Eddyline Restaurant and Brewery: May, 2009
Articles - Community

by: Dustin Heron Urban

eddyline-logoPubs, short for “public houses,” have for centuries been a cornerstone of community. They are “social gathering places where the news of the day [can] be spread and discussed over a warm meal and relaxing pint of ale.” So say Mic and Molly Heynekamp, owners of Eddyline Restaurant and Brewery, opening on South Main’s River Park Square in May of 2009.They hope to make Eddyline Buena Vista and South Main’s public living room, “a neighborhood pub shared by locals and visitors alike who need a friendly place to quench their thirsts and hunger while reflecting on where they’ve been and where they are going.”

It is from this intention that the name Eddyline flows. On a river, an eddyline is the point where a pool of calm water intersects with a rapid’s rushing currents. Whether customers are grabbing a meal during a drive through the mountains or having a beer after a session in the whitewater park, Eddyline will be a place where locals and visitors alike can come together to recharge and, just maybe, have some fun.

ownersEddyline’s menu features a wide variety of wood-fired delicacies including pizzas, steaks, burgers and calzones. They will also have a variety of pastas and salads and will incorporate locally sourced food into their cuisine.  

Mic and Molly have learned from their experience with Socorro Springs Restaurant and Brewery in Socorro, New Mexico that pecan wood is especially well suited for cooking. Not only does it burn hot while maintaining a consistent temperature, it also produces a steady flame, which is essential for their pizza oven where there is no other source of light. According to Mic and Molly, Pecan produces minimal ash and imparts a sweet, nutty flavor to the food. They say you can really taste the difference between their pizzas and those of other wood-fired ovens which use oak. “Every day we light the pizza oven fire and the grill fire” Mic says. “We fire roast all our peppers for the salsa in the mornings. We fire our roast veggies and grill our chicken for chicken salad.” “We’re going to introduce a lot of different flavors here,” says Molly.
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Beyond imparting the best flavor to the food, burning pecan wood for their pizza oven and grill is a more sustainable practice than burning natural gas. Mic points out that burning natural gas involves releasing carbon into the atmosphere that was safely stored in the earth for millions of years. That carbon will in turn take hundreds more years at a minimum to become safely stored within the earth again. Burning wood, meanwhile, involves releasing carbon that was captured recently from the atmosphere by the tree as it grew. And since Mic and Molly have a ten-acre pecan farm in the Rio Grande valley, they are responsible for a considerable amount of carbon capture through the growth of those trees. Plus all the pecan they burn comes from prunings which do not kill the trees.

And then there is the beer. A big part of why the Heynekamps chose Buena Vista as the location for Eddyline is our outstanding water quality. The fact that all their beer will be brewed on site using Buena Vista water means that no fossil fuels will be burned shipping the main ingredient in the beer. And while hops and barley for the beer won’t be grown on site, many of these ingredients will be sourced from Colorado, including hops from Montrose and Barley from the San Luis Valley.
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Did I mention that Eddyline’s beer is good? Actually it’s excellent. The Heynekamps have treated many of us locals to brews from their Socorro Springs Brewery as examples of what will be on tap at Eddyline. Their strong and hoppy IPA was a big hit at the 2008 BV Pro Rodeo, and I can vouch for their pale ale as well, which is smooth and crisp. In addition to their many ales, they will also serve lagers and wheat beer.

The best part of story is that we won’t have to wait long. South Main Building Company is working hard on the Eddyline building as you read, and our new public living room will open in May of 2009. Now I’ll toast to that!

For more information on Eddyline and to have a look at their menu, please visit www.eddylinepub.com.



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