Logboat Brewing Company
Logboat Brewing Company started as a side project for three friends who couldn’t decide whether they were a band or a brewery. Tyson Hunt, Andrew Sharp and Judson Ball spent the early 2010s making music and 15-gallon test batches in Hunt’s Columbia garage, and eventually admitted the beer was turning out better than the songs. After a research trip to Bitter Root Brewing in Montana and about three years of planning, they opened in 2014 inside an abandoned meatpacking plant on Fay Street that once processed 20,000 pounds of beef a day.
These days the old plant feels more like a very good backyard party. A recent expansion roughly doubled the footprint, adding a renovated taproom, a fenced yard and patio, an elevator to the upstairs bar, and a big covered balcony with high-top seating and views of downtown Columbia. A bar built from a shipping container anchors the outdoor space, food trucks roll through, and the vibe is relaxed enough that well-behaved dogs are welcome. It’s a hangout first and a brewery second, even though the beer is excellent.
“A garage band’s side project that grew into Columbia’s front porch.”
The beer philosophy is approachable without being boring: easy-drinking ales and IPAs, a few well-loved porters and wheats, and a rotating cast of small-batch experiments, from hazy IPAs to farmhouse ales and fresh-hopped releases. The company also confirms its beer is vegan. Cans are packed in-house, and Logboat’s beer now reaches roughly 66 of Missouri’s 114 counties. The recognition has followed, from a 2015 Great American Beer Festival gold medal for Bear Hair Belgian Blonde to the Columbia Chamber of Commerce naming the company its 2016 Small Business of the Year. The crew also has a track record of giving back, with partners including Missouri River Relief and the Alzheimer’s Association.
Come to Logboat for the beer, stay for the setting. It’s a rare place where a flagship IPA, an award-winning Belgian blonde and a coffee-forward porter all share a menu, and where you can drink them on a downtown-view balcony or out in the yard with friends and a dog at your feet. If you’re passing through central Missouri or you’re in Columbia for a game weekend, a stop on Fay Street is the easiest way to taste what the city’s craft beer scene is about. Grab a flight, find a seat upstairs as the sun drops over downtown, and you’ll understand why Logboat has become the place Columbia takes its visitors, its friends and its dogs.