I’m taking the same approach with the beer we serve as I do with the food we serve. “Keep it Local” this has been one of our mantras since we opened.

It used to be, a restaurant’s beer list had to be exclusively mass marketed beers, not necessarily good beer. Often times these beer lists were written by your beer distributor. These beers typically included mega brands such as Budweiser, Heineken (YUCK!), Miller Lite etc.. If you were really daring you would include such obscure brands such as Corona or even Amstel.

Then it became okay to add a “craft” brew or 2, Sam Adams did start a revolution, but you still had to offer the staples.

About 15 years ago, you could get away with not offering the national mega brands, however, you had to be prepared for the backlash. “WTF no Budweiser, I’ll just have water” was a common response and not the one we wanted, after all we are in the business of selling beer.

Going forward a few more years we were able to get to the point that we were just serving regional craft beers; New England and New York, which was a big step in the right direction. Enough restaurants were doing the same thing, costumers began to expect a good beer list. And with such a great selection of beers to choose from it was an easy transition. The hardest part was just deciding which great regional beers you wanted to try next.

Now, I am trying to make our beer list as local as possible. One of the hurdles for me is that people expect to see several different breweries on a list, not just a couple. My thought is if you go to a brewery, and most of them are busy, you are only offered that breweries beers. No one complains about that. Also traveling in Europe most restaurants offer just one breweries beers; I’m sure that they are receive financial benefits for doing so. That said, I wanted to make our list as local as possible.

Currently our 12 beer list consist of only beer from within greater Boston with the vast majority coming from the Arlington Brewing Co. and the Medford Brewing Co. If I could get all our beer offerings from these 2 breweries I would, I’m working on it.

These are 2 breweries where I have a personal relationship with the them, I know the people and I want to support them.

One of the Arlington Brewing Co. main people is the father of 2 former Za employees, one of which was a schoolmate of my son. One of their delivery people is another one of my son’s former classmates. These are my neighbors, people that are regular Za customers, they support us, we support them.

As for the Medford Brewing Co. it’s less than 2 miles from Za and the it’s place I go to for a beer with friends, it’s my local. When I place my orders it’s with one of the breweries 2 owners, and the other owner makes the deliveries. This is the type of business that I want to support. Also, on Sunday late morning’s the brewery sponsors a run, it’s casual, not a race. You go at your own pace and decide your own distance. Most people chose between 3, 5 or 7 mile, predetermined routes that all start and finish at the brewery. Nick, one of the brewery’s owners is often running along with us.

By limiting the number of breweries, we are not sacrificing quality. Both the selection and quality of the beers these breweries offer are top notch.

So, the next time you dine at Za, have a beer, most likely it will be from one of these 2 breweries.

Drink a beer or 2, and help us support our local business partners.

Cheers!