A craft brewery in downtown Louisville will open a retail space with branded merchandise this week.

First established in 2012 and located inside Louisville Slugger Field, Against the Grain Brewery and Smokehouse has made a name for itself, first locally and now internationally, for its eccentricity, darkly humorous branding and lengthy list of creatively-named craft brews, like Hold Me Closer Thai-ny Danza, Quiet RYE-It and Kubla Pecan. It welcomes an estimated 100,000 people a year, particularly in the summer months.

While they’ve had an e-commerce presence since they first opened, selling first branded T-shirts and gradually expanding the line to hats, stickers, drinkware and more, the team decided a few months ago to open a brick-and-mortar area of the brewery to showcase their logoed items and packaged carry-out beer and meats from the smokehouse.

They decided that an on-site storage unit would be ideal to establish a Bottle & Gift Shop.

“Our merch used to be in a small glass case and it went unnoticed, honestly,” says Katie Molck, the brewery's marketing and media maven. “We wanted to showcase it and we had the time, resources and money to make the storage area into something we could use for more. We redid the whole thing.”

While fans of the brewery can still shop the e-commerce site, which will continue to serve customers in the 46 states and 22 countries where Against the Grain’s brews are distributed, locals and tourists can now shop the collection onsite in the brewery. The selection will include T-shirts, glasswear, beach balls, fanny packs, duffels, Pop sockets and sweatshirts, with plans to add gradually to the line-up.

Molck says the items and branding reflect the natural wood motif of the brewery and smokehouse that’s broken up by unique, colorful art done by local artist Robby Davis, which is also featured on their beer cans, bottles and packaging.

The retail store will open this Friday November 23 at the brewery’s location in Louisville. Molck says they’ll be offering a few specialty brews, including their 70K Amburana, made with Brazilian amburana wood that won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, and will offer discounts on their branded merchandise.

Against the Grain's award-winning 70K Amburana will be offered this weekend during the grand opening of the new retail space.