Greg Bland drafts his Stockyards Brewing Co. team, including a familiar brewmaster

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Greg Bland has found the first brewmaster for his Stockyards Brewing Co.

The brewery — slated to open later this year in the iconic former Golden Ox restaurant space in the West Bottoms — has tapped Micah Weichert, of Gordon Biersch, to help launch Stockyards. A mutual friend put the two men together.

“I’ve been talking to Micah for a few months to feel him out and see if he was interested in coming over 100 percent and being our head brewer,” Bland says. “He’s just really happy with Gordon Biersch.… So he’s able to come in on a contract basis as basically a brewery consultant for us.”

“I’m really comfortable at Gordon Biersch,” Weichert says. “They take really good care of me. I’m not in a hurry to leave there.”

“He thought I was an idiot for starting a brewery,” Bland says of Weichert.

“I have a lot of people approach me about consulting,” Weichert says. “A lot of times, they don’t want a consultant. They just want tips.”

And for those who do approach him, Weichert says he has a string of questions he asks prospective brewery owners, to gauge how ready they are to join the industry.

“Typically, those people just don’t know what to expect or what they’re getting into,” Weichert says. “And Greg pretty much had all the right answers to all of the questions.

He goes on: “One of the things that caught me with Greg is, he’s a homebrewer. I said, ‘So you don’t want to be the brewer?’ And he said, ‘I do homebrewing, but I’m not going to pretend that I’m a brewer.’ I was like, ‘That’s a really good answer.’ More people should probably take that approach.”

Weichert lends Stockyards much-needed brewing experience, having logged stints at 75th Street Brewery, 23rd Street Brewery in Lawrence, Brugge Brasserie in Indianapolis, and Waimea Brewing Co. in Hawaii.

“He’s going to help us get the brewhouse set up and make sure it’s running efficiently, make sure that the beers that we’re producing are the right beers for this brewhouse, the right beers for us,” Bland says. “He’s going to help us write our recipes. He’s going to help prepare our contracts for hops and for all of the vendors for ingredients. So it’s going to be great for us to get going with such a talented brewer right from the beginning. Just having his help to train whomever we bring in beside him and me as well to be able to run the brew-house is going to be awesome.”

And that’s the plan: Bland will hire an up-and-coming brewer to learn from Weichert.

“I think we’ll work together to get somebody hired who is fully capable,” Weichert says. “And then I’ll stay on probably as miscellaneous consulting. At some point, I might even invest in it. That all kinda depends on the future of Mankind Brewing.”

Mankind remains a long-simmering project for Weichert — one that’s been on the back burner since he started at Gordon Biersch two and a half years ago. “It’s very much on the horizon still,” he says.

Bland and Weichert are still discussing which beers Stockyards will launch with.

“We’re still pushing really hard for the black IPA,” Bland says. “Then we talked about using some cool, dark roasted malts from Ireland that he’s been getting used to using lately and really wants to try. I’m Irish, and I like Irish stouts. This black IPA is basically a stout. It’s been hopped like an IPA. I want it to be really roasty, really malty.”

Stockyards should launch with five beers, although Weichert says they’re formulating recipes for 15 to 20 beers to fill out Stockyards’ brew calendar for the first few months.

“The strength of his ability to brew a tremendous lager is definitely going to play a role in what we serve,” Bland says. “And I really, really like a good Czech Pilsner and Bohemian-style or even Mexican-style lager. He’s just got such a great experience with that and can really craft those beers to be really drinkable and still produce a lot of flavor. We’re excited to bring his ideas and his experience with running basically a lager house to come with us and try it on our equipment and get new beers going.”

“I think we’ll do a little bit of everything,” Weichert says. “We haven’t talked about sours yet, but there are some plans for getting some barrels in there, doing some crazy one-off sour beers and a little bit of everything.”

Bland has also hired his former college roommate, Ray Kerzner, to handle the accounting and finance work of the brewery.

“A little over a year ago, he called me and said, ‘I’m making this happen, and I need someone to help me,’ ” Kerzner says. “I said, ‘OK. I need about six months to try to convince myself not to do this. I come from an accounting background — very conservative — you have to think of the different avenues. In six months, I tried to think of every reason not to do this, and it came down to: I have to do this. In the middle of August, I left my job. Now I’m full time at Stockyards.”

Also onboard is Brendan Gargano, who will lead the brewery’s creative direction. Gargano, who designed logos for Bland’s homebrews, is building Stockyards’ website and creating logos and artwork for labels. Gargano says Bland encouraged him to quit his job at the collegiate apparel company in Parkville where he’d worked the past three and a half years. On the last day of September, Gargano did just that and joined Stockyards full time.

“Stockyards Brewing can’t exist without this building,” Gargano says of the Golden Ox. “It wouldn’t be the same. It’s just as important to kind of keep the spirit of the Golden Ox alive and kind of restore a lot of that stuff. That’s why a lot of stuff is being kept or repurposed or just kind of changed a little bit to make it a little more modern, clean twist on all of that. You’ll still be able to walk into that space and it’ll still feel like the Golden Ox.”

The brewing equipment has arrived. Applications have been submitted. Construction and inspections are ongoing. And digging for an addition to the building for a cellaring room is slated to begin this week. So when will Stockyards’ doors open?

“We’re going to push really, really hard to have something to see, something to visit by Thanksgiving.”

And Stockyards beer — that could be a Christmas treat.

“Hopefully we’ll be open in time and making our own beer in time for people to book their holiday parties,” Bland says.

But they’re staying realistic.

“In a perfect world, we can hit that mark,” Weichert says. “But it’s not a perfect world, and it never is for opening a brewery.”