At Braxton, a garage is more than a garage. It’s a place where we build our hopes and dreams, storing them on the wall neat as garden tools. Really, the garage is a hub. A reliable place from which we launch into the world, and enjoy a safe return.
We hang out in our garages. Saturday mornings, afternoons, long into the night. Sometimes hosting neighbors, family and friends, other times in blissful solitude, tinkering on projects, obsessing over a problem or making something great. Think of the garages in your past. You’ll remember your dad fixing a lawnmower or building a table, where he taught you to say “Yes, sir.” You can almost smell the oil and beer.
But more and more the family garage is an incubator, an enterprise zone. It’s part of the beautiful renaissance happening in the middle of this great country. So it was for Evan Rouse. Evan, from Union, Kentucky, was a pretty extraordinary kid. Because while other kids played video games and started garage bands, Evan fell in love with the craft of brewing beer. And he built a home brewery in the family garage. He was just 16 years old, not even of age.
For Evan, brewing beer was more than an idea, it was a revolution. Because from that humble start, Evan’s love for brewing has become his entrepreneurial obsession. He’s building the brewery of his dreams. And his entire family is on board, helping him get it done. (The truth is, it’s a pretty extraordinary family.)
So welcome to Braxton Brewing Company. You’re witnessing a dream coming to life. A place where ideas are born and fermented. It’s a great deal of work, but hell, that’s what makes a dream worth pursuing. This brewery celebrates determination, knowledge, and the humble pride we wave like a battle flag.
Draft. Pineapple, coconut, chocolate malt, and wood ash aroma. Black with moderate tan head. Moderately sweet tropical fruit, chocolate malt, and moderately bitter hay/ash flavor. Good body. Solid.
Bottle at the RBSG Lobby Share. Pours a dark brown with small beige head that diminishes to nothing. The aroma is roast, vanilla, bourbon, chocolate. Thick, roast, cocoa, vanilla, boozy finish, very nice.
Sample at the OTR Beerfest during Cincinnati Beer Week. Slightly hazy orange color with a thin white head that dissipates quickly to a film. Stringy lacing. Aroma of wheat, fruit and malt. Light-bodied with flavors of herbal wheat, banana and cloves. The finish is wheaty with a banana and spice aftertaste. Decent overall.
Sample at Taft’s Ale House. Clear dark amber color with a medium eggshell-white head that recedes steadily to an outer ring. Short strings of lacing. Malt, fruit and caramel in the nose. Light to medium body with flavors of roast malt, caramel, fruit and a bit of tea. The finish is sweet with a malty aftertaste. Decent overall.
Sample at Flipdaddy’s. Clear yellow color with a thin white head that burns away quickly to an outer ring. Spotty lacing. Aroma of malt, mild hops and fruit. Light-bodied with flavors of creamed corn, biscuit malt and mild grassy hops. The finish is sweet with a bready malt aftertaste. Slightly above average overall.
12oz can pours a clear orange with some frothy, white head. Nose is old school, pine and soap mostly, some citrus, some grist. Flavor is heavy with pine, soap and grass, some herbs too, honeycomb. Bitter and dry finish. Solid beer.