New brewery coming to East Charlotte, with a walk-up window and outdoor patio
Vaulted Oak Brewing, East Charlotte’s new brewery opening later this year, is aptly named — it will be inside a former bank.
The Echo Hills/Oakhurst brewery will serve regionally-inspired beers when it opens at 3726 Monroe Road. The former bank footprint will lend to a perfect social distancing setup in the era of COVID-19. Former bank teller windows will become a walk-up window for patrons. The former drive-thru will serve as outdoor patio space.
Of course, the vault door will play an epic role in the decor of the new space, as well as the pneumatic tubes.
“Visitors can expect a low key atmosphere that plays off of the building’s past but never dives headfirst into the theme. We get it too; a brewery going into a bank .... The building is just a cool space architecturally and has a lot of potential even after we open and start operating,” founder Kiel Arrington told CharlotteFive. “We know that it’s not a historic building and that it’s not a treasured landmark but it was important to us that we keep the integrity of a lot of the building’s features.”
Arrington, Johnie Jones and Chuck Kistler are active partners and co-founders.
A variety of beers
Small-batch beers will include flavorful pale ales, sessionable blonde ales and crisp lagers, dank and bitter West Coast IPAs and tropical and soft East Coast IPAs. Also served will be fruited kettle sours, Belgian and French-inspired saisons and porters and stouts, as well as kombucha and cider, wine and housemade non-alcoholic beverages.
“My vision for Vaulted Oak is to be more than just another brewery in Charlotte. Living in the area and seeing how other parts of Charlotte have grown so rapidly made it even more important to me to really help shape how our area continues to grow,” Arrington said. “I want to become a family-friendly, neighborhood, everyone is welcomed kind of place. I can really see us being a community center that hosts philanthropic events, brings in various food trucks, local artists and musicians.”
Opening a brewery during COVID-19
Arrington is looking to his peers to help guide him through opening a brewery during this global pandemic. “Our friends and neighbors at Edge City Brewing in Mora are perfect examples, and without talking to them directly, I’m pretty sure they’re doing what they can and have to do to keep their doors open.”
“We’re not the first ones to do it and we’re not going to be the last for sure. We’ve got production plans in case we go back to Phase 1 but we also hope that we can safely open our doors to the public and allow people who feel comfortable checking us out to do so,” Arrington said.
“We may be doing a little packaging sooner than we expected.”
Vaulted Oak Brewing
3726 Monroe Road
Opening late 2020
Instagram: @vaultedoakbrewing
This story was originally published August 12, 2020 at 1:08 PM.
