More than 10 years ago, I got a call out of the blue from a guy called Nick Purdy who was starting a brewery in Atlanta. Always eager to try new beer, I met him at Brick Store where he handed me to un-labeled brown bottles that contained the first batches of Invocation Belgian-style Golden Ale, and Ode to Mercy, a coffee brown ale. By late 2014, the brewery broke ground on their production facility in Avondale Estates, Georgia.
It was over a decade ago and honestly felt like a badass for having bottles from a brewery that wasn’t even open yet. Production breweries opening in Atlanta were far more rare a decade ago in the Peach State.
Later that year, Purdy invited me over to show me the new construction, and it’s there I met Eric Johnson, the co-founder and creative genius behind Wild Heaven’s beers. Folks in Athens, Georgia, might know him by his first beer overture – Trappeze Pub. Within hours, in the mild Georgia cold, Eric and I were drinking beers and laying out the where the sloped floors would be cut. (Side note after the fact, that wasn’t a simple task.)
Fast forward a few years to Atlanta’s West End in 2017. Wild Heaven signs a long-term lease in the 23 acres of “warehouse row” owned by Lee & White, adjacent to the future piece of the city’s Beltline. Notably home to Monday Night’s Sour and Wild facility, The Garage.
The 21,600 square foot freestanding building is Wild Heaven’s second home, a bigger, bolder expansion for this Georgia craft brewer. The facility will feature 80 taps, multiple private event spaces, a patio overlooking the beltline, and a full-service restaurant.Wild Heaven West End is just feet from American Spirit Distillery’s second location, as well as Hop City’s new bottleshop and restaurant.
The expected opening date has shifted, pending approvals, but an August opening has now been confirmed.
