Oral History Interview with Mark Gibb, 2017

MG: Hi, my name is Mark Gibb. My wife Sasha and I are the owners of Gibb's Hundred Brewing Company, here on Lewis Street in downtown Greensboro, and we are just coming up on our third anniversary, for the brewery. And Sasha and I have—are both full-time here, we're working; we've got two kids, Carter and Kennedy, who are in here helping more often than they would like as well, so it's kind of a family affair, and, like I said, we're coming up on three years.

BR: How did you first become interested in the brewing industry?

MG: I know that's a one-part question, but for me that's kind of a two-part question: "How did you become interested in brewing?" and "How did you become interested in the industry?". And how I became interested in brewing 25 years ago, when I started home 00:01:00brewing. I like to make things, and do things that give you a little bit of a creative outlet—I do a little bit of woodworking as well, things like that—so the idea of brewing appealed to me. I like—I love beer, and I like making things, and— And also, I think that, as a home brewer, you have access to the same ingredients in terms of the malt, and the hops, and the yeast and everything, that any brewery anywhere in the world has access to. So you—you really can, if you're good at what you're doing, you can make the best beer in the world in your house. That's not true of everything. I don't believe that to be true of home wine making, because a lot of—part of the quality is the work you put into it, part of the quality is the grape that you start with, and, as a home wine maker, you 00:02:00just don't have access to those, really, tip-top grapes that are only found in certain chateaus in Bordeaux [France] and so forth. And that's just not true of homebrewing; you can make the best beer in the world in your house, so that really appealed to me, and that's why I did it for twenty years before starting this brewery. What got me interested in the industry, and doing it for a living, I had a career in manufacturing, and actually started making equipment for breweries. So, for a period—before starting this brewery— for a period of three or four years, we were manufacturing brewhouses and tanks, and working with start up breweries to help get them going, figure out what kind of equipment they needed and build it for them. And, you know, just seeing the passion of those folks for what they were doing kind of gave me the bug to want to do it for myself.

BR: Why did you choose to open a brewery in downtown Greensboro?

MG: When we were looking at opening a brewery, you know, we were living in Stokesdale [North Carolina] at the time, so we were not even actually living in the city at that time— we do now—but we definitely wanted to, you know, be somewhere where there's, you know, a lot of folks and things happening. You know, we also looked at Greensboro and were surprised that there weren't more breweries, and we were looking at Asheville, and Raleigh, and Charlotte, and how many other places and how many breweries they had, and we just did not have that in Greensboro. So, we felt that that was something the city really needed. So, we thought it was the best place to do it.

BR: Can you tell me a little about the challenges you faced while opening Gibb's Hundred?

MG: Sure, we faced a lot of the challenges that anybody starting any kind of business faces, in 00:04:00terms of raising capital, and finding people to work for the organization, and all kinds of things. But we certainly had some that were unique, that, the first things that we faced was that it was illegal to build a brewery downtown in Greensboro. The zoning forbade it. At the time, the zoning laws were set up around the idea that breweries would either be a brewpub, with full restaurant, that would make a very limited quantity of beer and sell all of it on-site, or, they'd be a big production brewery, cranking out very large volumes and putting them into bottles and cans and selling them all over the place. And they didn't want a big production brewery in downtown Greensboro, understandably. But the industry had really evolved, and the business model had evolved, and setting up a production brewery that did have bottles and cans, in limited quantities, but also it had a 00:05:00taproom that invited people in, and had a nice space for people to sit and have a few pints, was the way most breweries were going at that time. And that just wasn't envisioned in the city zoning ordinances. So, we brought that to their attention, kind of made the case with some facts from brewer's association and other places, and—I have to say, it did not take a lot of convincing. I mean, I think they came on board pretty quickly with the idea, and the city planning department were strong advocates when we went in front of the city council with it, for their ultimate approval, in terms of endorsing what we were proposing. And so, you have to say there were a few hurdles we had to jump, but I was very happy with the way everybody worked with us on it. And then, once we got that going, probably the other piece that is, like I say, apart from just the everyday challenges 00:06:00that anybody starting a business faces, is that a brewery is a very capital intensive business. There's a lot of equipment, compared to 95% of businesses, so we had a serious challenge to fund that, to get all the pieces to fit together, making sure that when you're ordering that they're all compatible with all the other pieces, and getting everything set up, and calling in a whole bunch of different tradespeople from steam fitters to glycol(?) fitters to electricians, to plumbers, to all kinds of folks to get everything all put together and working together. So, that—that was quite a challenge as well.

BR: Where did the name Gibb's Hundred come from?

MG: I'm a history buff and do a lot of reading in history, and a hundred is an old subdivision 00:07:00of a county or shire that would support about a hundred families. In the old days, it was typically a two or three day's horse ride away to get to the county seat, if you had some— had to go in front of the county court, and so they would sub-divide the counties into hundreds, and have a little hundred court that could handle matters of small jurisdiction, not a murder trial or something like that, but a matter of small jurisdiction and make it a lot more convenient for the people. And there were a few other administrative functions that would happen at that level. Thomas Jefferson was a big advocate of the hundred. He believed in keeping the government small, keeping it close to the people. And, so, we wanted to have a community brewery that was very community oriented, and we felt that name kind of evoked community a little bit.

