Behind the Scenes at Ellis Island Casino Brewery Tour – Craft Beer Tasting and Food Pairing

Season 2, Episode 17: Ellis Island Casino and Brewery is one of the most unique properties in all of Las Vegas, serving up great tasting craft beer and the best bargains in town. It also has an extremely rich colorful history as we found out from speaking to some of the key players at the Brewery, Ellis Island is truly a “Must See”. The Director of Marketing Mike Galatte took us through the whole brewery and casino operations and got us an audience with master brewer Joe Pickett, who knows a thing or two about brewing great tasting craft beer. We also got a chance to interview Ellis Island President Karen Dorsey, whose insights, stories, and background are all simply intoxicating!

If you’ve ever wanted to know what makes a brewery tick and learn how breweries operate, there simply is no person better to talk to than Ellis Island’s Joe Pickett. Joe detailed just about every step they take at Ellis Island in producing some of the best quality craft beer brewed directly on their property in Las Vegas. After listening to his wealth of knowledge, you can only conclude that following him around the brewery for five days or so will make you an expert in brewery operations! He was amazing! How can we get a job working for this guy?!

And speaking of amazing, we were lucky to get a few minutes of time from the president of Ellis Island, Karen Dorsey. At first it was all business as she explained just about everything you need to know about that makes Ellis Island stand out from the other many casinos (and not many) brewhouses in Las Vegas. There’s a reason all the casino and brewery employees all have smiles on their faces and are extremely willing to help you out with anything you need – that’s the culture she fosters. But once we found out about Karen’s singer, dancer, entertainer,etc. past, it became quite clear this was no ordinary company president! Trust us, you don’t want to follow her if you’re doing Karaoke! And Ellis Island has one of the greatest Karaoke reputations in town as well.

We finished off speaking to Director of Marketing Mike Galatte, who besides being extremely informative, set us all up with the craft beer tasting and food pairing as only Ellis Island can do. Ever hear of the Ellis Island steak special? It’s perhaps the best bargain in town and you’ll be floored on how great it is! Seriously, locals all know about Ellis Island, but if more tourists knew about this deal, you can be sure you’d see tremendous foot-traffic towards Ellis Island’s way. But that’s not all. In addition to the steak, we tried the Fish and Chips made famous at many of the Village Pub restaurants in town and of course the BBQ Chicken – all paired with phenomenal craft beer selections courtesy of Mike himself.

It all tasted great, and that’s why we can be sure that when we refer people to Ellis Island (which happens often), everyone knows that they’ll be served the best and highest quality of food and drink. Just ask Joe the brewer, or anyone at the Casino/Brewery enjoying themselves at all hours of the day and night.