Henderson brewery pours time, effort into beers

For most, time is money.

But for brewery owners Wyndee and Dave Forrest, time is everything.

From the decor to the ingredients, the Henderson couple’s main goal is to bring the community together through craft beer.

“We have cuckoo clocks on our wall set to each time zone we’re originally from,” Wyndee said. “These craftsmen devoted a lot of time in making these one-of-a-kind clocks, and we thought, ‘That’s what we’re doing with our beers.’ ”

Crafthaus Brewery, 7350 Eastgate Road, Suite 110, opened in September 2014 and launched its first set of canned beer in May.

“We also use the hashtag ‘timewellspent’ with our beer because we want to evoke that feeling of community and culture and time well spent with family and friends,” Dave said.

The brewery serves a variety of traditional and tweaked craft beers. Its two core beers are Resinate, an India pale ale, and Evocation, a saison. Tweaked versions of the two are usually released every Wednesday.

“We want the styles we do to be excellent before we slowly start growing our portfolio,” Dave said. “We feel there’s no rush in doing so. We’d rather make two or three amazing beers than have a portfolio of 10 that are so-so.”

The Forrests experienced their beer calling while traveling through Europe shortly after graduating from UNLV.

“In our first sip, it was like the beer gods were singing, and there were rainbows and unicorns. It was amazing,” Wyndee said. “It was also the culture that went along with craft beer. People were talking to people they didn’t know, and they were building a community that was friendly and welcoming.”

Inspired by the experience, Dave began experimenting and brewing batches at home. In 2010, he was one of 10 contest winners to attend the Sierra Nevada Beer Camp in Chico, Calif.

“They got to collaborate and brew a beer together,” Wyndee said. “It was really inspiring for him, so we thought we should build our own tiny brewery here for our community.”

For about four years, the couple researched the industry, fine-tuned their recipes, met with contacts and attended craft beer conferences. To create a community-oriented atmosphere, the couple registered as lobbyists to help modify the brewpub license in the city of Henderson to exclude gaming.

“We wanted to replicate the atmosphere and re-create the feelings and memories we had in Europe,” Dave said. “To have that, we needed to remove the gaming from the licensing. So with the help of the city, we added a tier to the original licensing that excludes gaming.”

While the couple worked to open a brewery, they continued to brew beer at home and pour it at local festivals.

“That’s when the community finally tasted our beers, and they kept asking where they could buy them,” Dave said. “Wyndee had an idea to do a Kickstarter campaign. People were saying they loved our beer, so we wondered if they would put their money where their mouth is when it came to it.”

After researching other breweries’ crowdfunding attempts, Wyndee launched a Kickstarter with a goal of $20,000. The couple raised nearly $26,000 in about 30 days, which went toward the business license, a pilot brewing system, a walk-in cooler and marketing.

“We did some tallying afterward, and it was like 80 percent of the pledges were locals,” Dave said. “Yes, the Kickstarter gave us funding, but it showed us the community was ready for us.”

The Forrests visited Las Vegas Distillery owner George Racz while looking for a location to house their brewery and agreed that the business park was a fit; however, they still faced zoning issues even with their modified license.

“At the time, it was only zoned for manufacturing, so we went back to the developer and city to write an amendment to allow us to have a taproom,” Wyndee said. “Between us, (Racz) and the guys at Grape Expectations, we formed this little triangle of beer, wine and spirits.”

To complete their beer family, the Forrests hired their Australian counterparts Steve Brockman and Steph Cope, who have degrees in brewing science. Wyndee said Crafthaus is the only brewery in the state to have a female head brewer.

“Dave and I felt that it made more sense to work on our business than in our business,” she said. “Quality and consistency are key to us, so we knew that we needed professional brewers to keep what we had already established going smoothly.”

Since opening, the brewery has created 50 types of beers. It hosts trivia nights every Wednesday and Firkin Fridays the second Friday of each month.

“We want people to feel a sense of ownership and pride with us,” Wyndee said. “We import everything here in Vegas. We import our chefs, our DJs, our talent. It’s nice to have something to claim as our own.”

Crafthaus is open from 5 to 10 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 2 p.m. to midnight Friday, noon to midnight Saturday, noon to 8 p.m. Sunday and is closed Monday and Tuesday.

For more information, visit crafthausbrewery.com or call 702-462-5934.

To reach Henderson View reporter Caitlyn Belcher, email cbelcher@viewnews.com or call 702-383-0403. Find her on twitter: @caitlynbelcher.