What to Watch for:
The centerpiece of the festival is without a doubt the Raffle Prize benefiting Partners for Parks.  The contributions we have received from the breweries, sponsors and partners is incredibly generous and truly appreciated.  While these items are the things a craft beer lover’s dreams are made of, please don’t hesitate to ask the friendly Partners for Parks representatives about projects, upcoming park events and how you can help support park and recreation facilities in your neighborhood.

Back to the prize itself, just take a look at this lineup!!  Please note entries are cash only.  If you happen to forget, there is an ATM right next to the raffle table.  Also, the first 50 entrants at each session will receive a very cool item from the NoDa Brewing Run Club Powered by OrthoCarolina Running!

Session #1 Prize:

A close second to the Partners for Parks table and raffle prize, is of course, the beer.  Queen City Brewers Festival’s motto after all is “Charlotte On Tap” so here’s what’s on tap (full descriptions including style, ABV and notes will be detailed in the event program):

Ass Clown Brewing Company
TBA

Birdsong Brewing
Doin’ Thyme Witbier
Jalapeno Pale Ale
Super Brew: MexiCali Stout

Four Friends Brewing
Race Day Pale Ale
Queen City Red
Super Brew: Red, White & Brew

Free Range Brewing
Art, Son of Pale
Cream of the Crop
Rice Rice Baby
Biere de Gourde
Super Brew: yet-unnamed Oyster Stout

Heist Brewery
American Style Red Ale
I2PA
Oatmeal Stout
Hefeweizen
Super Brew: TBA

Hops 
Pale Ale
Royal English Amber Ale
Winter Amber Ale
Scottish Ale
Alligator Ale
Super Brew: TBA

Kind Beers
Pale Ale
Super Brew: Imperial Pale Ale

NoDa Brewing Company
Hop, Drop ‘n Roll
Coco Loco
Hope’s Stout
Cold Crash Winter Ale
Super Brew: TBA

The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery
Copper
Captain Jack Pilsner
Dunkel
Super Brew: Fat Boy Baltic Porter

Rock Bottom Brewery
White Ale
Brown Ale
Red Ale
Super Brew: Double IPA

Triple C Brewing Co.
Light Rail Pale Ale
Smoked Amber
Greenway IPA
Super Brew: Up All Night Breakfast Porter

Tips for entry:
Will call will be open beginning at 9am and you may pick up your tickets for either session at that time with a photo ID.  It would be helpful to bring your printed email confirmation with you.  A line for entry will begin forming about an hour before doors open.  While in line, Neighborhood Theatre staff will beginning checking IDs and will give you a wristband.  From there you will present your ticket at the door and pick up your tasting glass and program.

Once inside…
There will be plenty to see, do and eat. We have very cool bands on hand (one at each session) for your listening pleasure; three extremely talented local artists displaying their works; food will be available from Revolution Ale House, JJ’s Red Hots and Earth Fare; Lenny Boy will be pouring Kombucha samples to cleanse your palate; Charlotte Beer’s Daniel Hartis will be in the house to talk about his book on Charlotte Brewing History; Yelp has you covered with cool swag and the must-have pretzel necklace; World of Beer takes you outside the QC with its beer samples; and if you’ve had enough and just want to step back for a bit then grab a copy of the latest Charlotte Magazine (including a comprehensive article on Charlotte’s beer scene!) and have yourself a few glasses of Diamond Springs Water.  Whew!

If you have any questions or needs, we have a veteran group of volunteers on hand.  Please spread out and make full use of the venue.  As we know, the Neighborhood Theatre is a unique, cozy and comfortable venue for a beer festival.

Post-session…
If you haven’t had enough of NoDa then be sure to visit our Proud Sponsor immediately across the street at Revolution Ale House.  Just tell ‘em QCBF sent ya and you’ll be taken good care of.  If your post-session plans take you elsewhere, our friends at Keffer Hyundai will gladly taxi you to your area-destination (within 5 miles) FREE of charge!  Just send us an email to register for a ride.

Last, but not least please sample RESPONSIBLY and take a few minutes before your session begins to ensure you have plans to get home SAFELY.

Cheers!!
-The QC Brew Fest Team

Brothers Jason and Jeff Alexander bring their respective creative and business acumen to the table and there’s no mistaking their passion. “Circumstance can be a beautiful thing,” Jason begins as the Q&A session gets underway. Just three years ago Jason’s graphic design gig with a high-profile agency in Charlotte had run its course. “It couldn’t have worked out any better from a timing standpoint,” Jason recounts. With his first son a month from being born, it became clear there was no room for a day job if Free Range Brewing was going to become a reality.

Free Range Brewing (FRB) has seemingly nailed each beer it has unveiled to the public with “Afternoon Delight” one of the clear favorites at Queen City Brewers Festival 2012. Who has been your inspiration – brewery or individual – and how do you create your recipes?

[Jason:] Food is the foundation of my brewing creativity, and Alice Waters (founder/owner at the legendary Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, CA) has been a tremendous inspiration in terms of what we’re striving to achieve at Free Range. That’s not to say countless breweries haven’t had an impact, but food has been the starting point for me when it comes to creating a beer I believe to be special. But I will say that Todd Boera from Catawba Valley Brewing has been the most significant figure from a brewing standpoint. He’s an incredible brewer and has taught me so much when it comes to beer foundation and recipe creation; just an awesome teacher. In fact, Todd and Catawba Valley Brewing deserve plenty of credit as we collaborated on “Afternoon Delight”. Finally, I can’t forget the 8 hours a day I spent learning chemistry at Siebel Institute of Technology and World Brewing Academy (Siebel). Having this education under my belt gives me the understanding and confidence to experiment with really any style of beer.

What stage are you in the brewery planning process and when can we expect FRB’s doors to open?

[Jeff:] At this stage we’re seeking out and evaluating investors. It’s also the trickiest part of the process because we’re not looking for just the investment; we have to be comfortable with the investors.

[Jason:] That (the investor) is one of the most crucial elements for us. We want to find someone that is going to sweat and bleed Free Range just as we are. It’s not about getting rich; we want to earn a comfortable living, but at the end of the day it’s about creating a place where friends and family can come together and enjoy the fruits of our passion.

