The story behind our Judge Roy Bean.
If you were born on the Eastern Shore or in Mobile before 1985, there's a good chance you had a drink at Judge Roy Bean in Daphne, AL. Everyone who went to that legendary establishment has at least one story about Judge's.
Judge Roy Bean was built in 1946 and operated as The Embassy Lounge before it was named after the judge who had owned the land in 1976.
We opened Fairhope Brewing Company in 2013, eight years after Judge’s burned down. From day one, we promised ourselves that if a beer didn’t turn out exactly right, it wouldn’t go out under that name.
One of our original beers on tap was Painted Black, a 7.8% Black IPA. It was a mix of styles you didn't see much around here, and it was (and still is) a big hit. Unfortunately, one of our batches didn’t ferment properly in early 2014. A check valve froze up over the weekend, and the beer fermented out too fast. We were stuck with a 5% dark base beer. Now what?
Just because it didn't turn out right didn't mean we wanted to dump it. We all sampled it, and the base still tasted quite good. It just wasn't Painted Black. A few sips into a brainstorm session on how to pivot, someone asked: “What if we add coffee and call it a coffee stout?” Our brewer at the time, Dan Murphy, got straight to work. We got coffee beans from a shop in Pensacola, and Dan added vanilla beans to smooth out the coffee bitterness. As he was putting it together, the light bulb went off. We shall call it Judge Roy Bean! This was the absolute perfect name for this coffee vanilla stout.
We kegged it, put it on tap, and immediately sold the heck out of it. Then came the conundrum: how do you replicate the taste of a beer that came to life by accident? Dan set out to recreate it, this time on purpose. It took months to work through all the details and get it tasting close to the original, but we knew we had a winner. Great taste, great name, great nostalgia, great marketing opportunities.
508 Main St, Daphne, AL.
The next batch came out well, but we know it could be better. So Judge Roy Bean kept evolving in a way no other beer of ours has. Here's the short version:
Brian was friends with Hanson, who had just opened Fairhope Roasting Company. Local supports local, so we started buying beans from our neighbors.
Then, we realized we could get a much creamier, smoother taste by making our own cold brew to fuse into the beer. So Tom and Darius learned how to make it, still using the beans from Fairhope Roasting.
Once we switched to cold brew, we dropped the vanilla beans from the recipe.
So what we have now is a Southern stout. Sure, it’s a dark beer, but it’s not high in alcohol, and it drinks much lighter than motor oil. We still get our beans from Fairhope Roasting, and on a cold brew day the brewery smells like a coffee roasting company.
We’d like to think that on a crisp fall day, someone would have enjoyed a Judge Roy Bean at Judge Roy Bean. Maybe Billy the Goat would’ve sipped on some? Either way, the support behind this beer tells us we properly honored a legendary bar with a damn fine beer.