More good news for Arkansas’s craft beer explosion: Craft Beer Cellar, the five-year-old Massachusetts-based craft beer store with 22 locations coast to coast and another 16 in the works, is in the process of opening their first outlet in Arkansas, at 120 Ouachita Avenue in Hot Springs. Speaking from Beer Cellar headquarters in Belmont, Mass., co-owner Suzanne Schalow said that though the permitting process grinds on, the target date for opening the Hot Springs location is Oct. 1.
Schalow said the location will offer not only many varieties of craft beer in bottles, but also fill-and-go growlers and “crowlers,” 32-ounce aluminum cans which can be filled and sealed in the store with your choice of suds. The cans, she said, are more conducive to taking on outdoor activities like camping and boating than fragile glass growler jugs might be. Schalow said that if permitting goes through, the Hot Springs location also hopes to offer on-site beer sales in an attached taproom. “So, it’s part taproom, part bottled beer to go, part bottled beer,” she said, “all in synergistic balance and all in the name of good beer.”
While Craft Beer Cellar is known for stocking more obscure brews, Schalow said which beers will be on hand at the Hot Springs location depends a lot on which breweries have registered to distribute in the state. “Distribution is controlled by the 21st Amendment, and all states are able to control that themselves,” she said. “Much will depend on what is available in that state, what’s registered in that state, what breweries have already elected to come in that state. But because we’re in this thing pretty deeply, I feel extremely confident in saying a lot of breweries follow us into the market.”
For more information about Craft Beer Cellar, visit their Facebook page.