[Jeff:] From a logistics standpoint, it could be six to nine months once we have our building locked down to get it up-fitted while checking off the appropriate permits along the way. All the while we’re keeping our eyes and ears open for a chef. But we don’t want to promise anything being this far out, as we know there is always the potential for delays.

The name ‘Free Range’ connotes a fresh-off-the-farm theme. Tell us about plans for the brewpub, and will it actually include farmland?

[Jason:] Well, ultimately, we’d love to run a New Glarus-type operation with some farmland and a bed & breakfast feel, but in the near term we’re conscious of the demographics that will sustain our business so that means we’ll focus on phase one before we begin dreaming about phase two. Bottom line is that we want to be a neighborhood place that’s super kid-friendly and has the backyard or back porch feel that got us to this stage in the first place.

The kid-friendly part is especially important to me. Having two young kids, I know how stressful dining out can be for parents. We want a place where Mom and Dad can kick back with a nice beer and let the kids loose to do their thing. There will be a number of kid classics on the menu like mac & cheese, but nutrition won’t take a back seat. My youngest is lactose-intolerant so coming up with healthy substitutes in staple recipes has become part of my trade (laughs).

Picture 50+ seats, a big bar, plenty of outdoor space, an entertainment area, clear sightlines to the brew house – with no glass or barrier; the smells that come out of the brewing process are an important part of the experience – and as many green energy practices we can put to use. You can call it urban farmstead, rural-industrial, rough warehouse or just weird. No matter what you call it, we’ll be glad to have you.

The space is brightly lit with three taps, a flat screen TV sure to have the Panthers game on (for now the tap room is open Sundays from 2-8pm) and a neat industrial section of the brewery where the magic of fermentation takes place.

An interesting back-office finding was that Lenny Boy is presently going through an organic certification process, and once completed, would be the only certified organic Kombucha brewery in the Southeast.  If you’re unfamiliar with this ancient elixir, Kombucha is a non-alcoholic fermented beverage made from sugar, tea, water, and a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast.  An all-natural, organic detoxifying brew full of probiotics; most who drink it say it gives them an extra boost of energy that works with the body’s immune and digestive systems (from Lenny Boy’s Q&A section).

After an evening of patronage at a Charlotte brewery, Queen City Brewers Festival was eager to put the powers of Kombucha to the test.

It starts with our house SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast), which is sometimes misconstrued as a large mushroom cap.  This is really just a clump of bacteria and yeast – it kind of looks like a big pancake – that forms on top of our organic herbal tea.  On top of being the yeast starter, it also acts as a protective layer for the culture during the fermentation process.   Unlike beer where the brewer can use a variety of yeast strains to achieve different flavor profiles, there is just one Kombucha culture, which we culture ourselves.

Though Kombucha has been around for centuries with origins in the Far East, what are the challenges in educating and building your consumer base today?

Well firstly, it is a foreign term so getting comfortable with pronouncing it properly requires some practice (laughs).  We’ve also found that 65-70% of our customers had never even heard of Kombucha, which can make for a rather lengthy discussion during tastings.  But that’s also the beauty of it because over time we’ve been able to build a following that’s doing the teaching on our behalf so it doesn’t get more genuine than that.

Another challenge is that in this area most tea drinkers are so used to sweet tea.  Kombucha has more of a tart flavor so the transplants from New York have been quicker to accept Lenny Boy (laughs).

The last piece, like any consumer product, is awareness.  Awareness not only from a brand perspective, but also the health benefits associated with drinking Kombucha and how consumers are supporting local farmers by supporting Lenny Boy.  We put a huge emphasis on using local ingredients in the brewing process; so much so you’ll find us harvesting fresh produce like sweet potatoes, watermelons, strawberries and peaches right alongside the farmers that supply Lenny Boy.

Aside from home base in Charlotte, what are Lenny Boy’s plans as far as distribution?

This is an exciting topic for us.  We recently invested in equipment enabling increased production, which is necessary given an agreement we’re thrilled to have with Tryon Distributing.  Not only will this help us supply health food stores like Earth Fare, Whole Foods and Fresh Market, but it also opens the door to bars and restaurants which is where the product can literally become part of the conversation.  We’re seeing Lenny Boy becoming a more prevalent part of the mixed drink menu at Fern and come January we’ll be on Heist Brewery’s drink menu.

As far as geo-distribution is concerned, the Triangle Area and college towns in general are becoming a hotbed for us.

Charlotte will be on tap as the 2nd annual Queen City Brewers Festival (QCBF) returns to  the Neighborhood Theatre (511 E. 36th Street, Charlotte, NC, 28205), on Saturday, February 2nd, 2013.  To refresh your memory from last year’s inagurual festival, QCBF is exclusive to the Charlotte-area breweries that are raising the Queen City’s profile on the craft beer map.  Each brewery will showcase a variety of its beers and brewers are encouraged to bring one “super” flavor or style of beer especially for QCBF, as the event takes place the day before the Super Bowl.

In addition to the 11 breweries on hand, be sure to meet and greet our sponsors. Highlights include Revolution Ale House offering bites from their new menu and the chance to win prizes by correctly guessing a mystery brew they’ll be pouring; the NoDa Brewing Run Club Powered by OrthoCarolina Running armed with top-notch giveaway items to keep your New Year’s resolution in tact; JJ’s Red Hots will be selling hand-crafted eats from its food vending station; Earth Fare is back with Super Bowl themed snacks and you’ll thank yourself later by recharging with samples of Kombucha tea from our friends at Lenny Boy.

Proceeds raised from the event benefit Partners for Parks, a nonprofit, nonpartisan foundation that seeks to promote and enhance parks, recreation and open space in neighborhoods throughout Mecklenburg County and the surrounding area.

Guests will also enjoy live music, works by local artists and Daniel Hartis of Charlotte Beer will be there for the first signing of “Charlotte Beer:  A History of Brewing in the Queen City.”

There will be two tasting sessions:  1-4PM and 6-9PM.  Admission is $25 per session and guests must have a valid photo ID and be 21 years of age or older to enter the festival.

