Photos by Kelsey Freeman

This story appears in Birmingham magazine's January 2017 issue. Subscribe today!

In 2011, the Birmingham beer scene blew up. Within the year, Avondale, Good People, and Cahaba Brewing all opened tap rooms, and since then, the city's craft beer scene has continued to grow in both popularity and reach. Five years later, a couple of Auburn grads decided to pursue a half-serious idea to tap into the world of beer--only it wasn't a new tasting room or another IPA they wanted to create; it was beer tap handles.

Brad Lugar was designing trade show exhibits when his future business partner, Daniel Meadows, noticed him sketching and suggested they market custom tap handles. "One of the things I've always wanted to do was figure out a way to get into the design market and start my own business," Lugar says. "I've been hungry to do this for a long time."

Building a Business

So, Lugar and Meadows took their experience in industrial design, downscaled, and started sketching beer taps to post on Instagram. The account quickly generated a healthy following, and by the middle of March, they made their first prototype for Waredaca Brewing out of Maryland. The small brewery ended up producing their own taps, but Lugar and Meadows didn't let that slow them down.

Shortly after creating their first tap, the pair began looking for a home base. They ended up in a collaborative work environment called The Stream, which had a paint booth and woodworking equipment--basically everything they needed to get their business started. What's more, The Stream was located next to Avondale Brewing.

"One day, we were driving to The Stream and passing Avondale, and we were like, let's walk in and say 'give us your business,'" Lugar says. The response they got was not exactly what they imagined. "Basically they were like you're a day late and a dollar short," Lugar says. The brewing company had just sent in an order for taps to be produced in China.Refusing to take no for an answer, Lugar and Meadows did the only thing they could--they got to work.

Less than five hours later, they were back at Avondale, this time with a custom tap, hot off the press and ready for production. "It was just through a lot of willpower and hustle that we got into the door," Lugar says. By the beginning of April, just after Lugar turned 28, Steel City Tap Co. got its first order--250 wooden tap handles, customized with direct prints for each of the Avondale beers.

The Avondale taps were made through sheer force of will. Lugar recalls many late nights spent with friends, drinking beer and sanding down tap handles. By the time they finished, they already had another call from an equally-popular Birmingham brewing company: Good People. They wanted a custom tap handle for a limited edition beer in partnership with Buffalo Rock.

It was around this time that Meadows and Lugar decided to call in help. Lugar enlisted the expertise of his college roommate, Ali Kim, a fellow industrial and product designer, to serve as the growing team's product manager. He also reached out to Magic City Art Connection's 2016 emerging artist of the year, Ajene Williams, to help him bring the Buffalo Rider tap handle to life. "He's super talented," Lugar says of Williams. "I handed him a sketch and he made the buffalo out of wax just from looking at the sketch." The result was an intricate resin figurine of a man riding a buffalo.

Made in America

As one of only a few tap producers in the United States, Lugar and Kim say keeping things local was one of their major concerns. Whereas most tap companies outsource work from other countries, everything at Steel City Taps is made in America, and furthermore, it's made in Alabama, right here in Birmingham. "We want to make sure that we see everything through every step of the process," Lugar says.

That means everything is done in house, from cutting and drilling wooden taps to etching and cutting those taps using a massive laser cutter. For plastic taps, Kim learned how to turn wax 3D models into molds. His first job was to produce one of Steel City's most complicated taps to date: 30 salamander-shaped taps for Homewood's new Red Hills Brewery. The taps, along with all taps made by Steel City, were hand-painted by in-house artist, Ellen Porter. All printing is done through Alabama Graphics and Classic Printing and Signs, whose adjoining workspace has served as the Steel City Tap Co. headquarters since August.

Having all parts of the process under one roof has contributed to the quality of work Steel City Tap Co. produces. If any portion of production, whether it be staining, printing, or molding, has a hiccup, Lugar can walk over to the person working on it and take care of the problem. As a result, Steel City Tap's average production time for approved prototypes is just 10-15 weeks.

Breweries in Birmingham and beyond have taken notice. Since opening, Steel City has created taps for 11 breweries from Mississippi and Georgia to Nevada and Maine. Each tap represents the unique character of the brewery. They've also made taps for a number of Alabama-based breweries including Back Forty out of Gadsden and the aforementioned Avondale, Red Hills, and Good People. Most recently, Good People put in an order for 1,000 tap handles (the company's largest to date), each topped with a miniature Good People pick-up truck. Now, everywhere Good People beer is, Steel City taps are, too.

In addition to tap handles, the company designs and produces all things brewing-related, including keg collars, hats, and T-shirts. They also plan to start offering signage, beer flights, bar design, and shelving. "We're so diverse that we don't need to limit ourselves," Lugar says. "Our limit is the brewing industry."

The unbounding success of the company in the past 11 months is something Kim is still getting used to. "I try not to think about it because it's kind of scary," he says. "It's like asking where do you plan on parking your boat, when you don't think you'll ever have a boat in the first place."

He sees taps as a way for breweries to add to the character of their brand, and he sees Steel City Taps as an integral part of that culture. "I think this is going to be a part of the story of American alcohol," Kim says.

For Lugar, owning his own business has been a long-time dream, but he couldn't have imagined a more perfect fit for himself, Meadows, and the rest of the Steel City Tap staff--or for Birmingham's beer scene. "One of the things that really hit home with what we're trying to do here is that we want the brewers to worry about brewing, and we'll worry about everything else," he says. "Because what we're able to do within these walls is really incredible."

Details

Steel City Taps Co. | steelcitytap.com | Instagram @steelcitytapco | facebook.com/Steelcitytap