“This is a scary moment for us, but we’re excited,” Eamoni Collier, co-founder and co-owner of Urban Garden Brewing, told DC Beer’s Brandy Nicole Holder at the May 2 release of their newest beer, Chimera, at Valor Brewpub. The draft-only, margarita-influenced wheat beer is a collaboration with Valor and their head brewer, Rob Rodriguez, and features oranges, lime, and habaneros.
What’s scary and exciting? Just a few hours earlier, Urban Garden Brewing signed their lease in The Modern at Art Place, a building that’s a two-block walk down the hill from the Ft. Totten Metro station. UGB is now one step closer to becoming Washington, DC’s first BIPOC woman-owned and operated brewery.
“Things are progressing well. We’ve successfully completed phase 1 of our fundraiser and have also secured funding for the entire build-out,” Collier told DC Beer’s Mike Stein via email. “Now, we are moving into Phase 2 to secure investors for equipment purchases…. We’ve applied for the locally manufactured grant and are hoping that our application is approved, as it will bring us to 90% of our goal in raising funds.”
That fundraising and paperwork, in addition to day jobs, hasn’t left much time for brewing, so the mood at Valor is one of both celebration and relief, with an eye towards the future. Collier wrote “we’ve temporarily paused production so that we can focus all of our efforts on the brick-and-mortar. As Holder sat down to interview Collier and Lindsay Castillo, UGB co-owners, excitement and emotions ran high.
“I’m really excited for the first brew in our own house. Brewing in your own home is gonna hit differently than brewing in other people’s wonderful homes that they allow us to use…that moment it’s like buying your first house…nothing like taking that first shower in your house… doing that first brew, where it’s like ‘this is us’…and it will be a moment. We’ll definitely be recording the whole thing,” Castillo tells DC Beer.
Urban Garden will be a brewery, not a brewpub, but worry not because their next door neighbor will be a pizzeria, though we can’t say who just yet.
“Right now it’s more of a keep cool, calm, composed [and] let’s accept the information and then embrace it. It’s been a long time coming,” Castillo told DC Beer’s Holder.
“Keep going. It’s hard. It’s scary. Dream bigger than what you can expect yourself to do” Collier tells us. “Never give up,” Castillo says emphasizing the sentiment.
In other Black-owned brewery beer collaboration news, Soul Mega and Red Bear’s Berry-ocracy, a wheat beer with blackberries, is available at Red Bear and in cans.