Earlier in the evening Jon treats the bar area like a lecture hall; breaking down the arduous process he and the three other owners (Friends in this case) endured to successfully open, produce and ultimately sell its “hand crafted quality beer”. From city council exchanges with now Mayor Anthony Foxx five years ago to marathon brewing sessions to keep up with demand today, Four Friends Brewing has shaped Charlotte’s craft beer industry and continues to impact the Queen City’s stable of start up breweries.

Beth Fulcher, one of the Friends, closes out the night’s bar tabs and joins us for the Q&A session.

How did you get into homebrewing and what was your “a-ha” moment that turned brewing into a profession?

[Jon:] It was a co-worker of mine at my previous job that got me into homebrewing. But that “a-ha” moment didn’t come until we took an Asheville brewery tour with the Carolina BrewMasters. That was when we met the owners of Pisgah Brewing Company.

[Beth:] We saw so much of ourselves in the Pisgah owners. They had a “we can do this” mentality and really inspired us to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

[Jon:] Hey, you don’t have to have a multi-million dollar facility. All you need is the passion to turn your project into a profession.

As the brewer and distributor, what is the most challenging part of getting a consistent product to the end consumer?

[Jon:] There is no shortage of variables that can compromise the product by the time it gets to the customer. The reality is that if it doesn’t come out right here (gesturing toward the brewhouse), well, that means I’ve got to dump over a thousand dollars’ worth of liquid down the drain. Luckily, that hasn’t happened yet. But once you get off the premises there is a lot that can mess with the beer – is it stored at the proper temperature? Is it going to be served at the proper temperature? Are the tap lines clean? We try to control everything we can, but we also know we can be better in some areas.

What styles of beer are driving the local craft beer scene and what sets Four Friends apart from other Charlotte breweries?

[Jon and Beth:] The IPA (said in unison).

[Jon:] The irony here is that we tried setting ourselves apart from other breweries by not being an IPA brewery. With so many IPAs out there, several even within the same brewery, you could argue it’s a saturated style. But the market clearly told us that’s the beer everyone wants, and wouldn’t you know, i77 is our most popular beer and the one that’s demanded most by bars and restaurants.

[Beth:] We knew we needed to introduce an IPA and it had to stand out. The challenge was to bring an IPA to market that would be palatable to someone who wasn’t a hardcore IPA drinker, but would also appeal to that hardcore IPA drinker. We think i77 pleases both crowds.

[Jon:] When you look at the overall craft beer market, and not just in Charlotte, that hardcore IPA drinker is only making up a small percentage of the pie. So if we were to launch a second IPA it would be more on the entry-level side. We could brew an extreme IPA for example, get the profile just right and it would still die if it’s so esoteric you can’t sustain it. Fortunately, we’ll have a much better tasting room in about 12 months when we break through that wall over there (motions to wall where pallets of grain are stacked high). Customer feedback is always welcomed and I’m sure we’ll hear the letters I, P & A more often than not.

If you were able to get a ticket to last weekend’s sold out Charlotte Oktoberfest, you had the chance to experience almost every Charlotte-area brewery all in one neat row, which naturally, was one of the most trafficked areas on the festival grounds (thank god for all the freshly laid hay!). Come Feb. 2nd, you will get to experience the full lineup of Charlotte-area breweries all under one roof with three new members enhancing the QCBF lineup: Four Friends Brewing, Free Range Brewing and Triple C. Welcome newcomers!

This championship caliber festival (the event takes place the day before the Super Bowl) would not be possible without the support of several generous sponsors: JJ’s Red Hots (Official food vendor), Charlotte Magazine (Official magazine), Earth Fare, Feast Food Tours, Flex + Fit, AdSpark Promos and the official sponsor of QCBF, which will be announced in the next few weeks!

More updates to come including Four Friends and Free Range brewery profiles, and all the details you’ll need to know heading into Feb. 2nd. In the meantime, please continue to enjoy our Charlotte breweries early (in the week) and often; take advantage of our community’s beautiful park system thanks to QCBF host Partners for Parks and I’ll see you back at the Neighborhood Theatre before too long!

-Nils Weldy
Festival Organizer

The anticipation of setting up your brewery and producing that first batch has to be exhilarating and
maddening at times. How have you been envisioning beer drinkers enjoying Triple C brews – at a bar,
in your tap room, or perhaps a growler to go?

[Chris Harker:] Well I know I’ll be spending a lot of time in the tap room, but for me it’s going to be a
thrill to see our tap handles in the bars. Naturally, that’s where we want people ordering and talking
about our beers. Plus we made them just a little bit taller than the standard tap handle so they’re
sure to stick out (laughing). One other neat differentiator is that they’ll have a magnet face so bars can
simply peel off a label and replace it with a new one when featuring a different style. We also have a
damn cool logo (laughing).

With the number of Charlotte breweries mushrooming in recent years, what will be some
differentiators Triple C brings to the Charlotte beer scene – or is it a matter of becoming a part of a
growing and welcoming community?

[Scott Kimball:] Speaking to our beer styles, no, I’m not setting out to brew something totally different
to fill a void or niche. Our approach is pretty simple, and you’ll hear basically every brewer say this,
which is that we’re going to brew what we like to drink and beers we think most everyone will enjoy.
We’ll cover the spectrum of American styles. Our primary yeast strains, an American Ale strain and an
English Ale strain, will be the foundations for our beers. You can count on a Belgian style for a seasonal
and I’ve got plans for a bit of barrel-aging too – we certainly have the room! (Points to the massive space
adjacent to where the brew house will sit.)

[Chris Harker:] Overall, we’re not looking to bring hardline differentiation to the Charlotte brewery
scene, but I think our location is a differentiator. With the Light Rail in walking distance and two brand
new apartment complexes underway, we’re fortunate to have a killer facility that has already seen nice
growth around it. But all in all, we’re so excited to be coming into the local industry that is, as you said,
welcoming and to see breweries like OMB and NoDa be so successful at the things they do best is all
that we can hope for too.

[Chris Murphy:] Speaking of growth, not sure if you saw them on the way in, but we have a dedicated
hop garden which is well on its way. It’s going to take some patience and good fortune, but ultimately
we’d love to brew a batch (standard size) of beer that is made exclusively with the hops we’ve grown
right here at the brewery.

