Road Trip: Tin Man Brewing Co.
As to designs on an Indy move, Davidson says that a humble start will breed expansion: “We’re gonna work our way out. We want to self-distribute as long as we can.”
Nick Davidson is not a robot, but he branded his brewery with one as a mascot. “As a kid, I was obsessed with robots,” he says. “It didn’t have anything to do with The Wizard of Oz.” As his fledgling brewery came to fruition, ideas fermented in Davidson’s mind as to what to label his brews: “’Robot’ didn’t sound very good. Tin Man sounded good, like a retro robot I had as a kid.” His friend Matt Wagner helped him design the logo, and the rest is history. Davidson opened Tin Man Brewing Co. (1430 W. Franklin St., Evansville, 812-618-3227) the day after Thanksgiving—Black Friday 2012—and his robot mascot has been seeing red ever since. Irish red, that is. On the heels of his successful turn at Indy’s Winterfest in late January, we caught up with the entrepreneur who has brought craft beer back to Evansville.