Thanks to the explosive growth of the U.S. craft beer industry, it’s getting harder and harder to come up with a name for a new brewery. At least one that’s not already taken.
Just ask Shawn Shepard, a Chandler resident and second-generation Arizonan, who, along with his wife, Lisa, is opening the East Valley’s newest brewery on Monday, Dec. 17.
‘‘We really wanted to come up with something local,’’ Shepard says. ‘‘So we went in and researched every local name: Diamondback Brewing, Monsoon Brewing…
‘‘But there was, like, Monsoon Brewing out of, like, Vermont. I didn’t even know they had monsoons in Vermont.’’
Ultimately, the name Shepard was looking for inadvertently came from his wife.
‘‘She said, ’Whatever name we come up with, it will be a helluva brewery,’’ Shepard says. ‘‘Helluva Brewing Company was born that night.’’
In June, the Shepards, along with brewmaster and co-owner Steve Stone, began construction of Helluva in the former Zipps Sports Grill on the northeast corner of McClintock and Ray (map) in west Chandler.
‘‘We really wanted to stay in Chandler,’’ says Shepard, who lives in the Ocotillo area of south Chandler. ‘‘We actually tried really hard to get into the old Tilted Kilt. We were in negotiations with them for quite a while.
‘‘We had seen the Zipps spot but it just didn’t catch our eye at first for some reason. It worked out to be a blessing in disguise because that building (Tilted Kilt) needed a lot of work. It was kinda beat up.
‘‘I mean, we gutted this place. We tore down to the floor and then tore 75 percent of the floor out. But the first building would have cost us extra hundreds of thousands. So in hindsight, we’re glad negotiations fell through.’’
Helluva combines two of Shepard’s at-home passions – brewing beer and smoking meats – that he frequently shared with a circle of friends to rave reviews.
‘‘Everyone that came over was, ‘Oh my God, these are some of the best beers I ever had.’ ‘Oh my God, this is the best pork butt I’ve ever had.’ ‘These are the best ribs.’
‘‘I thought, we should share that passion with other people instead of just having friends that come over to watch football and eat pork butts and drink my beer, you know?’’
Shepard and his wife are mortgage bankers by day, something they plan to continue to do while running Helluva.
‘‘I had an office built for me on site here, which I’ll share with my front-of-the-house manager and back-of-the-house manager,’’ Shepard says. ‘‘But I’ll continue to do mortgages.
‘‘My main roles here are going to be making sure that the GM, front-of-the-house manager, and back-of-the-house manager don’t need anything, everything’s good, and the ship’s running smooth.
‘‘And then I’ll really get in on the brewing side to learn underneath our brewmaster, Steve, who’s from Huss (Brewing in Tempe).’’
The brewing side consists of a new 15-barrel system that takes up 1,300 square feet of the building’s 6,000-square-foot interior. A 40-foot cement-top bar with two sets of 20 taps sits at the center of the 224-seat industrial-decor space.
There are four Helluva beers on tap for the opening – Cascade Brigade pale ale, Das Gut Kölsch, Hopadelic IPA, and Aurora amber ale – as well as a dozen ‘‘guest’’ beers.
Four other Helluva beers –The Juice is Loose New England-style IPA, Up in Smoke chipotle porter, The Black Sheep stout, and a yet-to-be-named American light lager – also will be tapped this month. Eventually, Shepard plans to have Helluva beers on all 20 taps.
‘‘The game plan is to self-distribute, but just to bars and restaurants,’’ says Shepard (pictured above, on left, with co-owner Stone). ‘‘We don’t really have any intention of bottling or canning or fighting for shelf space (at stores) or anything like that.’’
Beside beers, the bar serves eight wines on tap and a couple others in bottles, a dozen cocktails and alcohol-free ‘‘mocktails,’’ and flights of four different mimosas (blood orange, elderberry ginger, cucumber mint, and kiwi).
The kitchen, under the direction of chef Kevin Boyle, offers a 35-item food menu that Shepard is quick to distance from traditional barbecue.
‘‘Our theme, so to speak, is ‘suds and smoke,’’’ he says. ‘‘Smoke fusion is what we’re calling it. Like smoked vegetables, smoked chicken breast – something that’s a little different.
‘‘We don’t want to be a greasy spoon barbecue joint type of place – you know, ‘Come try our brisket slapped with five gallons of barbecue sauce!’’’
Helluva’s smoked chicken, for example, is employed in a variety of dishes, ranging from Buffalo chicken dip ($9) to nachos ($14) to chili ($9).
Other meats smoked in-house with Arizona pecan include beef tri-tip, pulled pork, bacon, and baby back ribs.
Salads are $10, with a choice of protein for an extra $6. Burgers and sandwiches are $10-$14. Dinner plates are $14-$24.
See the full menu here. (Pictured above: Macaroni and cheese made with cheddar, Monterey Jack and beer cheeses.)
If Shepard has a third passion to rival beer and smoked meats, it’s dogs. He and his wife have adopted two – a blue pit bull with significant medical issues and a seeming Dalmation that DNA testing later revealed is, in Shepard’s words, ‘‘everything but Dalmation.’’
So it is especially disappointing that Helluva has been unable to get county approval to allow dogs on the spacious patio that wraps around the west and north sides of the brewpub.
‘‘We pushed super hard to have a pet-friendly patio,’’ Shepard says, ‘‘Both my wife and I are very passionate about rescuing dogs. We donate a lot of money every year to help rescues. We try to save a lot of dogs that are on the e-list.’’
The issue involves four large roll-up, garage-style glass doors that open the patio to the interior. The county requires some type of barrier to prevent dogs from going inside.
‘‘We’re going to try to come up with something,’’ Shepard says. ‘‘Maybe we’ll put up a (temporary) barrier when we open it. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to win that battle yet.’’
Shepard also is a huge sports fan. The brewpub has 14 TVs – all 75-inch – and gets the NFL Sunday Ticket package as well as the Pac-12 Network. The system is wired so Helluva can show 14 different games at the same time if needed.
So far, Shepard says Helluva has gotten an enthusiastic reception, both from its immediate neighborhood and from the East Valley in general. Several restaurants and bars already have inquired about carrying its beers.
‘‘It’s actually almost a little bit overwhelming because there are so many people that are commenting on it,’’ he says. ‘‘And my main focus? I just have tunnel vision trying to get the doors open.’’
To start, Helluva Brewing will be open 3-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 3 p.m.-midnight Friday, 10:30 a.m.-midnight Saturday, and 10:30 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday.
Weekday lunch will be added as soon as the brewpub’s 70-person staff is ready to handle it.
As for Shepard’s other plans for the future…
‘‘We did a big enough brewhouse system where we can support this brewpub and then another brewpub with a full restaurant or up to four tasting rooms,’’ Shepard says.
‘‘I kinda think I’d like to do a tasting room. The overhead’s a lot less, we have all the kegs so we could just run kegs over, and we can do a smaller kitchen and get our brand out there without fighting for shelf space.
‘‘That’s kinda what we envision. But who knows what it will come to?’’