What is the most significant adjustment you’ll need to make when going from 5-gallon batches to
brewing on a 15bbl system?

[Scott Kimball:] The most significant aspect is efficiency with our grains. This is a brand new brew
house from a manufacturer I’ve never used before so adjustments will need to be made. We’ll have
our target gravity with our first beer, and I expect the first beer to be a very good one, but adjustments,
improvements and efficiency are a continuous part of the process. Taking experience from my first
brewery job at Old Dominion Brewery on a 50bbl system and most recently on a 3.5bbl and 10bbl
system at the Eddyline Brewpub in Buena Vista, CO, I’ll go with my gut and the help of some software
when I brew our recipes at Triple C.

What are the aspirations for Triple C’s geographical distribution and what are your plans for bottling
or canning?

[Chris Harker:] The progression is pretty straight forward; we’ll bill ourselves as South End’s brewery
first, get more and more established as one of Charlotte’s breweries and ultimately if we get to
distribution throughout North Carolina, we’ll be very happy with that.

[Chris Murphy:] The Charlotte-area is going to be our immediate focus. We’re going to explore
distributor options for South Carolina as that’s clearly in our footprint too, but again, for the near term
you’ll see one of us in a branded truck making the deliveries to your favorite spots around town.

[Scott Kimball:] As far as packaging goes, I was around a cannery at my last job and at Old Dominion
we bottled but I’m personally a big proponent of canning for a variety of reasons: they’re more
environmentally-friendly, less expensive to transport, they cool faster and you can take cans where you
can’t take glass, which is important to me since I’m usually out and about on my bike or hiking. All that
said, I’m also looking forward to bottling some nice barrel-aged beers, and to have flights of those down
the road will be very cool.

If you could visit any brewery in the world, what would it be and why?

[Chris Harker:] Founders. Their beer is so solid and I know I’m going to get a quality beer every time I
have one.

[Chris Murphy:] Lagunitas. I’ve always enjoyed good beer, but it was probably Lagunitas that brought
my passion for craft beer to the level it’s at now.

[Scott Kimball:] I’d have to say it’d be a German Brewery tour, is that a legal answer (laughing). That’s
really the birthplace of brewing and it’s been a dream trip for me for so long.

Owner Kurt Hogan dusted himself off after clearing out some old drywall and we kicked back at his blueprint table. Piles of dirt, gravel, lumber and Heist’s shiny copper brew house equipment (brew equip formerly belonging to Larry Sidor from Dechutes Brewery in Bend, OR) kept us company during this happy hour Q&A session.

“Not too long from now picture us sitting up here in a plush booth. They’ll be set up a few steps giving you a sense of privacy, and well, a better view,” the ever-energetic Hogan said. “I know every single solitary square inch of this space and we’ll be using all of it to deliver an experience for every type of customer that walks through our door. Oh, did I tell you about our plans for the door?”

The extent of detail considered for every facet of Heist Brewery is incredibly impressive. “We’d love to pull out all the stops now, but we also need to focus on opening for business.” Hogan acknowledged. With a Great American Beer Festival award-winning head brewer and gourmet chef at the helm, we couldn’t agree more.

How did you decide on creating a brewpub as opposed to a pure brewery?

It was a combination of bringing an original brewpub to the Charlotte market and the fact that I became passionate about food before beer.  I’m from New England and fell in love with a concept that combined authentic, gourmet brick-oven pub fare with hand-crafted beer brewed on premise.   But when you see me at Heist, you’ll be more likely to find me in the brew house.  My brother got me into home brewing right around the time I went to college and I’m really looking forward to getting back into brewing.

Where did the name “Heist Brewery” come from and how much of a factor did Charlotte’s reputation as a bank town play?

We all know Charlotte is the 2nd largest banking hub in the
country so the name Heist of course made sense. But I’ve got to credit my brother for suggesting the name. When he mentioned it at first, I wasn’t sold, but it grew on me and I’m also a huge fan of the 1920’s bank robber and gangster era so that’s a theme among others we can play off of. And if you can believe it, I’m a distant relative of Baby Face Nelson, so I can count bloodlines as another reason why we chose the name.

Which styles of beer will Heist brew? Will you offer commercial beers and how will your beers and menu work together (i.e., beers paired with food, food prepared with beer, etc.)?

If I were brewing it would be double IPAs and big Belgian beers all day long, but while I know there are a lot of fans of these types of beers in Charlotte it’s still the minority. Our head brewer Zack Hart will be bringing his GABF medal-winning recipes to Heist and some new ones he’s wanted to unveil that he didn’t get a chance to brew at his previous gig [The Mash House in Fayetteville, NC]. Plus we’ll feature a weekly or bi-weekly beer using our pilot system, so no, we won’t offer commercial beers. However, our servers will gladly help a customer find a Heist brew based on what he/she likes for commercial beer.

As far as food and beer working together, this is an area that’s going to set us apart from anything in the area and it excites me the most. We’ll be incorporating ingredients of the highest quality from the brewing process into our pizza dough and artisan breads. I just hired a baker whose mission will be to push his creativity to the limit using our custom built 10’x10’ brick oven. Imagine a gourmet sandwich made with organic meats, cheeses and vegetables from local farms served on naturally fermented sourdough bread; add a pint of freshly made beer; in a one-of-a-kind historic setting; in NoDa. Yeah, I wish we could open tomorrow.

With several new breweries and craft beer concepts coming to the Charlotte market, how will you build your brand?

Our brand is growing organically at this stage in the game. I have a
vision of what I want the Heist brand to be, but it starts with the people you surround yourself with and I’m fortunate to have such a talented team come together [counts them off using his fingers]: an award winning brewer, a baker who knows no limits, my general contractor has been so valuable I brought him on as a partner and our general manager is a close friend I was able to pry away from Boston. We are all of the same frame of mind; no limits or boundaries when it comes to creative ideas. We are going to deliver an unbelievable brewpub experience and that’s how our brand will be built.

Rock Bottom has locations from Seattle to Boston, but which beers are unique to Rock Bottom Charlotte and how do you go about deciding which beers to brew?

