

Kambouris said by being able to start selling the craft beer, the brewery can start earning money. He said even though they might be spread a little thin in the beginning, they’ll have a funding source now.

“I know that we’ve gotten a slow start, but everything we’ve done has been very deliberate and cautious,” he said. “We want to learn from mistakes that other people have made as well as their successes.”

The duo has started some locally-focused brews, including a pale ale called “Hop Water” — a play on words for Hot Waters, a former bait and fishing store along lakefront West First Street, and hops, a flavoring agent used in brewing.

“We’re also working on a flavor called Big Bottom Blond,” he said. “It’s a light ale that’s based on the idea that one of the founders of the area, James Root, had to jump over a big gulley or a ravine to get here called ‘Big Bottom.’ Now, I don’t know how much of that story is true, but it’s in the vein of how we’re wanting to name these.”

Kambouris said another beer’s name is rooted in Lorain’s founding as Charleston Village — Charleston Common — which features German and English flavors, not dissimilar to some of Lorain’s early settlers.

The brewery itself is even named after one of Lorain’s most recognizable structures — the Charles Berry Bascule Bridge, the second-largest of its kind in the country. Kambouris and Lozano are using “Raise the bridge” as a calling card for fans and to serve as an homage to the bridge.

While the taproom portion of Bascule Brewery’s headquarters, at Colorado Avenue and Henderson Drive, is mostly a construction zone, Kambouris said he has a vision for the final version of the space.

“I want this to be a place where people aren’t afraid to talk to the person sitting next to them,” he said. “We got some church pews donated, and those are going to make some really unique seating along the one wall; and we have a lot of kitchen sets to fill in the other spaces. It’s going to be unique.”

Kambouris said more often than not, bars are dimly lit, almost like patrons are looking to keep parts of themselves hidden. He said he doesn’t want his place, which features walls of windows facing the street allowing for plenty of natural light, to be like that.

“I want people to feel like this is an extension of their home,” he said. “For plenty of people the gathering place in their house is the kitchen and the dining room, and I want to be that for the people of Lorain and especially the east side.”

Initially, Kambouris said, there were naysayers who didn’t think Bascule Brewery should be on the east side because they said the neighborhood is dead.

“Why wouldn’t I want to try and breathe new life into it then?” he said. “But since we started working over here, people have been stopping and knocking on the windows and wanting tours, wanting to know when we’re going to open, and I just want to be able to serve our surrounding community.”

Kambouris said they could be up and running by the end of the summer, but it won’t be any later than fall when “opening soon” signs are in the windows.

“When Fred took me on a tour of Lorain, he said people say there’s nothing here, but when you actually look at the bones of the city and its geographic advantages, like the lake, I don’t feel like there’s nothing,” he said.

Kambouris said that’s his response for “Why open in Lorain, rather than his hometown of Youngstown?”

“At least that’s why Fred asked me to help him make it happen,” he said. “The reason as to why Lorain is because Lorain needed it.”

04 July, 2017