If you don’t have a beer garden at your house, don’t worry – Marty Koger has you covered.
His Tip Top Taps growler shop closed in Columbia County almost two years ago, where customers could buy myriad brands of craft beer freshly poured into resealable half-gallon containers to take home.
Tip Top Taps has now reopened in downtown Augusta at 936 Broad St., in the former Book Tavern space in the JB Whites Building. It’s not just selling growlers but creating an entire beer-loving environment designed to resemble someone’s back yard.
“I had gone to Atlanta to do my research and looked at four different ones and fell in love with the concept,” he said. “But I realized looking at each one of those is that there’s no template for what they are. Everyone creates their own atmospheres and their own concepts.”
Koger’s concept is “the Tap Yard,” where tables are surrounded by classic webbed folding lawn chairs, “the most comfortable chairs you’ll ever sit in,” he said.
Stairs lead to a mezzanine where customers can socialize while playing jazzminton, a fast-paced paddle game that uses badminton-type shuttlecocks but no net. Players instead have to return the shuttlecock to opposing players by hitting it through a narrow window on a mounted frame.
In this relaxed atmosphere unlike noisier bars, there are 20 beers on-tap at any given time. If you don’t see a beer you like, just revisit in a few days – the menu selections change every week. A running text crawl on the menu’s video screen even tells people which beers are coming the following week.
Also on the tap wall are wine-infused cocktails and the sparkling wine prosecco.
“It’s made for the consumer. We feel like craft beers are an art,” Koger said. “A chef usually has a meal for you, but a brewmaster has something that millions of people have the opportunity to try, and I think that’s awesome.”
The beer lineup changes but the categories do not. The taps have five IPAs, or India pale ales; five Belgian ales or other imports; five beers from regional brewers; and five seasonal selections.
Even pumpkin spice?
“We actually have the best pumpkin spice cider you’ve ever had,” Koger said. “The very first year Tip Top Taps had it on the wall, probably four years ago, we sold 40 kegs of it.”
Another seasonal flavor, currently available in bottles, is from a Charlotte, N.C., brewer that brews an imperial stout, at 8.6% alcohol, that tastes exactly like a frosted sugar cookie, according to Tip Top Taps manager Josh Szoka. His job includes constantly scouting beer distributors for interesting beers and ales, and tasting every brand the beer bar offers.
“Absolutely. It’s a demanding job,” he said wryly.
Customers also can sample every beer by ordering a beer flight, which provides four smaller servings of different beers.
Koger had been a successful businessman before starting Tip Top Taps, but his new beer bar gives him the opportunity to interact more with people, which the gregarious man missed while toiling in an office.
“This gives me that access to enjoy people and having something I can say, when I’m introduced to someone, ‘I own Tip Top Taps,’ not ‘I have a hauling business,’” he said with a laugh. “It’s a little more sexy.”