Well let’s start with our four staple beers; the light, pilsner, IPA and Brown. Then we have two rotating select beers and that’s where the creativity comes into play. I’ll call on our Mug Club, our knowledgeable staff, and of course my personal likes to a degree and decide which beers we’ll rotate throughout the year. I try maintaining an even balance of beer styles so that I’m appealing to what my customers are asking for. I first started home brewing the beers that I found myself buying the most. It’s the same philosophy here; what are my best customers are asking for? I brew based on that kind of feedback and it’s a system that really works for everyone.

What should Charlotte craft beer drinkers know about Rock Bottom that they may not be aware of?

You know, it’s funny. What I hear most often is that people have been to another Rock Bottom, but they’ve never actually tried the food or beer at the Charlotte location. What people may not realize is that the beer lineup is constantly changing and growing so you can’t say you’ve been once and know everything we have on tap. I try rolling out a new beer every month. Sometimes it may be two or three [of our select beers] in a shorter period of time or it could be a slightly longer run for some beers. But even our staple beers are new recipes with different ingredients. So if you enjoy good, fresh beer, great food and haven’t been to a Rock Bottom in a while you should definitely come in and visit us.

How do your menu and beer offerings work together and do you have special events that pair food & beer together?

Yes, we’ll have between two and four special brewers dinners a year and they are very well attended. I’ll get together with our executive chef to create the menu based on our staple and seasonal offerings at the time. To name a few, our next event will feature our lobster lasagna in a spicy white sauce paired with our pilsner, and we have an awesome carpaccio paired with a Scottish Ale. These events really showcase the food side of the brewpub and it shows our customers how our beers complement the food.

How did you get started in the brewing industry?

When I turned 21 I got my first home brewing kit and totally got hooked on brewing. While I was working on my Masters Degree in Florida, I realized I wasn’t going down a path I really enjoyed so I went back to school at the American Brewers Guild. It was through an interview for an internship of all things at Big River at Disney that got my foot in the door. Before Rock Bottom, that was my first and only job in the craft beer industry going back to 2004.

What’s your favorite style of beer?

I’ve always been big into Pale Ales and IPAs. The Pale Ale I brewed for Big River will be one of the next select beers I do here and that’s a treat since it’s the one I really enjoy most. Lately, I’ve found myself on a Southern Tier kick and really like their Pale Ale and 2XIPA. We’re seeing a trend of beers getting bigger and bigger, which is great for certain occasions, but a flavorful American Pale Ale is what I like best.

A big part of your mission is to use local organic ingredients in all your beers; you also grow your own hops. What would it take for Ass Clown to become a farmer-brewer and why is it important to you to use local ingredients?

The farm idea is something that’s definitely in my planning. Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as it sounds picking up and moving to a new location; the TTB (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Trade Bureau) is very thorough in their ways. So it will be a two-part process for me: first we’ll move into a larger production facility for three to five years, and then I’ll be looking for an area where I can have around 5-10 acres of land to grow my hops and some organic fruits and vegetables. Think of a tasting room where you’ve got hops vines winding around trellises; the smell, the look and feel will give you the complete experience that should come with visiting a brewery.

Bottom line is I want to know what’s in my beer. I’ve seen and read too much about crap like nitrates and preservatives being added to some beers. Eventually, I’d like to personalize my bottles with each batch number and the beer’s ingredients. I do some pretty complex beers so for people to see exactly what their drinking would be pretty cool.

What is the most challenging beer you’ve ever made?

There are two beers I’ve made that qualify as having “the most challenging” distinction. One is a buttered dough cinnamon beer. The butter (yes, real butter) works against the yeast, but I found a way to make them work together. The other is a black lager made with paradise seed and spruce oil. It must have taken me a good five or six times to get it right and I ended up using an eighth of the spruce oil I thought I’d need. Another challenging beer, because it’s so time consuming, is my wet-hopped beer. It’ll take me four and a half hours to do a normal 20-gallon batch, but with wet hops that’ll bump it up to close to seven hours.

Why has Charlotte become such a popular place to open a brewery and what’s your relationship with other breweries in the area?

It’s funny; you know you don’t meet too many people that are from Charlotte. I’m originally from Vermont and I ask people who visit my brewery where they’re from. I get a lot of folks from New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia so that tells me we have a good mixture of people with different beer backgrounds that are looking for good beer. Plus Asheville has set the stage for craft beer in North Carolina nicely and Raleigh is really taking off too.

The folks at the other breweries have all been great. Suzie and Todd at NoDa Brewing are super nice, same with the Birdsong crew, Jon at Four Friends has helped me out in the past, Terry at Kind Beers has let me pick his brain and the owner at Skull Coast seems really cool.

Fellow Vermonter, Sean Lawson of Lawson’s Finest Liquids won the National IPA Champion of the Year contest last year. What would that honor mean to Ass Clown Brewing Company and where does the inspiration come from in creating your beers?

Sure, we all like to be recognized and receive awards, but I don’t enter contests specifically to rack up medals and ribbons. I think it’s the owner’s taste that dictates the kinds of beers he makes and I am all over the map when it comes to flavors and styles. Some people say you need two or three standard beers or a flagship and I just don’t agree with that. But hey, call me hard-headed, I’m going to find out for myself if I can keep it up when I get to a larger scale.

I’m constantly searching for the perfect beer. At this point I’ve done about 60 or so and have no plans to stop experimenting with new recipes and refining my catalog. You can create a great beer even through mistakes. But the source of inspiration comes from food. I’m really big on the aroma of beer, so I’ll try to trap your nose and not so much your palate. What I mean by that is some real aromatic beers for example end up tasting too sweet and it’s a chore just to get through half of it. I want a beer that has those aroma qualities, but allows you to still enjoy more than one.

What advice would you offer someone starting a brewery and what’s your vision for Ass Clown?

You’ve got to go with your gut instinct. No matter what business you’re in people are going to tell you there’s a certain way to do it or not do it at all (laughing). It’s important to love what you’re doing. I absolutely love brewing and no matter how many hours I work, it’s not work. I think you also have to start small and work your way into a bigger operation. It’s nice too if you have some supplemental income, which is why I’m still operating my mortgage business.

