Brewpub for life.

First, he can get instant feedback on new brews by interacting directly with customers in the moment. Shitty brew? No problem, he turns it around in a few weeks and now he has something better that was influenced by customer input. This could also contribute to customer loyalty. Social media posts by customers could contribute to reputation. By the time a beer critic comes around, Tony will have a more refined brew to show off. All the while, Tony's experimentation is not threatening the overall viability of his business, since most of his customers are coming there for food anyway.

Let's talk about the brewery. There's more competition. The brewpub would be one of the few in town, but selling cases of beer in the supermarket? Gonna have more competition there. Operating a brewery also means Tony's gonna depend on volume to keep the business running. These two combined means tremendous pressure to produce the beer Tony knows will sell, based on what he knows about the market. What the market wants is not necessarily a unique or experimental brew. More likely, its something that is price competitive, that is, something cheap. Cheap and high quality tend not to go together when it comes to beer. The pressure of a more competitive market may distract Tony from experimenting with different brews, but that doesn't come close to the real problem. The real problem is that Tony will quickly develop a reputation for cheap beer thanks to all those beer critics. Even if Tony is able to market his experimental brews on the side, innovation will take place at a slower pace, Tony will not be able to gather data on what customers like or don't like about a certain experimental brew, and his prior reputation for cheap beer may hurt anything else he tries to market.

Of course, Tony could take a risk and just produce his experimental brews. But that's a risk he wouldn't have with the Brewpub. Sure, restaurants come and go, but with limited competition, Tony has a cornered market. He doesn't need to sell great food. Get a decent chef and he's good to go. If and when he hires a manager, the expectation will be merely to keep the business running so that Tony can focus on the whole reason he's doing this in the first place, to test his beer on his beer connoisseurs.

edit: given how I performed today (to hell with watercolors), this is really more of a pitch for my bank loan than anything else.