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The sign above the awning at 470 E St. in David City marks the building as Ropers Bar & Grill. Owners Marty and Kris Roper are undergoing the licensing process to create a brewery.

Tom Polacek poses for a photo next to some brewery equipment. Polacek is the brewmaster for Salt Mine City Brewing, a new business from Roper's Bar & Grill owners Marty and Kris Roper.

David City man Tom Polacek describes brewing as a fun creative process.

“Forming a recipe of what you want a beer to taste like and, and then make it actually come out the right,” Polacek said. “If you do it a few times, it gets kind of fun. You can experiment with it and try different things.”

The homebrewer got his start about 12 years ago when a friend from Lincoln started getting into the hobby. These days, Polacek has won some awards for his beer in competitions, though he doesn’t enter a lot of those.

Eventually, David City locals and visitors will get a taste of Polacek’s craft with the creation of Salt Mine City Brewing. Roper’s Bar and Grill owners Marty and Kris Roper will own the business while Polacek will work as the brewmaster.

Marty Roper said the couple has always wanted to have a brewery, even more so than the restaurant/bar establishment they opened over a year ago in downtown David City. But, he added, they knew more about the bar business.

“We figured that we could have this and then start that later,” Roper said. “If this was successful, that was great. Then we knew that would be successful as well.”

The actual brewery will be located in a building in the north part of town and the product will be sold at the bar.

Polacek said the partnership started back when his construction business completed the Roper’s Bar and Grill renovations prior to the bar opening. Roper had mentioned wanting to have a brewery and Polacek said he expressed interest.

Brewing beer can be quite the task. It’s a six to eight hour process just to brew a patch before the batch is placed in the fermenter for about a week, Polacek said. It’s finally ready to put in a keg about two weeks after the initial brewing, he added.

“There's a lot of time after brew day just checking on the beer and sampling and see where it's at and take measurements on it,” Polacek said. “I would say a person probably spends 16 hours total time in brewing a batch of beer – brew day and then all packaging and cleaning and all that good stuff.”

At the moment, one barrel of beer – equal to 13 gallons, has been brewed. Roper still is waiting on final licensing approval.

“All the equipment and construction, that all had to be done before you even started your licensing,” Roper said. “Which is different from having a bar, you can have a bar all day long and not sell any beer and not sell any liquor but you can still serve food.”

It’s been a slow process getting the brewery up and going – it’s already been nine months since the brewery building’s lease was signed and equipment ordered. The equipment was delayed and finally arrived in about April.

According to Roper, there had also been some miscommunication while ordering as the vendor saw quite a bit of staff turnover. Also, some of the equipment – such as the keg washer – didn’t come with clear instructions so it’s been a trial and error type of process.

Throughout the past several months, they’ve been figuring out what type of beer to make.

“It's a little bit slow process, putting everything together, getting all the ducks in a row but (you) just have to know to that it's going to take time and just have to have patience,” Polacek said. “So other than that, it's been going as well or better than we had expected.”

Polacek said it will be a learning process to figure out a work schedule that fits the best.

“Initially, there's going to be a lot of time involved to get some inventory build-up. So we have plenty of beer on tap, and we don't want to be running out,” he added.

Roper said he was surprised when Polacek agreed to be his brewmaster.

“I was going to be like, ‘Well, we're going to have to get on LinkedIn and Monster or whatever job site thing is out there and hopefully somebody would want to do it at a decent price,” Roper said. “A lot of the guys from the (local) brew club are helping us out they're going in and learning how to do clean kegs and keg beer and the process of actually putting things in the fermenter and how that's supposed to work. Some of the guys actually have a smaller system of what we're actually brewing on, so they they've helped us out quite a bit.”

Roper said they were originally planning to start selling product in 2023 because of the sometimes long licensing process. However, it hasn’t taken as long as planned so now it looks like the public will be waiting on the brewery to get going, not the brewery waiting on the government’s approval.

“We're just going to kind of have to try and piece some stuff together and hopefully get some stuff ready for Tasting of Nebraska for the Butler County Fair,” Roper said. “Hopefully, we can have four kegs ready for that or four different kegs ready for that. Just to say, ‘Here we are, and we can brew some pretty damn good beer.’”

Hannah Schrodt is the news editor of The Banner-Press. Reach her via email at hannah.schrodt@lee.net.

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The sign above the awning at 470 E St. in David City marks the building as Ropers Bar & Grill. Owners Marty and Kris Roper are undergoing the licensing process to create a brewery.

Tom Polacek poses for a photo next to some brewery equipment. Polacek is the brewmaster for Salt Mine City Brewing, a new business from Roper's Bar & Grill owners Marty and Kris Roper.

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