Back in September we covered the groundbreaking of Red River Brewing, located at 1200 Marshall Street. The team at RRB has had a long road since forming in 2008 and this new facility represents not only a new hotspot for tourists and locals alike, but also tangible proof of what Shreveport’s entrepreneurs can achieve.
To be forewarned, I am not going to compare and contrast the atmosphere and beers of Red River Brewing with Flying Heart and Great Raft. As a personal point of view, Shreveport is too small to focus on creating rivalries and driving consumers to become maximalists. Red River Brewing offers an excellent space that ticks the boxes for a great brewery. Indoor games? Check. Excellent bar area? Check. Growler fillups? Check. Patio area? Check. Amazing local food? Check. The beer list offers many styles that are not currently offered in town, and on behalf of Heliopolis we see it as a great honor to have a beer named after us (please send us free beer forever).
The partners at RRB have taken the hard road to get to this point. Starting as passionate homebrewers, they started small with their first brewery (a micro-micro-brewery if you will) just a block over from their present location. They worked hard in that location to perfect the quality of their product and learn the difficult process of brewing, marketing, and distributing. Those who follow the start-up scene in Shreveport know that that Red River Brewing is no stranger to participating in programs to refine their business plan, such as CoHabitat’s Breaking Lean. All of this passion, experience, and dedication leads to this final point – a beautiful facility producing a great variety of beers in a part of town that seems poised for revitalization.
The new Red River Brewing facility was really made possible by the expansion of the “Downtown District” to cover the buildings owned by Ronnie Remedies, opening the property to governmental support. Remedies’s renovated properties at the northern end of Marshall Street represent the starting point for what could be an area poised for revitalization. Marshall Street is a low traffic, four lane street that is the preferred route for many cyclists and pedestrians to get to Downtown. Currently, there are abundant properties that are for sale in the area that lend themselves for opportunities to capitalize on creating a downtown corridor. This area seems far more attainable and advantageous than the Texas Avenue/Shreveport Common plan for encouraging growth and connecting to the Highland and Stoner Hill neighborhoods. For cyclists who enjoy drinking beer, the best news is that we now have another brewery in easy cycling distance of the Highland, South Highland, and Broadmoor neighborhoods.