HUNTSVILLE – As its name suggests, there’s no pretense at the city’s newest microbrewery.
The Back Forty Beer Company, which culled its name from an old agricultural term referring to the plot of land situated far from the homestead that’s generally unattended but with untapped promise, is built with the intention of hosting events including the larger ones coming to expanding John Hunt Park across the street.
Back Forty began in Gadsden, opened a location in Birmingham and launched a Huntsville location over the weekend under the local ownership of Doug and Leigh Brown. Mayor Tommy Battle attended a Friday ribbon-cutting at the facility on Leeman Ferry Road at the corner of where Airport Road transforms to Johnson Road, then held a soft opening that night.
The restaurant/bar opened for real Saturday.
“I think the buzz is loud and we’re gonna have a lot of fun and impress a lot of people with what Back Forty’s all about,” Taproom Leader Stephen Hardiman told 256 Today as the pre-grand opening.
Hardiman hails from Decatur and comes to Back Forty after 14 years working in various Rocket City locations, including his last stop at Co-Op at Embassy Suites.
“I think it’s a beautiful location, and Huntsville’s trying to really build up this area,” he said. “I think we came in at the perfect time.”
Back Forty describes the place as such:
“An Industrial, urban-chic style with bare concrete floors, old barn wood wall features and rusty metal railing accents. Our open kitchen and brewery invite our customers to join the artists doing their respective crafts – brewing awesome beer, cooking great food, and making customers feel at home.
“To add a splash of color, we hired local Alabama muralist, Shane Boteler, to paint a large space-themed mural on the Johnson Road side of the building; at 30’ x 100’ it is hard to miss and destined to become a Huntsville landmark. Also, Muralist Sean Gilder painted colorful murals of our Back Forty and Barrel Room logos inside the building.
“We also hired Brandon Bowers, Arcadia Salvage, to create our beautiful farm tables and high top bar tables using wood timbers that he reclaims from demolished late 1800s houses. Bowers also built our steel i-beam, barnwood and concrete bars, including the main bar which spans over 90’.”
For Doug Brown, its a realization of a longtime dream.
“This has been my passion since the early ’90s,” he said. “I backpacked across Europe when I was a college kid, and I went out west to see what was going on with craft brews out there. I thought, ‘I’m gonna do this.’
“Then I got a job in the corporate world and that kind of distracted me for about 25 years.”
He graduated with an MBA from Maryland, and eventually went back to school at Auburn to get a master’s certificate in brewing science.
Brown, 58, plans to maintain as many as 20 different, locally brewed beers on tap that will be served from four different 20-tap towers. Tosh Brown is the master brewer.
Brown has lived in Huntsville nearly 17 years, but often visited his brother Jerri who was living in the Rocket City. He met Leigh through an introduction from Jerri. After finding success at the Back Forty’s standing location at Birmingham’s Sloss Docks, he decided the time was ripe to build from the ground up on land he’d been eyeing in Huntsville for five or six years.
“I think it’ll match the growth that’s happening in Huntsville,” he said.
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