I’d like to get my business to say the size of a Dogfish Head. If I have to start compromising my recipes and ingredients I’ll know I’ve reached my limit. I got some perspective a while back when I was talking with the head brewer at Stone Brewing Co. and he operates on a 140-barrel system. They were starting an off-shoot on a 10-barrel and you could tell he was giddy to get back to more of the experimental beers. Put it this way, the beer I make you’ll find at places like Common Market and Total Wine and not next to the cases you’d find at a Food Lion or Harris Teeter.

OMB has helped usher in a craft beer revitalization here in Charlotte, NC and several new breweries have looked to you for guidance.  Which breweries, NC-based or other, have OMB looked to for guidance and advice? 

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the benefit of having anyone local that I could call up and drop in to see what they were doing.  I did my share of drive-bys of breweries across the southeast, but it wasn’t much more than their standard tour.  We were a little bit in the dark, but we figured it out… you know I joke to some of the new brewery guys that I should have charged them a consulting fee (laughing), but that’s OK.  The other breweries aren’t going to take business away from me.  Collectively, we’re going to change the mentality of the beer-drinker in Charlotte and shift it from the non-local brands to the local breweries.

Just this past summer OMB was invited by Beer Advocate to participate in their American Craft Beer Festival in Boston, MA.  What do you like about participating at festivals? 

It’s definitely the interaction with the attendees, and having shorter sessions with fewer breweries, like Queen City Brewers Festival, make a festival a really quality experience for the brewery.  At some of the mega festivals there are so many breweries and beers it’s potluck if they try your beer, let alone remember it.  Now we had a great time in Boston at the Beer Advocate festival and next year we’ll be at the Great American Beer Festival, but often times it’s the second half of a long-session where it can get a little out of hand.

It’s hard to walk into a bar in the Charlotte-area and not see an OMB tap handle.  What are plans for OMB’s geographical distribution? 

OMB’s focus is on Charlotte.  To follow the same business model of the big breweries and have distribution from coast-to-coast is not our philosophy.  We have to look at our advantages:  local and fresh.  You can’t tell me that the bottle of Fat Tire you drink in Charlotte tastes the same as it does coming off the line in Colorado.  And I don’t have the money or connections to battle west coast breweries to fill pint glasses out there.

My business model is similar to what I found in Germany.  In a town like Düsseldorf, which is one-third the size of Charlotte, you’ve got eight breweries that are each producing about five times the amount of beer as OMB.  That’s local.  Before OMB, local was considered to be any North Carolina beer like Highland or Red Oak.  Those are now regional beers and we’ve redefined what local means in Charlotte.   Plus, North Carolina has good laws in place for craft breweries where we’re able to self-distribute.  You have to use a distributor in South Carolina which removes that direct relationship; that’s so important to us and our customers.  And statistically speaking, there were about one million barrels of beer consumed in Charlotte last year.  We produced 4,000 barrels, meaning that we’re what, 0.4% of the beer consumed here?  My goal is to grow to maybe 2% or 3% of the beer pie in Charlotte and then I’m at the production level of a Schlüssel (brewery in Düsseldorf) and that’s a pretty good business.

What can we expect next from OMB’s lineup of Reinheitsgebot-style beers?

Well, we want to start by building awareness for our current lineup of beers, but I like the idea of making new beers for our tap room and for some of the bigger beer bars like Mac’s or Taco Mac.  Our accounts would like to offer their customers some variety and when we do bring out a new beer it’s already been allocated before it’s even out the door.

The plan is to stay with the German styles for now and we’ll add a different style like a Rauchbier soon.  We also did a contest with the Carolina BrewMasters this year for an RPA, which is a Reinheitsgebot-compliant Pale Ale.  We’re going to brew it sometime in January so maybe that will be our “Super Brew” for the Queen City Brewers Festival.  Another idea we’ll likely do closer to the summer is the one a lot of people are clamoring for and that’s a Hefeweizen.   That’s a classic.

What are your predictions for craft beer industry trends and what will that mean to OMB?

Honestly, I try to buck as many trends as possible.  But as a whole I think the trend is just the movement toward craft beer.  The notion of session craft beers is really working in our favor too.   If we’re trying to move the Bud Light drinker over to craft, it’s more likely he’ll enjoy it and continue drinking it through a gradual process.  To jump in with an 8% or 9% high-gravity beer, he’s going to drink half of it and go right back to his Bud Light.  I’ll bring the American Ales and crazy stuff to my neighborhood barbeques, but I’m just a regular beer guy, and obviously, I love German beer.  What got this whole thing started was that I missed fresh, German-style beer.  That’s what OMB does and we hope beer drinkers in Charlotte will enjoy it as much as we do.

You started the Charlotte Beer Club with modest expectations and now it’s “The Largest ‘PURE’ Craft Beer Group in the World.”  What is it about Charlotte that makes it such a popular craft beer community?

It’s pretty simple really.  Charlotte’s a big relocation city so you’ve got people moving here from all over the country, all over the word.  A big part of Charlotte’s population growth is coming from great craft beer states like California, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Washington; we even have members from Germany.  So the Beer Club provides an avenue for members to reconnect with the beers they’re familiar with or help find beers that are similar to what they’d find in their home state.

You’ve become somewhat of a Charlotte beer mayor by organizing Charlotte Craft Beer Week among hundreds of other events through the Charlotte Beer Club.  What is your next Charlotte beer endeavor and what makes a beer event a good beer event?

The next beer event we have coming up is SantaCon on December 11.  It’s a Charlotte brewery tour and gives everyone the opportunity to support local craft beer, dress up like Santa and have some good old-fashioned harmless fun.  Now everything we do includes two components to make it a good event:  it has to be fun and we want it to be educational.  A number of events we do also support a charity, so that really completes the experience.

What are some predictions for craft beer industry trends in the coming year and for Charlotte in particular?

Well, I definitely think we’re going to see a good handful of breweries pop up in the Charlotte-area in the next five years.  Nationally, however, I think we’re going to see the number of breweries decline a bit, unfortunately.  Some just get it and some don’t and that’s from a business plan perspective, not a knock on their beer at all.  Heck, if people on Wall Street can’t get it right not every brewer is going to get it right either.  But locally, Charlotte hasn’t reached its peak and we’ll see some strong growth over the next two to three years.

