I feel like it’s been a long time since I started talking and teasing about this projects existence.  It’s finally time, though, to start rolling out details for Quarter Barrel’s second location.  The brewery has been quietly operating up in Oxford since 2010, and has managed to stay of the radar of a lot of the Cincinnati craft beer community in that time – but if you have been paying attention, you might have noticed that they’re doing some pretty innovative things up there with their food – which leads me to believe that a brewpub idea down here a little “closer to the action” might do some really big things for the small brewery.

About Their New Space

The Hamilton Brewpub is going to take the idea that has been Quarter Barrel, and lift it to new heights.  Everything is getting an upgrade!  While they won’t be stepping up their brewhouse to a massive system like some of our other breweries have done for their second space, the actual atmosphere itself is getting a major upgrade.

The building that they are moving into sits right on the corner of Main and B streets in Hamilton, it overlooks the bridge and the downtown area from the West Side of the river, and they’re looking to capitalize on that location perfectly.  When finished you’ll find a multi-level restaurant with several spaces designed to fulfill a few different dining needs.  The bottom floor is where you’ll find the beer.  This space will feature a glass wrapped brewhouse where you can also observe the passers-by on street level.  Moving up to the middle floor (the kitchen level) you’ll find the ‘Chef’s Dining Table’ a more upscale eating area – and then when weather permits, you can also venture up to the rooftop patio where you can dine overlooking the Great Miami River, the city views, and even Northward to the new Spooky Nook Sports Complex that will be located at the former Champion Mills.

It provides a little something for everyone to enjoy – however they might want to enjoy it.

The Crowd Funding

This massive project is more than a million dollar investment into the City of Hamilton – and they are looking for just $40,000 of that to hopefully come from crowd funding.  To try to entice all of us to help them hit their goal, they’ve come up with a few tiers of rewards depending on how much you choose to donate, and some of the rewards are pretty sweet.

The top of the tiers features the Investor dinner event, which is a recurring event featuring a four course dinner – served family style, each course being paired with a different beer style and catered in a private reserved restaurant filled with your fellow investors.

And if you donate at the $500 level or higher, you get your name featured on a commemorative plaque that will be displayed in the Chef’s Table dining room for all to see.

The rewards are all pretty straight forward and easy to understand – for each level, you get what is featured, plus everything that is below it – so the higher you back, the better your loot will be!

I’m not here to try to convince you if crowd funding a brewery or restaurant is good or bad… weather you should or shouldn’t do it.  But I want to you get a vision of what they are hoping to do with this new space, and what it could mean for a brewery that has been part of this beer community for the last seven years.  This space will give them a chance to be a bigger part of something that we all love – the Cincinnati beer scene.

This is an exciting chance for Quarter Barrel, for the city of Hamilton, and for Greater Cincinnati – and I can’t wait to see them run with the idea and knock this out of the park!

If you want to help support the brewery in their second space, they’ve launched a GoFundMe account to facilitate their crowd funding.  You can visit the page and read a little more about them, and what they plan – as well as support them!