BR: So, how do you view your role in the community?

MG: You know, I think that the number one thing is providing a space for people and we get 00:08:00all kinds of groups coming in here, from Beard and Mustache Club [North Carolina Beard and Mustache Club], to music groups, to a lot of groups from UNCG, to—various groups advocating for social change, to, just all kinds of different groups. And we like to provide a space where people can get together and talk about things. I think we also, you know, take that into account when we're brewing our beer. I think that—you know, some breweries have—they like to go for a—the latest buzz of a sour beer or a double IPA beer, or something that is kind of the latest "hot" beer amongst craft beer connoisseurs, 00:09:00and certainly we like to have fun and do that kind of thing from time to time, but we also like to make sure that we're making beers for the average person, that isn't necessarily a, you know, craft beer aficionado—they may not even drink craft beer all the time, you know, they, you know [gasps] heaven forbid, go home and crack open a Bud occasionally, you know. But, if we have some nice, drinkable beers for them to come in here and have some of those from time to time, then, you know, again, they're in here and they're part of the conversation as well, along with the whole community.

BR: What is it like to work in the craft brewing industry?

MG: It's a nice industry to work in, like I said, having been in manufacturing for twenty years, I manufactured a lot of different products of the years, and—from automotive type 00:10:00products, to safety-type products, and several other ones. And those industries can be very different, and some of them, just, I mean, as a crazy example—the pickle industry. I didn't work in the pickle industry, but I worked for a company that supplied a lot of equipment for pickle manufacturers. Very collegial industry—they get together at conferences every year, and everybody knew everybody, and they were always willing to share tips with each other—"Well, I'm having this problem with my pickle production line, can you help me out?" "Oh, yeah, sure—you need to do this and that."—Very collegial industry. And sure, they're competing in the marketplace, but they're also working together on occasion. Other industries, just bitter, bitter competition, and anybody who works for your competitor company is a bitter rival, and you don't even talk 00:11:00to them. So, it's very nice to be in an industry where it's more collegial, and the craft brewing industry is probably that way more than any other industry I've ever seen. So, it's a very nice industry to work in.

BR: What is the Triad Brewer's Alliance?

MG: Triad Brewer's Alliance is a group of Triad breweries, as well as some associate members who are not members, but supply things for the brewing industry, but are supporters of the industry that have also joined us. And, it's just been going for, well, under a year now, but we'll get together to start promote brewing in the Triad and the reputation of the Triad. A lot of folks going to Asheville, and Raleigh, and Charlotte, for beer tourism, they say "I'm going to go there these week and I'm going to hit up eight different 00:12:00breweries, and go around and taste their products." We don't get a whole lot of that here; I travel all around the state, selling our beer, it's available wholesale all around the state, and I go a lot of places and they go, "Where are you from?" and I go "Oh, I'm from Greensboro," and they say, "Oh, yeah! I drive through there all the time." [pause] "Do you ever stop? Do you ever get off the interstate?" "Oh, well, no. I never do." Well, we're trying to change that. We're trying to get folks to come out and say, "Hey! There are a lot more breweries in the Triad than I recognized, and I'm going to make a trip out there this week and I'm going to visit four or five of them." And, so, we do that through some events that we do, to highlight Triad brewing. The biggest beer festival in this area right now is the Summertime Brewfest that Rock 92 puts on, and of course that's got breweries from all over the place, and we get people coming from all around to come to that. Well, 00:13:00we started doing a little event the night before, for all the folks who are coming into town for that event, and that event focuses only on Triad breweries. So, we don't get kind of lost in the noise of the big festival, with two hundred breweries in there, it's—they just come out and just try the Triad brews. And, so, we've got that event going, we're working on another annual event that we haven't released yet, but that will be kind of a big keynote, annual event for us. We're working on a webpage, and brochures with brewery maps of the area, and pointing people in the right direction and all that kind of stuff.

BR: How has the brewing scene in Greensboro changed since you opened three years ago?

MG: It's changed pretty dramatically; a lot of breweries have opened up, and, you know—I think that's great. We're starting to develop a brewing scene. Obviously, as a brewer, like 00:14:00I said, there's a lot of collegiality in the industry, and you work with folks, but you know, you are competitors also, so there's always that tension, and, also, sometimes we, you know, get a little disappointed if our taproom business is down a little bit because everybody's over at another brewery tonight because they're having a big event, but I think, by and large, having the breweries is teaching more and more people about craft beer, people who were not craft beer drinkers are—they've got more of an opportunity to try it, and then, once they try it, a lot more people will say "Oh, yeah. You know what, I think maybe I'm not going to drink craft beer all the time," but if we could just get them to drink craft beer 25 or 30% of the time, then we're growing the market for craft beer, and we're doing that together.

BR: So, a big change coming up for Gibb's Hundred is your move out of downtown, to State Street. Can you tell us more about that?

