Oparnica says he plans to open with six taps: two IPAs, a Saison, a Grisette, a Raw Ale, and one beer that’s yet to be decided.

“In the last two or three years, I’ve gone so far away from what’s popular,” he says of his preferred styles. “I really don’t like adjunct-heavy Stouts and fruity IPAs and stuff like that. I gravitate toward a nice, clean beer like a Saison Dupont. I love Jester King. One of my favorites right now is Ale Apothecary out of Oregon.”

Because of Georgia’s strict franchise laws, Oparnica says he won’t sign with a wholesaler before opening. State regulations are such that a brewery that wants to end a relationship with a distributor must not distribute at all for five years, which could almost certainly mean death for a small business. Oparnica isn’t against the idea of distribution in the future, and hopes to expand his business in the first couple years, possibly evolving the original space into a brewpub—including, potentially, coffee roasting—and eventually build a production space in a cheaper location outside EAV.

“I probably will [distribute] eventually,” he says. “But I wanna have that brand when it gets to that point. When you sign with a distributor now [in Georgia], it’s for life. Basically, you’re at their mercy. I want to build a brand that someone would want to work with.”

Sabbath is a rare thing for Georgia. While plenty of Peach State beer makers produce seasonal Saisons and Grisettes, there are very few indeed that prioritize these as core selections the way Oparnica says he will with Sabbath. And despite a thriving metal scene that’s produced bands like Mastodon, Baroness, Torche, Kylesa, and countless others, Georgia, unlike places like Colorado (TRVE), Indiana (3 Floyds), and Washington (Holy Mountain), doesn’t have any metal-themed breweries. It doesn’t have many beer makers located in packed food and drink districts, either. Sabbath’s next door neighbor is a bar. Across the street is a bar. Walk for a couple minutes in just about any direction, and there’s a bar. Indeed, EAV is one of Atlanta’s liveliest nightlife scenes, with establishments ranging from dives to gastropubs to increasingly higher-end food offerings. But Oparnica doesn’t see these establishments as competition.

“That’s the only reason I can do this,” he says of his neighboring businesses. “I couldn’t open up this kind of project in an industrial park. It’s great, because I’ll have 200 people out here on a Saturday night already standing on the street at 529, Midway, and Flatiron, that can roll right into here.”

When Oparnica left Burnt Hickory in 2017, he knew he wanted to open his own place. “I’ve always been an independent person who didn’t like having to do things someone else’s way,” he says. “I saw the way craft beer was headed and the tendency for craft breweries to follow trends instead of brewing beer that was what they wanted to brew.”

A brush with death via a devastating car wreck—including a brief coma and lengthy hospital stay—in 2014 made him realize “that this short life I have is not to be wasted on someone else’s dream. Brewing beer is very laborious work. If the end result of that hard work is not something I’m fully proud of, then what’s the point?”

He wasn’t ready to make the financial commitment yet, though, knowing he’d only worked at one relatively small beer maker and having no experience with a larger-scale experience. He’d accepted a job at Alaskan Brewing in Juneau, but when he got an offer from SweetWater, a place he’d wanted to work for years, it was too good of a deal to pass up.

“It’s like the university for Georgia breweries,” he says. “You look at almost all breweries around here, and they have someone who worked at SweetWater. The scale was insane. My first day, I was so intimidated. I’m going from 40-barrel fermenters to 1,400-barrel fermenters, a 20-barrel brewhouse to a 340-barrel brewhouse. I learned so much about process and doing things right.”

Discussing his future business from a couch on top of a stage in the front corner of his proposed brewery space, Oparnica talks about the building which has played host to a headline-making, anti-police gym and a motorcycle/coffee shop. The small stage area currently serving as an ad hoc lounge is where he plans to host bands a couple times a week.

“It won’t be just metal, but it’ll be very heavy metal-influenced,” he says of the type of acts he’ll book. “That’s what I like, that’s what the neighborhood is into, so it fits.”

That metal vibe goes beyond the occasional musical performances and the obvious homage of the brewery’s moniker. Oparnica cites North Carolina’s Burial Beer Co., another heavy-music-loving brewery, as an aesthetic inspiration. There are psychedelic posters of doom metal legends Sleep on Sabbath’s otherwise barren walls. And what little marketing he’s done so far may as well have been bookended with devil horns.

“The tagline for Sabbath is ‘Worship yourself,’” Oparnica says. “I like to think of this as a place where you come, kick back, and enjoy the things you like. I’m kind of a nihilist. I don’t think you should really care about anything except the things you care about. So if you like to drink good beer, come here, drink good beer, and worship yourself… Satanism isn’t really based on worshipping Satan, it’s about worshipping yourself. The only thing that matters is yourself because you are you.”

—Austin L. Ray