By Bob Barnes, Las Vegas Correspondent
Beer Events
If you ever wished you could be in more than one place at once, it would be April 11, as there are no less than three beer happenings taking place on that day.
Lovelady Brewing, April 11: Lovelady Brewing will celebrate its 10-year anniversary with an all-day party. One of the special beers pouring at the Henderson Water Street brewery will be the 10th Anniversary beer Outback, a 7% helles bock hopped with Galaxy and Citra hops. Also, the Green Valley High School Jazz Band will perform starting at 5 p.m.
Modest Brewing, April 11: Las Vegas’ newest brewery that has been in soft-open mode for the past month or so. Now it has ample beer to pour and is ready for a grand ppening. The event will go from noon to 10 p.m., and feature multiple Modest beers crafted by co-owner and Brewer Casey Jacobson, specialty food items, and entertainment. Modest Brewing is located in the Arts District at 918 S Main St, right next to Cin-Cin Brewhouse.
Crab Corner Bull & Oyster Beer Bash, April 11: This event will take place at the Crab Corner Maryland Seafood House at 6485 S Rainbow Blvd from 1 to 4:30 p.m., and feature unlimited beer sampling of 40-plus beers from 15 breweries, including Firestone Walker, New Belgium, Silver Reef, Stone and local breweries Big Dog’s and CraftHaus. Attendees can also indulge in spirits from Candor Spirits, Uncle Ed’s Vodka and Old Man Liver; oysters served raw or char-grilled and sold by the dozen; and all-you-can-eat Maryland-style pit beef, shrimp, corn-on-the-cob, potato salad, coleslaw, hushpuppies, Caesar salad and chicken tenders. There will also be live music and a live remote broadcast from 95.5 the Bull. To purchase tickets, click here.
BJ’s Brewhouse, April 13: The five Southern Nevada BJ’s Brewhouse locations will host five-course beer dinners, featuring Asian-inspired dishes, a Japanese whisky and selection of Japanese beers, including Waterfall Japanese-style rice lager, a BJ’s collaboration with Sapporo Brewing brewed with Sorachi Ace hops and jasmine rice. The dinner will include Sapporo Premium Beer with chicken pot stickers, the aforementioned Waterfall with ahi poke, Kirin Ichiban with EnLIGHTened Asian chopped salad, a palate-cleanser of BJ’s Oasis Amber, Brewers Choice with sweet-and-spicy Asian glazed baby back ribs with mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus, and a two-ounce pour of Suntory Whisky Toki with a salted caramel Pizookie. The dinner will begin at 6:30 p.m., and the cost is $45 in advance and $50 (plus tax and tip) the day of the event. To purchase tickets, click here.
Big Dog’s Peace, Love & Hoppiness Festival, April 25: This event will be held in the outdoor area of the Big Dog’s Draft House at 4543 N Rancho Dr from 4 to 9 p.m. This pay-as-you-go event is free to attend and will have more than 45 brews on tap (more than half of which will be brewed-in-Nevada beers), live classic rock and island reggae music, BBQ sandwiches (pulled chicken with BBQ chipotle sauce and hot mess with smoked brisket and Knotty Dog Barleywine Bourbon-habanero BBQ sauce), raffles and giveaways. For more info and to purchase a tasting package, click here.
Lee’s Beer & Tequila Experience, May 2: This event will take place at Lee’s Family Forum from 4 to 8 p.m. The event will offer unlimited sampling of 500-plus beers, tequilas and spirits from top brands and an opportunity to connect with brand experts. During the event, all of the Forum’s concession stands will be offering food for purchase. Tickets are $49.54 (includes fee) with a 15% discount for two tickets purchased. 100% of net proceeds will benefit Lee’s Helping Hand, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting local children’s charities, families and communities. To purchase tickets, click here.
Local Brewer Spotlight
Josh Kunzli, Evolve Brewing
At 31 years of age, Josh Kunzli is one of the youngest head brewers in Southern Nevada. He grew up in McHenry, Illinois, a northwest suburb of Chicago, and earned a degree in Chemical Engineering (very useful expertise for a brewer) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). While attending UIC, Josh had a job working as a barback stocking more than 200 skews of craft beer, so naturally at his awareness and interest of the liquid medium was being nurtured.
In late 2016, he landed his first brewing job at a very small one-barrel brewery called The Side Lot outside Chicago, where he split time as a bartender and assistant brewer. A year later, Josh moved on to Crystal Lake Brewing, a large production brewery outside of Chicago where he was also an assistant brewer and worked mainly in packaging, handling a thousand cases a week. His first head brewer job was helping open Chicago’s Finch Beer Co., where he led a team of five.
