USA, LA: The Seventh Tap Brewing Project launching this weekend in Shreveport

Jose Cardenas, Colby Miller, Samuel Norton started out as three friends interested in learning the art of homebrewing, the Shreveport Times reported on June 4.

By 2015, they were stocked with an arsenal of recipes and ready to share their craft beer creations with the public. The amateur brewers hauled small batches of their products to local and regional beer festivals and competitions going head-to-head with large and established breweries.

Awards and public praise began to pour in, and the craft beer community soon learned the name The Seventh Tap Brewing Project.

The success was enough to motivate the homebrewing hobbyists to think on a larger scale.

Two years later, they secured a vacant commercial building on Linwood Avenue, near Kings Highway, and began an extensive renovation project.

This weekend, after much anticipation, the partners will officially open the doors of their first professional craft beer brewery and tasting room.

“We were homebrewers. We never thought we’d get here,” Cardenas said. “We always thought, ‘Maybe, yeah, it would be cool,’ but somehow this happened. It still doesn’t even feel real.”

The Seventh Tap – or The Se7enth Tap – will open to the public with a grand opening bash from noon to 10 p.m. on June 5. The taproom is located at 2640 Linwood Ave. in Shreveport.

The event will include live music, food vendors, and an assortment of signature brews.

Flagship and specialty beers will be on tap with a few selections available as canned four-packs for to-go sales.

“We’re going to do something crazy,” Cardenas said. “For people who have followed us from the beginning I think it’s been a staple that we do crazy stuff. For the grand opening we’ll for sure do some different stuff.”

The taproom is family-friendly though guests must be age 21 or older to imbibe beer. Non-alcoholic beverages will be available behind the bar.

Pets are welcome to visit, too.

Live music will go on all day and into the night courtesy of Ohm Haus, Magnolia Mae, Shayliff, and Jesse Rawlinson. Meals and treats will be available for purchase from Taylor’d Eatz, Sweet Cheezus, and Dripp Donuts.

“Get ready for a good time,” Cardenas said.

The Seventh Tap’s regular taproom hours are 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, and noon to 10 p.m. Saturday.

This is the first time for the public to get one of The Seventh Tap’s signature beers since appearing at beer festivals several years ago.

In the spring, beer enthusiasts were teased with a taste of their ingenuity.

The Seventh Tap partnered with Great Raft Brewing to release the sold-out special brew, “Welcome to the Neighborhood” West Coast IPA.

The local, independent breweries are about a half-mile walk from one another, sharing the Linwood Avenue and Dalzell Street intersection. The close vicinity is expected to be beneficial to both establishments as it encourages locals and tourists to brewery-hop.

“We’re good friends with them and we look up to them in certain ways,” Cardenas said. “We want to keep that friendly spirit and let people know this isn’t a rivalry. We are close to each other. We want to create a synergistic effect where people can come to this area and visit both breweries on the same day.”

The Seventh Tap is easing into the brewing business, starting off with about seven varieties of brews in progress with many more to come. Distribution to area bars, restaurants, and retail stores is expected to begin within the next couple of months, he said.

Moving into a commercial setup has been challenging and the gradual roll out will allow them to get their footing and grow.

“Honestly, it was a headache, but it’s going surprisingly well,” Cardenas said. “The upscaling of the recipes was an adjustment, but we have a good team back there. We figured it out relatively quick but there’s still room for improvement and I think we’ll get there.”

The added test was renovating and opening a new business during the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a few construction delays and opening date changes.

Now that they're open for business, consumers may purchase pints on tap or purchase cans to-go at the taproom.

“A bunch of the recipes we did as homebrewers we’re now making on the bigger system," Cardenas said. "So, you have Cocoa Loco, which is our award-winning beer, then we have Faux, and of course, we’ve been cranking up a lot of IPAs.”

Faux is a golden stout that has the flavor of a stout but the appearance of a light beer.

Currently, Don Pablo Mexican lager, Wavez sour ale, and Welcome to Earth NEIPA are available on draft and in four-pack cans.

Much of the venue’s industrial-meets-modern design style was forged by the hands of the brewers and area creatives.

Upcycled or repurposed materials were used for much of the furniture, plus original art and other showcased accent pieces tell a story.

The bar wall was constructed with used shelving acquired from a retail store that was closing at the Louisiana Boardwalk. The two-top tables along the windows are real (now empty) bourbon barrels.

The metal legs of the communal tables were made with material used to ship the brewery’s production vats — metalwork by Miller.

“Basically, this whole taproom was designed by us and mostly DIY by us,” Cardenas said.

Local artists and businesses were brought on to create The Seventh Tap’s murals, logo, exterior name lettering, can art, and more – look out for the hidden number “7” throughout the establishment.

The taproom also features an entertainment area that includes arcade and other games. The gift shop station offers merchandise including souvenir T-shirts, hats, signs, and glassware.

A couple of significant additions go to the root of the company’s origins.

The homebrewers’ collection of awards hangs on display, as well as the handmade, wooden tap box used for their first beer festival appearance.

Cardenas, Miller, and Norton custom built the apparatus to distribute beer from six taps. However, seven holes were accidentally drilled. Supplied only with six tap handles, they had to make a special plan to add a seventh tap.

“We decided that ‘seventh tap’ would always be something special — like a crazy one-off beer,” Cardenas said. “Then when we were trying to come up with a name, ‘The Seventh Tap’ seemed fitting.”

The process has been laborious but soon enough Cardenas, Miller and Norton will reap their rewards.

“We’ve all been so busy we haven’t really had time to reflect on it,” Cardenas said. “I hope that Saturday after the grand opening — once everything is cleaned up and closed— we can sit and have a beer and reflect on everything.”

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