GALENA, Ill. — A Galena business owner has opened a second establishment that will feature beers from 19 different breweries.

Galena Taphouse opened last week at 215 Diagonal St. and is co-owned by Catherine Kouzmanoff and her husband, Rick Schatzabel. Kouzmanoff also owns another downtown business, Miss Kitty’s Grape Escape, 242 N. Main St.

“We decided we would focus on beer and bring a focus to those regional breweries that you can get to in a decent drive and have a full kitchen, too,” Kouzmanoff said. “We set a 200-mile radius from Galena to get beer from, with an emphasis on places as close as possible to Galena.”

She said Galena Taphouse will start out featuring products from 19 different breweries, including ones as far away as Stevens Point, Wis., and Peoria, Ill. The taphouse also will have some wines available, and Kouzmanoff said the business will use a jalapeno wine from Galena Cellars in its Bloody Marys.

Kouzmanoff said the food menu will start with a few items and expand later. She described the menu as a “gastropub style of food.”

“We wanted the feel of a brewery, although we’re not making any of the beer,” she said.

The menu includes poke and biscuit-breaded chicken tenders, as well as goat cheese grits with pork belly and a blackberry glaze. Kouzmanoff said the taphouse will offer a flight of three slider burgers: one beef, one pork belly and one tuna.

Kouzmanoff said she and Schatzabel bought the building in December 2020.

“We had seen the building for sale for a few years, and it had gone through a few different owners in the last 10 to 20 years,” she said. “We decided to take a look at it and see what condition it was in, in the hopes of saving another building downtown.”

Initially, the couple thought about using the space as a place to offer brewery tours since so many new breweries have opened up in the area in recent years.

“Then, as we were thinking about that, we thought we should put a bar in the business here to get people in before and after the tours,” Kouzmanoff said. “Then, we thought the setup needed to be a full restaurant.”

Kouzmanoff said brewery tours still may occur at the business in the future, but nothing formal has been set up.

Alana Turner, vice president of Galena Downtown Business Association, said Galena Taphouse will be a nice addition to the community, noting that it is one of the businesses open later for those in the downtown area.

“It gives more variety to customers coming in, and it’s something that we don’t have currently, something new and different,” she said.