Sense of Community

Community Pint has every intention of living up to its name.

The 24-tap craft beer bar, growler fill station and bottle shop opens Friday in the former Jones Radiator space at 120 E. Sprague.

“I just really want a social place,” says TJ Wallin, who owns the business with his wife Sarah. “There won’t be any TVs, and we won’t be handing out any Wi-Fi passwords. We want people to unplug and actually enjoy the beer, and enjoy the people they’re with.”

There's plenty to enjoy on the opening taplist, including the likes of this year's 3-Way IPA, Boneyard's Hop Venom, Laughing Dog's De Achste Hond peach sour, New Belgium's Transatlanique Kriek, Almanac's Saison Delores, Black Raven's Three Sundays Oaked Tripel and Stone's w00tstout.  

Wallin, a longtime homebrewer, decided it was time to move on from the auto machine shop he operates. After Jones went out of business in May 2016, he says, “I was trying to get it since the minute it closed.”

Lease offers by other people kept falling through, so Wallin bit the bullet and agreed to buy the building. “I had no idea if I could get financing,” he says, “but it just worked out.”

He’s been busy ever since renovating the sunken space, including time-consuming repairs to the mortar on the brick walls. It’s been brightened by the addition of a smaller new window on the west wall, where an air conditioner formerly sat, and the uncovering of three larger windows on the east wall that had been blocked by a cooler and an office.

The now wood-fronted, concrete-topped bar has been extended around to that wall, forming an L shape.  A communal 10-person, 4- by 9-foot table topped with rough-cut lumber sits in the corner, where Wallin envisions holding educational beer events. Smaller tables line the opposite wall, beer hall-style.

A neighbor who’s a metal artist fashioned large globe lights from old whiskey barrel hoop bands. The big red neon “BEER” sign that used to hang out front has been relocated to the back wall.