The group that developed popular restaurants Big Orange, Local Lime, and ZaZa’s finally unveiled their latest creation: Lost 40 Brewing Company.
The team (officially known as Yellow Rocket Concepts) of Scott McGehee, John Beachboard, and Russ McDonough have a knack for high quality craft beer. The move to brewing their own comes as a logical extension of their growing restaurant empire in Central Arkansas.
The group has brought back to Little Rock Omar Castrellon as the master brewer. Castrellon was previously at Thr3e Wise Men Brewery in Indianapolis.
Lost 40 will be located in downtown Little Rock and will start with a 30 barrel brewhouse. Opening date is expected to be late 2014.
Yellow Rocket Concepts continues to expand their restaurant business. This past summer they opened their second Big Orange location in Midtown Little Rock, which has been highly successful. We have heard rumors about a “closer to midtown and downtown” location for their popular Local Lime restaurant. Additionally we have heard about at least one other completely new restaurant and possibly a NWA (likely Fayetteville) presence. Should be a busy 2014.
Full press release on Lost 40 brewing company is below.
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Yellow Rocket Concepts announces the creation of Lost 40 Brewing Company in Little Rock, Arkansas. Yellow Rocket is the parent company of Big Orange Burgers + Salads & Shakes, Local Lime Tacos & Margaritas, and ZaZa Fine Salad & Wood Oven Pizza Company. Yellow Rocket Concepts is based in Little Rock, Arkansas, and is owned by partners Scott McGehee, John Beachboard, and Russ McDonough.
Through our five restaurants in central Arkansas we sell a large volume of quality craft beer. Along with beginning to produce and sell our own craft beer, we will continue to offer a wide variety of craft beers from across the country, and particularly from across Arkansas, as we continue to strongly support the craft beer industry, and offer the best craft beers available to our customers.
Our brewery will be located in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas, and will begin production with a 30 barrel brewhouse, and approximately 4,000 barrels in annual capacity. We are excited to announce that Omar Castrellon, Master Brewer at Thr3e Wise Men Brewery in Indianapolis, will be moving back to Little Rock, and joining us as master Brewer at Lost 40 Brewing Company. Omar’s storied career in making extremely high quality craft beer, and training many other brewers in the art of craft beer making, spans several decades, from coast-to-coast across the United States. In Omar’s dedication to his craft, in his talent for making incredible beer, and in his unyielding standards for quality and taste and consistency, we found exactly who and what we were looking for in a master Brewer, to parallel the same approach we take to quality and consistency in all of our restaurants.
The brewery will open in the late summer / early fall of 2014, and will offer brewery tours, and an on-site tap room for sampling our beers. In addition, Lost 40 Beer will be available not only in our own restaurants, but in other restaurants, liquor stores, and grocery stores across Arkansas.
We also have several other exciting new restaurant concepts in the works, as well as new locations planned for our existing concepts. And 2014 & 2015 will see the opening of several of these new restaurant concepts and locations.
In the meantime, we hope you will stop by the brewery when we open, learn more about who we are and what we are creating, discover why we are so excited about Lost 40 Brewery, and have a pint with us. The demand for fresh, high quality, and local product continues to grow in the beer community, just as it does with food. Arkansas is our home. And our goal is to make every beer we serve you the best, hand-crafted, high quality local beer we can possibly create.
RIP Damgoode Pies
November 20, 2023
