Yet another brewery in Downtown Tulsa: Welltown

[Tulsasaurus Rex]

A new brewery, Welltown Brewing, has announced that it will open soon in Tulsa.
"
We are excited. It is me and my father-in-law Paul Whitham that are pioneering this journey," said Jeremy Diamond founder of the new brewery. "What we are super excited about is being part of the downtown growth. There is a so much going on down there in the next five or 10 years it is going to be ridiculous."

Welltown Brewing plans to open in the heart of Tulsa. However, since they don't have the keys in their hands yet, they haven't announced the location. They expect to release more information soon, likely early April.

Their brewer is Gene Collins, a longtime Fellowship of Oklahoma Ale Makers (FOAM) member and brewing award winner. Collins has been brewing for years and will be brewing up his recipes with collaboration with Whitham.

Diamond and Whitham came up with a name that they think will fit in Tulsa and also be unique to the United States.

"So, Welltown Brewing's name originated from the 20's when Tulsa was basically the boom capitol of the world, it was the oil capitol so it is where everybody came. We thought it was a cool era and, with all the refineries, is how we came up with our name, Welltown," Diamond said.

Most founders of breweries have traveled outside the United States and brought back their knowledge and their experiences. Diamond is no different, although the country he traveled to is still up-and-coming in the craft beer industry, South Korea.

"I fell in love with craft beer when I was working overseas. I had a fellow engineer friend that was homebrewing at his small apartment and he had this crazy Frankenbrew system set up. I remember walking in and he offered me a ginger beer. I tried this beer and remembered, 'Wow, this thing is really good.' Well, it turns out he made that beer in his apartment. That is when I really started getting into beer," he said.

"I moved back to Tulsa and my father-in-law was a homebrewer. I remember going over to his house and trying different types of beer and really, really enjoying it."
Diamond is all about bringing the community together. His vision is for his taproom to be the focal point to make this happen.

"Welltown's goal is to really focus on community and really focus on the taproom specifically. We are not going to be distributing right off the bat. We really want to hone in on great beer and selling in our taproom," he said.

"I think not rushing out there and not producing something for the liquor store shelves or the next tap at your local restaurant or bar. I think that is really good to help us focus on community and bringing people to the taproom and trying our beer. In the future that might change."

In any business there are hurdles to jump through. Breweries have more than most businesses to deal with since they have federal, state and city rules to abide by. So the process takes a lot of time.

"We are going to do our darndest to be open in 2017. We are super excited to get open, we are super excited to bring beer to the public and we are super excited to bring people to our taproom," Diamond said.

In other news:

Marshall Brewing Co., 616 S. Wheeling Ave., will host a St. Patrick's Day celebration with a multitude of choices of brews. They will be offering two limited release firkins and will have the NCAA Tournament games on in the Tap Room. Try the Donnybrook Porter — Cask-conditioned Big Jamoke Porter infused with Jameson soaked oak and Irish Coffee Stout — Cask-conditioned Black Dolphin Stout infused with Irish Coffee. The Firkin beers are available by-the-glass only after 4 p.m.

Oklahoma City's Oak & Ore, 1732 NW 16th St., has been recognized as the best beer bar in Oklahoma in the annual Great American Beer Bars competition by CraftBeer.com — the National Brewers Association website for beer lovers.

A week's worth of activities are planned to celebrate the award along with the success of its second year of business in Oklahoma City's Plaza District. Special beer tappings and customer appreciation promotions will be held the week of March 19.

The official 2-year anniversary party will take place from 12-5 p.m. on Saturday, March 25, featuring special released beers being tapped each hour. All 36 taps will be filled exclusively with Oklahoma craft beer. There will be hourly drawings for door prizes, and attendees who purchase an Oklahoma craft beer will be entered to win a limited-edition Oak & Ore anniversary T-shirt.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/blogs/scene/whattheale/what-the-ale-tulsa-s-brewing-industry-has-gained-yet/article_4c6a5f5d-38d9-5985-8d7b-0c7fff74e8fc.html

Holy Smoot how many does that make now? We may have to start a thread just about Tulsa breweries! I love it.

