It can best be described as a week of highs and lows for new brewery Commonhouse Ales.
Striving to be the state’s first B Corp brewery (status is still pending), the socially-focused operation started its first batch of beers back on July 5. With launch came a pledge to donate $1 of each six-pack and a portion of keg sales of the brewery’s flagship Six.One For Good Ale to a Columbus Foundation Fund the operation seeded with $10,000 of its own money.
After only two weeks on the market, Commonhouse Ales is ready to distribute its first grant to non-profit arts organization Wild Goose Creative. In a somewhat fitting nod, the nearly $1,400 grant will fund a neon sign announcing ‘Art on Tap’ to let the community know when events are taking place inside the space.
“It may seem odd that we decided to support the arts with our first grant when there are so many pressing needs in our community, but the arts are fundamental to humanity,” Owner Lenny Kolada said in a press release. “The arts help us express our values and build bridges between cultures, students with a rich arts education do better in school, arts strengthen the economy, the list goes on.”
Just one day after celebrating the milestone of its first grant, Commonhouse Ales lost nearly all of its inventory and tap handles in a westside warehouse fire last Friday night. While the tap handles may take some time to replace, as of yesterday the brewery was already back at it, working on its next batch at its Short Street production facility in the Brewery District which was unaffected by the fire, and moving forward with beer for good as planned.
For more information, visit commonhouseales.com.