MG: Sure. We're—you know, like I said, we were lucky enough to experience some growth, and we are distributed around the state now, and it does take a little bit more equipment, and space, and what not, to meet the production requirements when you're distributed in a hundred accounts as opposed to just kind of being available in your local area. So, a big part of the move for us is getting a little more space, and we've loved being here, but this building is over a hundred years old, and there have been some challenges in getting the production out, and we're meeting those challenges every day, but it would be nice not to have to fight those every day. So, a big part of it is production, but also, as well, for our taproom. I think that it's been wonderful to be downtown here, and it's exposed us to a lot of folks who otherwise wouldn't have known about us if we were out in an industrial park 00:16:00somewhere on the edge of town, but I think now we've built a little bit of a name for ourselves, and folks know who we are, and I think we can survive making a little bit of a move. And I think in the new location, what we want to do is have a really nice outdoor beer garden, we just don't have that kind of space to do that downtown. We've got a nice .86-acre lot where we can have a really nice outdoor beer garden with some mature trees on it, and, you know, some music outside and events and stuff like that. So, we like to sit outside and drink beer, and we think other people do too, and, so, we want to afford them that opportunity.

BR: Where do you see the brewing industry going in the next five years?

MG: We've had an explosion of growth in the industry; I think that's been fantastic. I think that 00:17:00growth will probably, you know, level off a little bit. I mean, I think—you know, people who look at the industry, there have been folks who have said "Oh, there's going to be a big crash. There's just too many breweries." I don't believe that. I mean, we've got over five thousand breweries now, but there's also eight thousand wineries in this country and there's nobody saying there's going to be a big crash in wineries. So, I don't think we're going to have anything like that. But I do think we'll have a little bit of a leveling off in terms of not so many new breweries starting up. And, I do think that breweries, going forward, will have to, you know, focus a little bit more on who they want to be as a brewery. I mean, I think if you roll the clock back ten years, I think every brewery that 00:18:00started up, in the back of their minds, thought, "Well, someday I'll be the next New Belgium and I'll have a huge brewery, and I'll be distributed in thirty-five states and I'll be putting out eight hundred thousand barrels of beer a year." Not a lot of room for that anymore. But, I think there's a lot of room, as long as everybody wants to kind of focus on, focus on their knitting, and doing what they do best, and, if this brewery over here is going to do sour beers, and this one over here is going to do English beers, and this one over here is going to focus on having a nice little taproom, and this one here is going to focus on distributing their beer across a certain region, or whatever, and everybody's got a little bit different way of doing things and a little bit different business model, then there's room for all of us to do that. But, you do have to focus on what that business 00:19:00model is, and making sure you're sticking to it, and all your investments are lining up with that, because there isn't as much, with as many competitors in the industry, there isn't so much lee-way to just, "Well I'm just going to get out there and make some beer and see what happens." There's not too much leeway for that anymore. And so, I think, as an industry, we have to just, kind of, focus on what our business model is, who our core customers are, and making sure we're keeping them happy.

BR: So, you talked a little bit earlier about making beers that are more "drinkable." What styles of beers do you like to focus on here?

MG: Our biggest selling beer is our ESB, and, you know, from the beginning, we never picked out a beer and said, "that's going to be our flagship beer." What we actually did when we started is, we started with five beers, and we had ESB, because that's kind of a malt[?]- 00:20:00forward kind of beer; we had a milk stout, because that's a nice, dark, and roasty beer, with just a little hint, a touch of sweetness to it; we had our Berliner beer, which is a beer that's got a little, nice tart sourness to it, we had a pale ale, which is kind of a nice, middle-of-the-road, drinkable beer, and we had an IPA, which is, you know, a very hoppy beer. So, we were kind of trying to hit all the different taste points of different things that beer can be. And, we said "Well, whatever people like, we can brew more of it, no problem." Well, the market kind of decided that ESB was our flagship beer. We won a gold medal from the Great American Beer Festival for it, and then the sales of that product really just zoomed after that, so it has definitely become our flagship, and we're very proud to have it as our flagship. I mean, I think a lot of breweries don't feel like 00:21:00you're a real brewer unless your flagship is a double IPA, and we're very proud to have that as our flagship beer, and, like I said, we didn't pick, the people picked it, and we're happy that they did. It's a very approachable, drinkable style of beer, our pale ale is a very approachable, drinkable style of beer—most of our seasonals that will come out with is saisons, and French blondes, and brown ales, try to make nice approachable, drinkable beers. We like to do limited-release beers, and do barrel aged beers and do very high ABV beers and very hoppy beers, and they're fun, and we do them on a regular basis, but we want to make sure we're always putting things out there that kind of appeal to a wider crowd as well.

BR: Okay—and what is your favorite beer to drink from Gibb's Hundred?

MG: I mean, you know, you might as well ask me what my favorite child is. I mean, you can't—you know, you're not allowed to pick. But, I drink all of them, depending on the weather, and my mood, and everything. You know, I probably find myself going back to the pale ale more than anything else. But, you know.