What happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, but there are some things that seep beyond Sin City. Case in point, Beer Zombies, a Las Vegas-based craft-beer entity that was founded in 2013 and has gone on to open its own bottle shop, while participating in collaboration brews and multi-faceted events, and putting on an annual festival. The most recent of this undead interest’s many accomplishments is establishment of its own beer brand, Beer Zombies Brewing, which debuted earlier this year. Little known fact: all of Beer Zombies Brewing’s beers are produced at Mason Ale Works’ brewery inside the Urge Common House brewpub in San Marcos.
“I’ve gotten to know Beer Zombies owner Chris Jacobs over the past year. We’ve been fans of each other’s brands for a while, but once we started distributing Mason Ale Works beers in Nevada, we were able to meet face-to-face,” says Mason Ale Works co-owner Grant Tondro. “Chris is known for doing a lot of collaborations, as is Mason, so it seemed like an obvious fit. As conversations on that front went along, the idea of started Beer Zombies Brewing began to develop. It’s something Chris has wanted to do for a while, and it seemed like the time was right.”
So far, a big part of the timing being right has been how the pandemic has rendered the timing so wrong for business as usual in the brewing industry. Before COVID-19, Mason Ale Works had an entire release calendar set for 2020. That has since been thrown out the window, with Tondro focusing more on passion projects than portfolio mainstays. That includes releasing various editions of a single-hop IPA dubbed Mason’s Revengeance (formerly Mason’s Revenge) and other Beer Zombies Brewing creations. Citra and Nelson Sauvin versions of the single-hop IPA have been released to-date, with Galaxy, Mosaic and Strata iterations coming, and the next beer in the hopper is an oat cream IPA stocked with “an obscene amount of Citra hops.”
When asked why he chose to team with Mason Ale Works, a brewery 300 miles from his home base, Jacobs cites a respect for quality and ethos overlap. “I had been steadily stocking every Mason beer I could get a hold of for the Beer Zombies Draft Room here in Las Vegas. Actually, the first beer release that I’ve ever driven from Las Vegas to California and back in the same day was the 2015 release of Velvet Speedway Mason did with AleSmith Brewing. Nothing like a nine-hour round-trip for a single bottle of stout,” he laughs.
It all came full-circle when I got to open it with Grant at a Mason Ale Works tap takeover at my draft room. We really got to talk that night. I mentioned how I read on his labels the quote ‘friendship before finance,’ and that it struck me as a very genuine approach to the business. I’ve always run Beer Zombies organically and done what feels right. After that night, I knew this was a perfect fit to bring Beer Zombies Brewing to life.”
Chris Jacobs, Owner, Beer Zombies
Somehow—like, say, a military-developed chemical warfare experiment that accidentally infects Earth’s inhabitants with a virus that revives the dead as mindless, flesh-hungry monsters—the fact Mason has been behind Beer Zombie Brewing’s fast-rising star has stayed mostly under wraps. Tondro attributes that to the fact the beers have mostly been available in several of the 11 states besides California that Mason products are distributed to, including Arizona, Nevada and, soon, Utah.
Beer Zombie Brewing beers haven’t yet been available in great enough quantity for Mason’s California partner to take to market under its current minimum-shipment requirements, making Tondro’s family of Urge Gastropub restaurants the only place to purchase products of the spinoff brand, locally. However, accounts that are interested in carrying the beers can reach out to Tondro directly via email.
But this is just the beginning for Beer Zombies Brewing. Tondro and Jacobs are kicking around some ideas that would significantly increase the visibility of their collaborative brand in San Diego County.
“Chris and I have had some very preliminary conversations about doing more stuff with the brand, but there’s still a lot that needs to fall into place before we will have anything to announce,” says Tondro. “That being said, I think it’s safe to say that something big will happen.”