Opening breweries became one of Josh’s specialties. In 2022, wanting a change of pace, Josh obtained his second head brewer job at Hi Sign, a brewery relocating to Austin, Texas. During his time there he made a yearly boy’s trip with friends. One of the trips happened to be Las Vegas in the fall of 2024, right at the time Evolve was under construction. The owners had put up a posting for the head-brewer job. While in town, Josh met with owners Keri Kelli and Ryan Johnson, got the job and moved here in November 2024 to help get the equipment set up. Opening Evolve (which in January celebrated its one-year anniversary) would be his third time opening a new brewery.
Josh’s favorite beers to drink are lightly fruited lagers. He lists Abita Haze and Lost Coast Tangerine Wheat as the gateway beers responsible for expanding his craft-beer appreciation. He says his guilty pleasures are funky sours, because “I love acidity, but can only drink about three ounces because my tongue starts to hurt.” As far as his favorite styles to brew, he cites IPAs as being the most fun because, “I get to really play around, tweak, improve and test out new hops. Every crop year’s hops taste a bit different, as there are pique crop years with some years that are better than others.”
Coming up on his brew calendar are Bad Manners, a West Coast IPA; Free Hugs, a double IPA; Grapefruit Wheat, part of the Noon Juice series coming back for summer; and a three-day kettle sour made with watermelon purée. Also in the works is a collaboration with Ricci Underwood, the winner of Evolve’s recent SNAFU Homebrew Competition. Josh and Ricci will recreate her winning Scottish wee heavy, which impressed the judges with its rich malt character and balance.
Local Brewery Champion of the Month
Evel Pie
In this recurring feature we spotlight establishments that appreciate our local breweries enough to devote the majority of their beer selection to beer made in Nevada.
Evel Pie, the Evel Knievel-themed pizzeria at 508 Fremont Street, just steps east of the Fremont Street Experience canopy, is worth a visit just to peruse the iconic daredevil’s memorabilia, which covers nearly every inch of the walls (a large part of which was provided by Knievel’s family) with photos, an actual Evel Knievel vintage pinball machine and an abundance of stickers. When the grab-and-go pizzeria opened in late 2016, the main attraction was the unique décor, but now more come for the excellent New York-style pizza cooked in a brick oven. My favorites are the Gang Green with basil pesto and mozzarella; and Hog Heaven with Evel’s BBQ sauce, smoked mozzarella, pulled pork and Man Candy bacon.
Now there’s another reason to stop in, as Evel Pie recently expanded its local beer selection to include a dozen Nevada-brewed beers such as Beer Zombies Duck Hunter IPA and Evel Ale, Big Dog’s Peace Love & Hoppiness, CraftHaus UNLV Rebel Spirit Ale, Las Vegas Brewing Chantilly Cream Ale, Lovelady 9th Island Pineapple Sour, Neon Desert Hefe Vice City and North 5th Flor de Mayo IPA.
Evolve Brewing Launches New App
Fresh off celebrating its one-year anniversary, Evolve Brewing has launched its new app. It’s free to download and gets you a weekly $1 Evolve beer, $5 to-go voucher, a free birthday beer and a peek at what’s on tap. To download, click here.
What’s Pouring
Beer Zombies owner Chris Jacobs sent me info on three new beers dropping this month. They include Zombie hWhip: Black Cherry, Cinnamon Roll, Maple Syrup & Ice Cream—a 4.3% pastry-style fruited sour dripping with dark black cherry, warm cinnamon-roll spice, rich maple-syrup sweetness and creamy ice-cream indulgence packaged in 16-ounce cans; Zombie hWhip: Raspberry, Dragon Fruit, Lemonade—a 4.3% heavily fruited sour that’s tart, refreshing and loaded with bright fruit intensity that delivers a punch of sweet-and-sour chaos in every 16-ounce pour; and The Vegas Haze Saw Massacre—an 8.7% double dry-hopped hazy double IPA loaded with Riwaka SubZero Hop Kief, El Dorado Salvo, Centennial Hyperboost, Centennial and Riwaka with savage waves of citrus, tropical punch and a resinous bite.
CraftHaus Brewery welcomed the return of its fan-favorite Giggle Juice double IPA on tap and in four-packs of 16-ounce cans on April 3. The name refers to the silly amount of Citra and Mosaic it’s double dry-hopped with.
North 5th Head Brewer Patrick Tofte tells me he’ll have his Velvet Goldmine, a 6.2% oatmeal stout full of chocolate, coffee, and roasty aromas and flavors with a fuller body and soft mouthfeel from the addition of flaked oats.
Big Dog’s Director of Brewing Operations Dave Pascual will have Wonder Dog West Coast IPA hopped with Dolcita, Nectaron and Galaxy; Dog Pound, a German-style Pilsner; and Sour Hound infused with blueberries.
As always, Great Beer Happens in Vegas!