When Zac Triemert decided to open a brewery and distillery in Omaha, he was faced with a major setback—his establishment was illegal. Craft distilling had been banned statewide since Prohibition. Most people would stand down in the face of this obstacle, but not Zac. Instead, he wrote a bill that would allow him to open his dream business. Once the bill was approved by the state legislature in 2007, Zac hit the ground running.

Zac's brewing style is clearly informed by his master's degree from one of the world's leading brewing and distilling schools, Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. For example, stouts, a quintessential UK beer, are given new life at Brickway. Sometimes the chocolate-coffee stout is run through a infuser filled with whisky cubes and luxardo maraschino cherries for a more complex flavor. Likewise, the oak-aged imperial stout matures in the casks used for it's Honest American whisky, one of the distillery’s single-malt whiskies whose taste fall somewhere between scotch and bourbon.

In addition to making appearances during onsite tours, the spirits are available throughout Nebraska. That means Brickway's crew is often shuttling cases of booze out the back door into trucks parked in the alley, much just like their Prohibition-era predecessors.