Iron&Glass Taproom Celebrates Third Anniversary In Romeoville

ROMEOVILLE, IL — Iron&Glass Taproom & Bottleshop held a small party for their third anniversary in business this Saturday, Dec. 14. The celebration started just around noon and continued for several hours; the Iron&Glass team put a number of limited edition craft brews on tap just for the occasion. Catering was provided by Doc Watson's Smokehouse barbecue, who brought a whole slow-roasted pig to the event.

"The actual day we opened was the 16th, but we wanted to have [the party] on the weekend, so we're two days away from three years," said Colt Snodgrass, one of the Iron&Glass co-owners.

Iron&Glass was born in Romeoville out of the beer-soaked aspirations of Snodgrass and Eric Schutz, another co-owner, along with those of their wives and fellow co-owners Christen Snodgrass and Maggie Schutz. They said they chose to open in Romeoville after considering a number of locations, partly because even circa 2016, the area's craft beer scene was relatively undeveloped. Metal Monkey was the only local brewery to represent it at the time, and there were no local shops to cater to enthusiasts.

"We wanted something closer to home; we all live in Minooka... but also a place that didn't have anywhere to go and have a [craft] beer or buy craft beer," Schutz said.

Three years later, the local shop has proven successful enough that the owners are planning to open a second location in their hometown of Minooka.

"That will be opening up end of January, beginning of February, something like that," Schutz said.

The name 'Iron&Glass' is really a description of the shop's business model, Snodgrass said. "We kind of associated the metal aspect of the taps, the kegs... we brought that together with the packaged bottles, the glassware... As soon as we kind of put that ampersand in there together to spell out the 'O' and the 'G' [in the logo], it really came together for us," he explained.

Schutz added that a common misconception was that Iron&Glass was also a brewery. Not so.

"We don't actually brew any beers, that's the one misconception is that people think we brew," he said.

But while they don't make their own beer, they sell enough of other breweries' to fill an entire wall of cans and bottles, nevermind everything behind the bar. It was enough to keep the attendees at the anniversary party happy, anyway - especially considering Doc Watson's barbecue.

"I like craft beer, but more so I live in Romeoville just down the street," said one Mark Pingul, who had come with his family to the event. "So it was kind of like I could support two local businesses at once."