Brews & BBQ Stack Up

Pair a Navy vet-restaurateur with Kansas City barbecue roots with a brewery owner who also runs restaurants with a sense of whimsy and a flair for fun — and you get a match made in brew-hog heaven.

At least that’s what Jamie ​“The Bear” McDonald of Bear’s Smokehouse and Black Hog Brewing Co.‘s Jason Sobocinski hope will come out of their new joint venture, The Stack.

The giant-sized barbecue and German-style beer garden and brewhouse is the latest collaboration to come out of DISTRICT, the new innovation hub in the Fair Haven section of the city on James Street.

On a recent afternoon, The Stack was alive with activity.

While about 30 people were enjoying their lunches, McDonald had staff from his restaurants in Hartford and Windsor on the ground training the 45 staffers he has hired to wash dishes and serve food. By New Haven standards, the restaurant, which can seat a total of more than 400 people inside and out, is a massive operation. McDonald anticipates hiring another 30 or so employees when The Stack is fully operational.

He said the new venture hasn’t gone on an all-out blitz to get people in the door because he wanted to make sure that all little problems of opening a new restaurant were worked out and that his staff understood its mission of delivering high-quality service.

The beer garden and the bar that will serve it are still a work in progress, expected to be ready along with the in-house brewery sometime in early December. Workers were on site installing heaters and sails that will make the outdoor beer garden usable nearly all year round. Inside they were working on installing the brewing equipment.

Fire pits also will help keep the chills at bay while people enjoy their beer that will be brewed on site along with pretzels made by the good folks at Whole G Bakery and smoked German-style sausages from Lamberti’s on Long Wharf.

Sobocinski, who was sampling pretzels from Whole G, said his goal is to offer up more local collaborations, particularly with other brewers who want to try out smaller batches that wouldn’t make economic sense in larger quantities.

After warming up a Whole G pretzel, basting it with rendered brisket fat, and dusting it with the rub that seasons the meat, Sobocinski talked about the five-barrel system that will be used to make beer in-house. He said it might generate about 10 kegs per brew; breweries like Black Hog produce between 30 and 60 kegs per brew for distribution. The brewhouse will be run by Sobocinski; his brother and partner in Black Hog, Tom; and their brewer Tyler Jones.

“We want this to be a test lab for everybody,” Sobocinski said.

That means local brewers, rather than just having their beer on one of the 16 taps at The Stack, can brew and serve up suds that they don’t sell anywhere, to a crowd that’s willing to test it out and can provide instant feedback.

The Stack will have the capability of selling ​“crowlers,” or 32-ounce cans of the beer they brew on site that they can seal for take-out.

“You can make a batch of something that you never thought you could brew in your brewery because you could never take that chance,” he said. ​“Maybe you want to make a sour beer, we’ll set up something and make some sours. Maybe you’ve never done a lager beer before, great, we’re going to help you do a lager. Maybe you do something that we have no idea how to do, great, let’s collaborate. Let’s help each other. Let’s have the spirit of working together to make something new and unique for our guests. I’m excited about that.”

Collaboration is an important word to both McDonald and Sobocinski. Bear’s Smokehouse started when McDonald was allowed some bar space at another restaurant to try his hand at selling his Kansas City-style barbecue. In addition to running Black Hog Brewing Co. with his brother, Sobocinski is also a partner in popular watering hole Ordinary. And he is in the process of opening Olmo with Craig Hutchinson and Alex Lishchynsky in the Trumbull Street home of his former restaurant Caseus.

“I’ve been wanting to work with Jamie for a long time,” Sobocinski said. ​“He just runs his operation really well. He takes care of his staff. He’s got some of the highest paid kitchen staff in the area and I really respect that. To just be a part of what Bear’s is doing, I figured that he would come to New Haven so I hit him up a while ago and told him if you come to New Haven I want to do something, I don’t know what but I’m in to collaborate in some way.”

McDonald called it an ideal collaboration given that the Sobocinski brothers know their way around a brewery and Jason knows his way around New Haven. The Stack will be the first of McDonald’s barbecue restaurants to have an on-site brewery.

He said that when he started talking about doing a restaurant at District about two years ago, he could see the vision that co-founders David Salinas and Eric O’Brien had to make it a place not only to work but also to play.

“It really is something that could be a destination, not only for New Haven but the entire coast,” McDonald said.

McDonald said he envisions the future amphitheater as a place for local music but also shows for children. He’d like to see a day for dogs, so pet lovers like him can enjoy their four-legged friends to the beer garden.

Inside The Stack, diners can choose between a serving line to select fresh cuts of meat carved up by staff, and traditional full-service ordering. The meats come from one of four Cook Shack smokers pumping away in a room at the back of the restaurant.

“Each one of them will hold 750 pounds of meat at once,” McDonald said during a recent tour. ​“They’re not necessarily at full capacity but they will be.”

McDonald said each of his barbecue restaurants in Hartford and Windsor has three such massive meat smokers, and they’re never enough. So he knew that The Stack would need four up front.

“We can pump out a lot of barbecue,” he said. ​“I like to cook it fresh every day.”

With The Stack’s proximity to State Street and interstate, he’s hoping that the four smokers will soon be firing on all cylinders.

“There is still a little more tweaking to do, but it’s getting there and we’re very excited,” McDonald said. ​“The nice thing is I’m here 24/7 right now and I see a lot of customers who say we’re so excited you’re down here now, we don’t have to drive up to Hartford anymore. So I think word will spread very very quickly.”