As I write these words, Hop Atomica (1318 McHenry St.) is preparing to host Apron Inc.’s monthly Happy Hour Friend-Raiser. There’s a huge added bonus: Dan Dry will be there, exhibiting a few of his many award-winning photographic works, and helping give a leg up to Apron in the process.
I’ll be there. Learn more here:
APRON’s “Happy Hour Friend-Raiser” & Dan Dry’s Kentucky Reverie at Hop Atomica, Wed., Oct. 29
The establishment itself, which opened in 2024, is located in a little salient of Schnitzelburg, with the Germantown, Merriwether and Shelby Park neighborhoods situated a half-block away on three sides.
In short, it is near-perfect positioning on the map of Louisville given the city’s current trajectory of food ‘n’ drink growth in Louisville.
Your (mostly) weekly beer columnist will be profiling Hop Atomica for the Winter 2025 print edition of Food & Dining Magazine, which will appear in early December. Obviously I’ll be focusing on the beer, but the Courier Journal’s contributor Lennie Omalza recently rated Hop Atomica highly for its wood-fired pizza, too.
If my colleague Sara “The Bar Belle” Havens is reading, I’d appreciate a survey of Hop Atomica’s house-made spirits. Let me know when you’re going to taste them, and I’ll join you. It’s about time I learned something about distilling.
Now to Omalza’s pizza-centric assessment.
Why this Schnitzelburg brewery might be serving up some of Louisville’s best pizza
There are hundreds of places to get pizza in Louisville. From New York-style and Chicago deep dish to Detroit-style and Neapolitan, pizza lovers have lots from which to choose. But if you ask Paul Berrier, co-owner of brewery, distillery, and restaurant Hop Atomica, none of the local spots compete with the others.
“Louisville has a really good culture around pizza,” he said. “We really don’t see a lot of the other pizza places as direct competition, because we’re just different. Those places offer things we don’t; we offer things that they don’t. Plus, most people that like pizza can eat pizza multiple times a week.”
It’s time for an embarrassing personal confession: I have not yet visited Hop Atomica. As such, I’m turning it over to Omalza for a preview pending my own research over the next two weeks.
