OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — After a one year hiatus due to the pandemic, Omaha is crawling with customers and craft beer once again for Omaha Beer Week.
“Small businesses were impacted a lot during COVID,” Shaun O’Casey’s bar manager Ben Jackson said. “This is a great opportunity for people to come out and support local.”
“It’s really nice to do something that we’ve been looking forward to doing for a year now,” Blatt Bar & Table assistant general manager Jared Birchard said.
It’s not about competing and topping one another, but instead about lifting each other up and promoting all local breweries.
“Everybody is promoting each other's beers,” Thunderhead Brewing Company Downtown general manager Jacob Koke said. “We’re running Brickway beers, I have beers from Rockhopper which is a small brewery here in the states.”
“The core focus of the Omaha Beer Week definitely is supporting local businesses and supporting local breweries,” said Omaha Beer Week marketing chair Charley Steed.
The Omaha Beer Week board pride themselves on stretching all the events out an entire week. Thus, giving everybody an opportunity to participate and check out places all around the area.
ALSO SEE: Omaha Beer Week gets underway
“Unlike a festival where you are kind of crowded into one place for one day, this is an opportunity for people to plan an entire week and go out and visit places they wouldn’t normally go,” Steed said. “They might find one of their new favorite locations just by chance and just by going out.”
There’s a total of 58 members participating in the community, and they’re are thrilled to be along for the ride.
“Members in this case are restaurants, breweries, distributors, all sorts of people that have some sort of attachment to craft beer,” Steed said.
To learn more about Omaha Beer Week and find out when and where all of the events are taking place, you can visit their website.
