Trappeze Pub in Athens, Georgia

When Trappeze Pub opened in 2007, its hometown of Athens, Ga., was known more for its music than its beer. Home to the University of Georgia, Athens is a quintessential college town, and with that comes a proliferation of cheap tallboys and shooter specials. “There are so many bars in Athens that the usual reaction to a new one coming along is skepticism,” says Eric Wagoner, who was one of Trappeze’s first regulars. “Quickly, it was clear this one was going to be different.”

Co-founder Eric Johnson, a 20-year homebrew veteran who’d just left a career in international horticulture, was ready for the challenge. “When we first opened, the guy distributing PBR asked me how many cases we wanted,” Johnson remembers. “I told him we weren’t gonna carry it, and he told me we were fucked.”

Johnson and his partner did three quarters of the construction work themselves. Then, thanks in no small part to pent-up demand for craft beer in the area, opening night saw people lined up out the door for Trappeze’s expansive beer bible of a menu, which features detailed descriptions of each beer on the pub’s 29 taps and 200-plus bottle list. The menu also includes cask offerings and selections from local breweries, like Red Hare and Wild Heaven, the Decatur brewery that Johnson co-founded and works at as consulting brewmaster.

Johnson may be a brewmaster on the side, but he opened Trappeze tending the bar himself. He was bartending the day that Neil Callaghan stopped into Trappeze for a beer after a long day hitting the pavement looking for a job in 2010. Callaghan says he was “shocked and excited that a pub in Athens had cask ale.” After Johnson watched Callaghan convince a fellow patron to try an IPA, he knew he had found his bar manager.

“I think Eric was impressed I was able to bring someone out of their comfort zone,” Callaghan says. “He hired me on the spot after [I spent] a total of one hour inside Trappeze.”

In the five years since Trappeze opened, Athens’ craft beer scene has grown. And with Trappeze expanding its space and menu to include cocktails and wine, the future of the pub is a bright one. “We totally changed the entire face of the Athens beer scene,” Johnson says. “And the more we can challenge our customers and have them challenge us, the more Athens will become the beer destination I think it has the capacity to become.” ■