Reader Vault

At the risk of adding votes to his total in the Best of Erie's "Most overexposed local celebrity" category, we're going to revisit Jason Lavery in this installment of the Reader Vault.

Back in the early days of the Erie Reader, Lavery wasn't an overexposed local celebrity - he was just a guy with an idea - an idea that the people of Erie wanted better beer, and more of it.

Turns out, he was right.

Reader writer Cory Vaillancourt profiled Lavery in the April 20, 2011 issue, which was the Reader's third; Lavery was still brewing out of Brewerie and hadn't even begun moving his own tanks in to the now-thriving space at 128 W. 12th Street. And the pub itself was still a just dream - a big "if."

That "if" turned into an "it" just over a year ago, and a few months after that, Lavery and crew took home a Gold Medal from the 2013 Great American Beer Fest in Denver.

But before all that there was just this guy, with an idea, and the skills, motivation and support to germinate that idea that now brings so much beauty into so many lives. So if you haven't already done so, get the lowdown on Jason here. 

Every Thursday, "Reader Vault" traipses through the vast, climate-controlled, laser-protected archive of the Erie Reader, located in the mysterious underground chambers of the Erie Masonic Temple building, because you're not allowed to traipse there. But also because we realize that you may have missed some stories we published in the past; thus we retrieve from the huge pile of hyperlinks situated down in those untraipsable mysterious underground chambers only the finest, aged, hand-crafted  hyperlinks, carry them up 4 flights of stairs, and manually feed them into the machinery that puts them in front of your face, only occasionally losing a finger in the process.