About two months after its official Oct. 6 grand opening, brewpub
Harmony Hall is finally getting settled in its new neighborhood.
“Being in a new neighborhood, for us, was really exciting, and the West Side has got such a strong and intact culture and history,” says Heather Van Dyke-Titus, who co-owns Harmony Hall with brothers Barry and Jackson Van Dyke. “We figured we’d have to come and kind of prove ourselves but we were just met with a lot of graciousness and welcoming right off the bat.”
After nearly two years of planning and construction on the 12,000-square-foot building, the 34-tap German-style beer hall boasts original woodwork on the ground floor with seating for 60, and as spacious second floor beer hall with a full menu and 200-person capacity.
Located at 401 Stocking Ave. NW, the building was most recently home to the former restaurant Little Mexico and originally housed the Rauser Quality Sausage Factory. Van Dyke-Titus says its history as the latter informed some of Harmony Hall’s themes and menu, but also its method, with the venue butchering locally sourced whole hogs from Heffron Farms on-site to create what she says is Harmony Hall’s “different perspective on sausage” dishes.
“We have your mainstays..but we also look to different cultures because many different cultures have a sausage,” she says, citing the South Korean and Thai-influenced sausage dishes currently on the menu.
Throughout the month of December, Harmony Hall will be releasing a new holiday-themed beer every Wednesday, brewed with its own 10-barrel system with 20-barrel fermenters in house.
Yesterday, Harmony Hall released the first of four holiday-themed beers, Barrel Aged Winter Nights, during a benefit event it hosted to support neighbors at the
Westown Collaborative, a group of community organizations dedicated to “…a diverse Westside community marked by equity, inclusion, and hope.”
The event included a tree-lighting ceremony, carolers in the evening, and an opportunity for patrons to purchase a $5 keepsake ornament, with all profits going directly to Westown Collaborative to help fund mini-grants for resident-led initiatives like community gardens and other programming.
“The more time I’ve spent over here, the more I’ve grown to have genuine affection for the neighborhood,” says Van Dyke-Titus. “We’ve always felt really solid about our decision, but the longer we’re here, the more confident we feel.”
For more information, visit www.harmonybeer.com or find
Harmony Hall on Facebook.
By Anya Zentmeyer, Development News Editor
Images courtesy of Stephanie Harding
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