TDN Weekend December 2016 Issue 9
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1066556
N o w, i n a d d i t i o n t o b e i n g o n e o f L e x ington's oldest and most popular breweries, the Bread Box is also home to a variety of local businesses, including Smithtown Seafood, Broke Spoke Com- munity Bike Shop, Magic Beans Coffee Roasters, and others. Just feet from their front door is County Club, a casu- al restaurant focusing on smoked meats and locally-sourced ingredients. "When we opened West Sixth we were one of the early craft breweries in town. At that time, there were no IPAs being made and nobody was canning beer. We doubled down and created a canned IPA, which is now the number one seller in the state," said Brady Barlow, who along with Joe Kuosman, Robin Sither, and Ben Self, founded West Sixth in 2012. "We typically have 16 or 17 of our own beers on tap, all brewed in-house." While many industries are competitive by nature, Bishop and Barlow describe the craft brewery business as one built on community and collaboration. Each m o n t h , a l l o f t h e l o c a l b r e w e r i e s g e t t o gether for meetings, where they discuss their upcoming releases and events, as well as help each other brain- storm or troubleshoot. "We're all friends in this business and support each other. When someone's in a crunch, maybe they don't have enough yeast or don't have the right hops, they can put out a call and the other brewer- ies step up to help if they have the prod- uct on hand," said Bishop. "We know that if there's someone sitting at Country Boy