How can Charlotte join the ranks of other great beer cities like Portland, Boston and even Asheville?

We’re close.  You’ve got Asheville which is Beer City, USA three years running.  I’d call Charlotte Asheville’s little brother when it comes to beer, and we’re gaining quickly.  It’s also evident when you have Greg Koch, the owner of Stone Brewing Co., coming to Charlotte two years in a row to honor Mac’s Speed Shop as the country’s “Most Arrogant Bar”.  The Charlotte Beer Club was heavily involved promoting the “Most Arrogant Bar” competition and clearly we’re getting noticed as a strong beer market with national attention from breweries like Stone.

What is your all-time favorite brewery and why?

Man, that is a tough one.  I love the local breweries, no question about that.  But coming from upstate New York and having been introduced to craft beer in the mid to late 80’s, I tend to look at some of the original breweries as my favorites.  Ommegang is one of them and they make an awesome quality beer; it’s authentic and the affordable price point they’re able to sell their beers at is fantastic.  It’s also important to look at the first movement breweries that helped make craft beer what it is today:  Rogue, Stone, Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams.  Every now and again I’ll take a break from the latest trends and go back to the roots of craft beer.  I think it’s necessary for everyone to recognize the breweries that started us on the craft beer path before we keep looking ahead to the newest ones.

Colorado and Virginia are the two other states with a Hops Brewery.  Are the beers unique to each location and if so, what are they and how are your recipes created?

The Charlotte location is the only Hops to feature our Pale Ale on a year-round basis, which is surprising since it’s one of our most award-winning beers.  We have about 25 different beers and those recipes are being refined year-over-year, which poses a challenge to us since we only have eight taps to rotate these beers throughout the year.

I actually created the Pale Ale recipe back in 2005.  It has changed over time with the popular hops running in short supply, but the malt has stayed the same though and it’s a favorite among our regulars.

Tell us about the brewery system you’re working with here.  

It’s a seven-barrel pub brewing system, steam fired and we have about 60 barrels of fermentation capacity.

How does your menu and beer offerings work together and do you have events that pair food & beer together?

We’ll offer seasonal pairings of beer and food.  For example when our Oktoberfest is in season, we’ll have German-style food on the menu to go with it; potato pancakes, bratwurst, chicken schnitzel, German coleslaw and German potato salad all go well, naturally, with our Hoptoberfest Seasonal Brew.

A trend we’re seeing pop up in a variety of places, even grocery stores and gas stations, is growler refills.  How does this work at Hops and is it popular among your customers?

Well, North Carolina law is that in order to get a growler refill it has to be from that particular establishment.  So you would buy the grower from us for $4 and then it’s $9 to fill it.  We get our fair share of growler refills day-to-day.  Now, would we open a drive-thru option to accommodate demand?  No, but I’m sure our bartenders would be for it because it can take a while to fill those things!

What are Hops’ goals for 2012, and what would you like your customers to say after they leave your Brew Pub?

To be honest, the beer is at a level now that is as good and probably better than it ever has been.  The thing we need to work on is the service we provide our customers because that is what is going to set us apart from the very competitive restaurant business.  As far as what I’d like our customers to say when they leave Hops, that’s real simple:  Great food, great beer.

It was shortly before 5 p.m. on a Wednesday and the NoDa Brewing tasting room was humming with activity.  “We haven’t really noticed a slow day of the week just yet,” owner Suzie Ford mentioned before taking care of a customer order.  Thinking our Q&A session would have a tame backdrop on a midweek visit, there is no doubt NoDa Brewing is off and running as Charlotte’s most anticipated addition to the Queen City’s brewery scene.

You have a serious “NoDa” theme:  location, brewery name, and the theme is even built into the names of your beers.  How do you arrive at your creative beer names and what is the process?

We are such proponents of the neighborhood; we try to incorporate the environment and the arts feel into the brewery and our beers as much as we can.  Plus, we have a young staff that really embraces the challenge of naming our beers and uses the “NoDa” terminology as a benchmark to their creativity.

What led you and Suzie into the brewery business?

It was certainly a number of factors.  We had just come into an empty household with all our kids out to college and we were looking for an opportunity where we could do something together.  My previous job as an airline pilot had become a grind over the last few years of a nineteen year career and Suzie’s job as an Operations Manager at a community bank ran its course after her bank was acquired.  I had been home brewing since the mid 90’s so we thought that if we can connect with the right people, we can contribute to the great beer that is being made today.  It’s definitely a day and night business and Suzie is kept busy with the business aspect of the brewery, but if I ever want to see her or ask a question I just have to walk a few feet.  So it’s much more of a normal lifestyle now coming from a schedule that had me away 17 or 18 days out of the month.

You’ve done a great job developing a following and a real buzz in the Charlotte craft beer community.  What has been the key to your success during these early stages?

Fortunately we’re blessed with a very active beer community.  The Charlotte Beer Club has embraced us and we have a strong group of beer bloggers, like Charlotte Beer, so people like Darrin Pikarsky and Daniel Hartis have been great about helping us get the word out.  There is also a very well-established home brew club which we’re members of, the Carolina BrewMasters.  They have been extremely helpful not only in their support of our brewery, but the good, critical feedback that they’ve been able to offer.  That is something very important to us so we know what people like and what we can do better.

Where do you draw your inspiration from when creating new beer styles and flavors?

It’s really a number of areas.  Personally, I’m a big fan of IPAs and double IPAs.  We also pick up ideas from friends on the West Coast where they are a bit ahead of the trends we see here.  We also have a young, ambitious Brewer who really sees no boundaries as to what possibilities exist, so that contributes to our beers, particularly the NoDable series.  Since we have the ability to brew small batches of one-off beers, which essentially live in the brewery, we don’t have the pressures of brewing something that has to go right out on a full commercial scale.  We can brew an experimental 24-gallon batch and that in itself allows us to be very creative.  I love having the ability to do historical beers.  One I think is interesting is a German-style beer you’d find if you were living back in the 1100’s.  Making a beer that is not only educational to the consumer, but to the brewer as well, is important to us.  And if you don’t like it, that’s fine, you can have a house beer, or come back and try something new the following week.

