Our Story

We - Art Harvey and Larry "LP" Picchiotti - both independently began brewing beer in our college days (back in the 1900's!) as a means to be frugal and do something fun at the same time.  We eventually met each other rock climbing in 2001, and now we're both Lakewood residents, raising our families here in East Dallas, Texas. Over the years, our brewing habits have grown into a passion for great craft beer. In 2015, we founded Westlake Brewing Company. We both love our community, and want to be able to share more of our craft beer with all of you! Our long-term vision is to build a craft brewery and lively taproom in Lakewood. So we created Westlake Brewing Company, we're scaling up our brewing operations so we can brew even more, we're building a taproom for sharing our brew, and we want you to be a part of it. 

Are you ready to take the journey with us?

Here is what production looks like today:

With currently only about a single barrel of production capacity, we really can't make enough beer to go around.  We are ramping capacity to be able to reach out and better serve our community, and this campaign will help build a taproom where we can share all of our craft beer creations with you.  We've already purchased much of the equipment needed for the brewhouse expansion. Rather than just buying all boringly new equipment, the boil and mash kettles are being hand-rebuilt by LP and Art from reclaimed stainless tanks - so we're quite invested in not only the success of Westlake Brewing Company, but also in being environmentally responsible. However, we must build a taproom to be able to best share our craft beer that we are so passionate about with you.

What We Need & What You Get

• We are raising $75,000 to cover licensing, permits, additional brewery equipment, a modest taproom build-out, and a few months of rent on a place to put it all. We haven't found the perfect location for the taproom yet, but we are working hard to find a great space. If we are able to raise more than our goal, it means more beer variety at your local taps, and a better taproom at Westlake Brewing Company for you to enjoy.
• We have some awesome perks for our supporters - including tours, parties, swag, and club memberships with LIFETIME beer discounts! Founders Club memberships will only ever be offered through this campaign, so this is it!
• Referral Bonuses! If you go for the FOUNDERS CLUB, be sure to email us at hello@westlakebeer.com with the name and email of the Founders Club member who referred you, and they will get a free Westlake "Mighty Growler" and voucher to fill it up. One person can receive up to 5 referrals. So go tell your friends about us! Then tell them to tell us you told them to tell us that you told them. Got it? Good!
• ALL PERKS come with at least one free beer voucher! They only give us so many characters per perk description - so we've got to be stingy with our characters, but not our beer!
• If there's something missing from the "Perk" options that you would like to see, contact us and let us know. We can probably add it.
• Even if we don't reach our funding goal, we will still move forward and do whatever we can do in our continued pursuit of craft beer excellence. Your support brings us closer to our long-term vision of serving the communities of Lakewood, Lake Highlands, White Rock Lake, and East Dallas better than any other craft brewery in Texas.

Here's LP evaluating a beer recipe...

• What's our beer like, you ask? The industry is rampant with one-upmanship and yeasty creations dripping in hop oils tailored for obscure niche markets.  Are we going to get caught up with the fever and do some of that? You can bet your last sip of Dogfish 120 or All Orange Everything we are. BUT, the majority of our craft brews are refreshingly simple. We're aiming to sit just left of your dinner plate, not on a podium of some beer award.

The Impact

• Do you wish there were more fun places to grab a drink and gather together with your friends right in your own neighborhood? How about a local venue with cool vibe, good fresh beer, and live music? How about a place with fresh cold beer earned with a long run at WRL or a fast-paced south ride? What if this place was run by people from your own community? Here's a chance to join us in creating that place. We'll start by creating great, original craft beer for our community, and the rest should follow.

Here are the three 330g tanks we are reconditioning:

Here is a picture of one of the additional fermenters we have reserved, which this campaign will help purchase: 

Risks & Challenges

• It takes a really long time to build a brewery - it's basically building a small factory while attempting to comply with a bunch of complex rules and regulations. Most of it involves waiting - for permits, for licenses, for equipment, for yeast to do their thing, etc... We expect to be firing up the new 8 barrel (bbl) equipment for the first time by the end of the year, shipping kegs from it in January, and opening a modest taproom next Spring.
• It's really, really expensive to build a brewery! We don't have a new production & taproom location set yet, and what we can afford is a function of your support. Even with this campaign, there's a pretty good chance we won't be able to afford to rent a new production & taproom location in Lakewood for a long while. But if that turns out to be the case, we're going to keep it as close as we can, and we'll bring it back to Lakewood as soon as we are able to!
• Art and LP have both built their own personal electric breweries from scratch, and they're already working to build a larger 8bbl production brewhouse for Westlake Brewing Company. To keep cost and risk low, most of the actual brewing (mash & boil) equipment will be re-conditioned and re-purposed used industrial equipment that they have already purchased and begun working on. This campaign will add the necessary equipment for fermenting, bright tanks for clarifying beer, and keg capacity.
• We've got some good competition in the area. We're big fans of their beer. We are thoroughly convinced there are plenty of beer drinkers in Dallas to keep us all quite busy.

Other Ways You Can Help

• We're all about our community - let your friends in the neighborhood know what we are doing. Tell people about us during your White Rock YMCA soccer games, tee ball games, karate practice, dance recitals, and over dinner with friends on Greenville.
• Volunteer! Until we can make and sell enough beer to pay for our brewing habit, Art and LP are volunteers too. If you've got skills, we need them. Even if your superpower is tasting beer, let us know...
• Check out our web site at http://www.WestlakeBeer.com.
• Share our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter feeds with your friends! Please use the Indiegogo share tools at the top right of this page to share this campaign with your friends and neighbors.

Here's Art's Family:

LP and Eve:

LP and his girls:

The girls and Woodrow the brewery dog!