Roaring Table Brewery taps into Lake Zurich market
Roaring Table, a husband-and-wife run craft brewery in Lake Zurich, officially opens to the public Friday.
Co-owners Lane Fearing and Beth May hosted a small ribbon-cutting ceremony with chamber of commerce members and village officials Thursday afternoon to mark the occasion and celebrate all the work that went in to getting the brewery up and running.
May said the couple started seriously pursuing opening their own brewery two years ago. Fearing had been working at Micky Finn's Brewery in Libertyville as an assistant brewer for about eight years after graduating from the brewing program at Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago.
"Brewing is a very physical job," May said. "And he said instead of doing it for someone else, that he'd like to do it for himself."
The couple, who live in Barrington, began looking for space nearby. After speaking with officials in several villages they ultimately decided that the right place for them was the vacant storefront in the Village Square strip mall at 739 W. Route 22.
May said they like their location near a busy intersection and Trader Joe's, providing them with good food options all around. Because the brewery doesn't have a full kitchen, it's partnering with local restaurants to provide food for patrons of their tap room.
Patrons can order from Franco's Pescheria, Dipiero's Pizza and Cinnamon Bistro. And Roaring Table guests will be the only diners who can order in from BBQ Productions when it opens in Lake Zurich next month.
Roaring Table also will sell snack foods, like bacon flights and soft pretzels from Gnarly Knots. When it opens Friday, the brewery's tap room with have four of its own beers on tap, along with four guest beers and two guest ciders. Within a few months, the majority of the beer will be their own, May said.
They also will offer wine and craft soda.
The brewery's name was inspired by a line in Shakespeare's "Hamlet" when the titular prince describes the court jester Yorick as a man whose merriment would often "set the table on a roar."
The Roaring Table taproom will be open from 3 to 10 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, from 1 p.m. to midnight on Friday, from 11 a.m. to midnight on Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday.