Sarnia's Refined Fool Brewing Company is now selling its Noble Oaf product in ten LCBO stores within the Sarnia, London, Strathroy, and Toronto areas.
The one-year-old business is already ahead of its 5-year plan to have products sold on LCBO shelves.
"The Noble Oaf is a Rye Saison," says owner Nathan Colquhoun. "That's a really unique beer, we think. That's why we put that into the LCBO because we wanted to kind of stand out from the pack a little bit and be able to give people a different experience."
Getting their products into the LCBO isn't the only thing they're brewing up at the 137 Davis St. location.
Refined Fool is also in the process of expanding their tasting room to become a full-fledged bar with room for live bands.
"We just recently opened our tap room," says Colquhoun. "The goal is to be open regular bar hours, have all our beers on tap, and have a couple guest taps of other craft beers".
The company is waiting on city approval for expansion of its restaurant to seat 100 people and extend hours past 9pm.
The catch is there's no kitchen included in the plans.
"Instead of also trying to get into making food, having a kitchen staff, and coming up with recipes," explains Colquhoun. "We would just use the brilliant food that already comes out of the city."
Instead of taking an order with a waiter or waitress, customers would make a phone call to have food delivered from local restaurants. Colquhoun estimates that it would take a similar amount of time to deliver the food as opposed to if it were to come from their kitchen.
Refined Fool currently offers six regular beer varieties and two seasonal styles each month. Their craft beer is already being featured in 13 restaurants within the city.
"People really like the local option when they order beer. We've had great support from all the restaurants in keeping us on their taps and putting us up against all the big guys."
For a full list of beer descriptions, visit www.refinedfool.com.
Noble Oaf Beer Description (Photo Courtesy of refinedfool.com)