What is it about Charlotte that makes it an attractive city to open a brewery?

We have two interesting worlds going on here.  We have
a good crowd of knowledgeable craft beer drinkers and we also have a great number of people that haven’t even come across the line from American Lite Lagers.  So to have the potential to draw from a large population to try malty, hoppier beers is a great growth possibility.  And I know that Charlotte has the potential to develop a great beer culture like Asheville.  I’ve enjoyed voting for Asheville the last few years as Beer City USA, but they’re going to have to do it on their own now since Charlotte will be getting my vote.

“I have a 750ml of Coffee Oatmeal Stout if you fellas wanna crack that open”, Terry joked as we sat down in the Kind Beers war room and began the Q&A session.

How did you start Kind Beers and what was your background before getting into the Craft Beer industry?

Kind Beers started out of drinking and boredom (laughing).  I used to own a construction company and was getting bored with it so I started getting into home brewing, which I think my buddies really appreciated the most.  My first recipe, the Pale Ale, I worked on until we thought it was perfect, and something really special.  The next step was to get it brewed, so I called around and found a brewery that would contract with me.  That brewery was Thomas Creek and we’ve been with them ever since.  We then worked on getting my recipe to commercial-scale production (spring of 2008), but there was a hop shortage at the time, so we ended up making the beer without the Fuggles hops my original recipe had.  But I really liked the way it came out using Amarillo, so I’m not changing it now (laughing and lighting another cigarette).

With Charlotte and North Carolina’s craft beer scene gaining in profile, how do you want the Charlotte-area to perceive Kind Beers?

I want them to enjoy the beer I’m responsible for bringing to the marketplace.  And even though there isn’t a brewery set up behind us, I’m the one brewing the beer on Thomas Creek’s system [beginning in December].  It’s a challenge for sure when you add brewing on top of all the logistics and marketing so Kind Beers gets to the end consumer.  Now if I did own a brewery, my profit-margin would be a lot better.   But that’s not the case today and that means I have to make sure my product distribution grows, and I think the Charlotte-area will appreciate that.

What can we expect in terms of new Kind Beers to hit store shelves?

Yeah, I kind of did it ass-backwards and started with bottling instead of kegging to start out.  But it’s worked and we have been able to build our brand at great bottle shops all over the southeast.  As far as new beers, ultimately I’d like to have five year-rounds and two seasonals.  We’re almost ready to release an Imperial Pale Ale and the Coffee Oatmeal Stout is really nice.  After that, I’ve wanted to do a lager for the longest time.  Personally, I’m a fan of bigger beers, but I’d also like to have some diversity in my lineup and a lager option will complement our many ales.  However, we watch our volume very closely and if a certain style is not a hit, then it will be replaced with something new.

What’s your favorite aspect of beer festivals?

Absolutely it’s about all the different people I get to talk to.  Unfortunately, I don’t get out as much as I’d like so it really makes beer tasting events the best way for me to connect with my fans and I’m grateful for the following we’re generating.  When I hear people say that Kind Beers is their “house beer” it’s as good a feeling there is.  I’ve met people from all walks of life through festivals and that’s what going to these things is all about.

New Sign Outside the Brewery

Greeted by its mascot, “Cheez-It”, we immediately sensed a positive vibe walking into the Birdsong brewery. Conor Robinson, Birdsong’s head brewer, put a batch of reclaimed wood to good use and carved the Birdsong logo to make a nifty sign at the brewery’s entrance. Clearly, this head brewer’s artistic skills don’t end at the fermenting tank. The Queen City Brewers Festival (QCBF) team stopped in recently to check on progress and catch up with a few of the Birdsong Crew members which also included Chris Goulet, Tara Goulet, and Chandra Torrence.

“The viewing windows were just installed today,” said Conor referring to the brewery’s latest outfitting, which will give visitors a view of the brewery from the tap room.

After admiring the pristine 10-barrel brewing system sitting on a fresh slab of concrete, we set up chairs in the unfinished, but charming tap room for a brief Q&A session.

Charlotte has become a desirable location to brew craft beer in recent years. Why is it such a popular place to open a brewery?

Clearly there’s a huge opportunity for growth in this market and Charlotte has the right crowd, neighborhoods and the professionals who look to cultural districts like NoDa for their artistic outlets, and craft beer fits right into that mix.

What part of the brewing process is most critical to brewing Birdsong’s unique beers?

Sanitation! I think most brewers will tell you it’s really about your ability to keep everything sanitized. Without a clean fermenter you’re going to come away with some pretty funky beers.

Where do you draw your inspiration from when you start brewing a new beer?

From L to R (Chris, Chandra, Tara, Conor)

(Answered by Conor) It’s usually a single ingredient that I’ll draw my inspiration from. I have a degree in making pastry art so I would hone in on the flavors that would go into those recipes and take a similar approach when making beer. Or it depends on what I’m really hungry for, which is how the Saison came to be and that turned out to be a big hit at the Hickory Hops festival.

What are your predictions for craft beer industry trends in the coming year?

Big beers like IPAs and Imperial beers have been and will be in heavy rotation for the foreseeable future. We also see breweries canning their beer so that has been an interesting development. Also, barrel-aging beer is something we’ve noticed and a delicious trend we don’t see going anywhere soon.

How many beers will you have available in the tap room?

We’ll start with our Pale Ale and Carolina Common. The great thing is that there is such a strong craft beer following in the area we can do a number of test batches just in our tasting room to get feedback before upping the production to say 20 barrels. Dogfish Head took the same approach and look at the incredible beers they have put out there. We look forward to sharing in this experimental process with our visitors.

Queen City Brewfest Site

Thanks for visiting the new site! As you can tell, we’ve finally done away with the old place holder page and stepped up to a fully functioning site that contains all the info you could ever want/need to know about the upcoming, inaugural Queen City Brewers Festival!

Since this is our first year doing this event, we felt it was important to invest our time, energy and funds into getting off the ground with a solid brand and identity that can grow and evolve with us for years to come!