[sgrizzle]

Would be nice if it was south of the tracks for a change.

[Tulsasaurus Rex]

Would be nice if it was south of the tracks for a change.

Although Spaghetti Warehouse would be a cool space for a brewery plus more.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Although Spaghetti Warehouse would be a cool space for a brewery plus more.

Bonus to that would be getting rid of Spaghetti Warehouse....

[saintnicster]

Bonus to that would be getting rid of Spaghetti Warehouse....

Not been paying attention? http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=21472.0

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

Would be nice if it was south of the tracks for a change.

The article says they don't have keys in hand and so haven't announced the location yet. It also says "near" downtown.

That makes 4 new breweries opening near downtown plus a taproom for American Solera (Chase Healey who founded Prairie Artisan Ales) at 18th & Boston. Marshall and Dead Armadillo are currently open with Cabin Boys, Willow Family Ales (at Park in the Pearl) and Renaissance (12th & Lewis) to open soon. Then Hanson also plans some sort of brewery across from Prairie brewpub. With this new Welltown one, that'll be 7 breweries near downtown plus 3 additional brewpub/tap rooms (Elgin Park Brewpub, Prairie Brew Pub & American Solera's tap room/microbrewery). So 10 places near downtown to get a Tulsa-made brew straight from the source!

There's several other breweries in the works which I don't remember the names of and probably several I don't know about.  Really exciting time for Oklahoma craft brewing fans! I believe this is long overdue but good to see people stepping up to fulfill that demand.

[TulsaGoldenHurriCAN]

Would be nice if it was south of the tracks for a change.

Also, this is good news no matter where they put it. It's a local start up in a vastly under-served market (Springfield and NW arkansas have had more breweries than Tulsa despite being much smaller). Our laws are changing so it should make things more feasible for more breweries. Most metros with a million people or more have dozens of breweries.

We should eventually be able to support 20-30, especially with many of them acting more as brewpubs or tap rooms. I'd guess some restaurants will convert to brewing also to boost revenue (similar to how doubleshot is now brewing beer). Add Doubleshot to the list of local breweries near downtown!

Something about brewpubs makes them feel more positive socially than a bar. They foster fun environments and draw in good kinds of crowds and festive atmospheres. It's a much better alternative for young people to have the option hang out in that rather than a smoky dive bar.

[Cats Cats Cats]

Should be interesting

[DowntownDan]

Would be nice if it was south of the tracks for a change.

I saw that their initial business model will be simply a taproom without distribution so they'll want a lot of walk-in traffic.  My guess is it'll be Brady or East Village near the newest apartment developments.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Not been paying attention? http://www.tulsanow.org/forum/index.php?topic=21472.0

How do these things not show up in my unread posts section...?  Geez...  Nope, did not see that one.  And I just went through all the unreads earlier today...

[sgrizzle]

Although Spaghetti Warehouse would be a cool space for a brewery plus more.

The thing I liked about Spaghetti Warehouse was the seating capacity. Even if the pope is walking down Archer while the resurrected Beatles are playing the BOK center, you can probably still get a table for 10 with no wait.

[swake]

Cherry Street? That area could use a brewpub. Are any of the empty places there large enough?

[Conan71]

FAIK, Kolibri and Nothing's Left Brewing are also still planning to open in the Tulsa area though I've not heard anything about either of those two entries lately.  I do believe High Gravity is planning a tap room at it's new location at 68th & Memorial near Sun & Ski so there's three others not already mentioned.

[Breadburner]

Is 18th and Boston not getting a brewery.....

[Conan71]

Is 18th and Boston not getting a brewery.....

American Solera, it's in the smallish stand alone building east of the fire station.