Glenwood South’s newest saloon, the Raleigh Beer Garden, opened its doors July 20 and is home to more beers on tap than anywhere else on Earth.
The 8,500 square-foot, three-story garden boasts a world-record-breaking 366 craft beers on tap, 144 of which come straight from North Carolina breweries.
“We [have been] excited to see everyone come out the first week and experience the garden for the first time,” said Frank Bloom, director of marketing and events at Hibernian Company, Inc.
In addition to serving craft beer, the Raleigh Beer Garden also includesSpiritual, a high-end cocktail bar featuring rare and locally distilled spirits as well as thin crust pizzas, homemade sausages and gourmet salads.
The garden’s interior space can accompany 400 or so patrons. Outside, between the patios, roof-top space and back garden, there are an additional 50 tables for guests, according to Bloom.
“We are going through so much beer now,” Bloom said. “We’ve already kicked 400 kegs.”
The garden is able to make sure all 366 types of beer stay fresh because of a short-draw tap system that feeds directly into their coolers. This keeps beer from getting trapped within the lines and potentially becoming stale.
“We have people constantly monitoring the life of the kegs, the cleanliness of the tap lines and the system itself,” Bloom said.
Thanks to the initial popularity of the beer garden, the steady flow of sales has kept the concern of beer becoming stale at a minimum, according to Bloom.
In addition to North Carolina being represented in the selection of beers, the local area is also honored throughout the design of the building. The bar’s countertops and tables are all made from pecan trees that were found off the property prior to the construction of the Raleigh Beer Garden. The inside of the building also features a reconstructed 40-foot pecan tree from a farm in Creedmoor, North Carolina..
Currently, the Raleigh Beer Garden is open from 11 a.m. until 2 a.m., daily. Although shortly after its initial opening, the garden curtailed its lunch-time hours to address a number of concerns expressed by patrons.
“We [were] working on a few tweaks to the system to make sure that the experience everyone has is better and better each time,” Bloom said. “We are inventing an entire new way of doing things since we are housing the world’s largest draft system in one spot.”
Bloom said that beating the world record for the most beers on tap wasn’t necessarily the goal of the Raleigh Beer Garden.
“Once we started creeping up on the number with the initial design of the draft beer system, [Niall Hanley, the owner of the Raleigh Beer Garden] said why not,” Bloom said. “So we went for it”.
While 366 is an impressive number, Hanley told the Condé Nast Traveler that it is just the beginning of the garden.
“We actually have another cooler, so we’re probably going to add another twenty or so taps upstairs,” said Hanley. “Eventually we could be just under 400.”
The kegs that feed into the taps on the second floor bar of the Raleigh Beer Garden. The row of kegs lead to over 100 individual beer taps and are visible from a window beside the bar.
