Lexington-based brewery West Sixth Brewing recently announced that they would be opening a new location in Covington, dubbed the West Sixth Covington Haus, appropriately found on 1000 West 6th Street, at the former location of Flying Axes.
West Sixth spoke with LINK nky about their vision for the new facility and what residents can look forward to once it opens later this year.
“Our goal was always to be the brewery of Kentucky,” said co-founder Ben Self.
The venture coincides with West Sixth’s new partnership with Walton-based distributor Chas Seligman Distributing Company, which Self hopes will extend the brewery’s reach in the NKY region.
In a past life, the building served as a fire house and then as the site of well-known Covington restaurateur Mick Noll’s Covington Haus. Noll died in 2016, and West Sixth revived the name as a nod to the building’s history.
“We are very happy to see another new life for The Covington Fire House Number One,” said Mick Noll’s son, Ludwig Noll, in a press release.
“Their decision to incorporate the name of the first restaurant after its conversion from a firehouse to a gathering place, Covington Haus, is a fun reference to the past and a fitting nod to Mick Noll and the entire Noll family,” Covington Mayor Joe Meyer said in the same release.
West Sixth’s main taproom and production facility is in Lexington. They have another location in Louisville as well as a large, 120-acre complex in Frankfort that not only serves their signature brews but also sports a disc golf course, hiking trails and biking trails.
Finally, they have a smaller box bar in Newport on the Levee called the West Sixth Box Park, which the company will be phasing out in favor of the new Covington Haus. Staff and management from the Newport location will move to the new location. The company’s head brewer, Andy Smith, formerly worked at Hofbräuhaus in Newport.
“That was one of the main reasons of doing [the Covington] location was so we could start looking for something a little bit more permanent that felt like us up in the Northern Kentucky area,” said West Sixth’s Marketing and Creative Director Kelly Hieronymus.
The goal, both Self and Hieronymus said, is to have about 20 beers on tap at an L-shaped bar in a back corner of the building. Seating and tables will be of various sizes, including some lounge seating, and the brewery hopes to have a small alcove near the rear of the building for semi-private gatherings. Hieronymus said the location should be able to accommodate about 100 people.
Furthermore, Hieronymus said, they hope to preserve much of the interior’s materials, playing into their efforts “to honor the history of the building.” She gave the example of the pine beams–originally from Oregon–in the building’s hung ceiling, a hold over from its days as a fire house.
Lastly, Self said the location will also hold a restaurant, although he said it probably won’t be operational until after the bar opens. The menu, he added, is still being developed, but he stated that the restaurant would serve lunch and dinner. Overall, the building would be “family-friendly.”
“We see these moves as an intentional reinvestment in this area we’ve always been a part of, and it allows us to lean on the Northern Kentucky roots of some of our staff,” Self said.
Self said the bar should be up and running by the fall. The restaurant will open later in the year.