Lori Beck and Tyler Trotter were born with a beer bottle in their hands. Well, maybe it didnâ€™t start that young, but their passion for craft beer developed early, which only makes it logical that the couple would run a beer empire here in Louisville. They began with the Louisville Beer Store and then, in 2010, opened one of the cityâ€™s most acclaimed watering holes: Holy Grale, located inside a repurposed church on Bardstown Road.

The pair created Holy Grale, which boasts an incredible food menu to go along with the carefully selected brews, out of their love for beer, and the coupleâ€™s experiences around the world heavily influenced the aesthetic. â€œOur beer travels left us wanting to bring a bit of our experience and that authenticity home,â€ Beck describes.

The beer selection is constantly rotating, but Beck ensures, through rigorous tastings and a mature palate, that the menu is always richly diverse. â€œI always try to make sure that there is something for everyone on our menu and that it doesnâ€™t cater to my personal tastes,â€ she insists. â€œIf you are a beer nerd, a Bud drinker, or even someone who thinks they hate beer â€“ we have something for you, and you will like it!â€

And this unparalleled beer selection is only complemented by Holy Graleâ€™s spectacular food menu, curated by Executive Chef Joshua Lehman. â€œWhile it is extremely important to him that our proteins are sourced locally and our menu responds to the seasonâ€™s harvest, it is equally important to him that the food makes sense with and integrates beer,â€ Beck explains. â€œEven though we use some of the highest quality ingredients available to us and never cut corners when it comes to technique, we do our best to always keep our prices accessible so that everyone has the ability to enjoy well-prepared, honest food.â€

And enjoy it they certainly do. The entire menu is a la carte, so itâ€™s conducive to both sharing a few different things with friends as well as building your own multi-course meal. The mild yet full-bodied beer cheese is an absolute staple, served with an equally unassailable pretzel loaf. The fritjes, double-fried hand-cut potatoes, are also deliciously stellar and are served with a sauce of your choosing â€“ and good luck choosing. Between the curry ketchup, the creole mustard, the wasabi mayo and several others, itâ€™s no easy choice to make.

As far as bigger plates go, the burger, with beef from 3D Valley Farm, is quite possibly one of the greatest burgers in town. Meanwhile the beer ramen, an amazing creation composed of Marksbury Farms pork shoulder, togarashi, pickled mushrooms and a soft-boiled egg is so delightfully unique that the innovative aspect of the dish only further highlights just how good it tastes.

But none of this would be as genuinely special as it is without the delicate care the owners took in crafting the environment. Holy Grale has a nuance to it that is so totally uncommon in other area bars. Itâ€™s friendly. Itâ€™s relaxed. Itâ€™s clean! As to why this confluence of qualities manifested here, Beck thinks itâ€™s for a couple of reasons.

â€œWe donâ€™t have TVs, so people talk to one another instead of stare at screens,â€ she begins. â€œWe donâ€™t over serve â€“ or serve liquor â€“ therefore, the bar isnâ€™t full of drunk, loud and potentially obnoxious people. Our staff is made up of extremely passionate, intelligent and caring people. They truly want you to enjoy your time with us and do what they can to make that happen. You feel like you could be somewhere else other than Louisville when you are at Holy Grale or in the Gralegarten. It is like a little escape.â€

Yes, the Gralegarten. As spring approaches, more Louisvillians should be aware of this glorious oasis. Full of benches and bistro tables, the spacious outdoor area is the perfect place to spend a summer night, laughing over a rare IPA and an artisan cheese plate. Just like Holy Graleâ€™s interior, this space is the product of the pairâ€™s international beer experiences.

â€œTyler and I traveled to Germany and toured biergartens in Munich, Bamberg, Cologne and DÃ¼sseldorf for inspiration, taking many notes on what made these outdoor drinking spaces so uniquely beautiful,â€ Beck recounts. â€œThe largest impact from this trip was seeing how lush and green all of the spaces were. Trying to reproduce that feeling in Louisville, every year in May, we work together and spend the month planting dozens more plants to make it even more green! I think it is safe to say we have an addiction to perennials!â€

Whatever you drink, whatever you eat and wherever you sit, you can be guaranteed to be more than satisfied, and that, in Beckâ€™s mind, is at least partially due to the team behind the counter. â€œThe staff at Holy Grale is what makes this place so special,â€ she asserts. â€œTyler and I are a very small part of what makes Holy Grale what it is. It is our chefs and kitchen team that make the food so consistently delicious and beautiful, and our beertenders that make sure you have the perfect beer and feel at home â€“ and it is all of our collective love for beer and food that makes â€˜the graleâ€™ feel holy.â€

So get up, get out, make like King Arthurâ€™s knights and find the holy grail that is Holy Grale. VT

Photos by Remy Sisk