Oral History Interview with Stephen Monahan, 2018

BR: So, my name is Brandie Ragghianti, I'm an oral history interviewer for Well Crafted NC, which is a project of UNC Greenboro's Special Collections and University Archive. So, I am here with Stephen Monahan?

SM: That is correct.

BR: And we are at Little Brother Brewing in downtown Greensboro. So, to start, I would like you to just tell us a little bit about yourself.

SM: Myself? I'm originally from Chicago. I did my undergrad at University of Denver in Colorado. I got into the brewing industry, like many of us do, by homebrewing. I started working at a homebrewing shop, volunteering my hours, and the two managers there both got brewing jobs, and, so, I filled that gap, and that's when I realized I wanted to be a pro 00:01:00brewer. Talk about beer all day, and brewing, and just chatting about it, just made me realize that I was kind of burnt out on the hospitality industry and I decided that's what I wanted to do for life and, so, I took on another full-time job, saved up for an education, and as soon as I finished that, I was hired as head brewer at a small brewery that's fairly new in Raleigh, North Carolina, and, from there, made tracks to here, to Greensboro, after meeting partners Jeff [Collie] and Daniel [McCoy], and we came to an understanding and decided that would be a great fit, and it's been a trip. We started that in February of 2017.

BR: So, what was it about working in the home brewing industry that made you want to transition to this?

SM: Originally, I had been planning on going into the wine industry, I got some sommelier certifications, and I just—I guess I just really love alcohol—but what got me into the beer industry was more of the craft culture. It's just so much more down-to-earth and, you know, we've got Natty Greene's across the street here, and we're not competitors, we're neighbors, and we're working towards building up kind of a destination here. And in the wine industry, it's much more cutthroat, everybody's against each other, and, you know, there's label wars and all sorts of strange political aspects of it that I wasn't too huge on. And this seemed like the perfect fit for me; I was already passionate about beer, and I had 00:03:00already been homebrewing forever, and so it seemed like a great fit, and, it turned out great. I mean, I wouldn't have it any other way.

BR: Can you talk about the process of opening this brewery in downtown Greensboro?

SM: It was, it was definitely a big project. So pretty much everything you see around you, besides the floor, is brand new. We redid all the windows; with the exception of the mosaic tile, we ripped out all the floors here, redid the plumbing, got the brewery floor that I wanted, slopped correctly, and all the subway tile—I mean, this, these columns here used to be cinder blocks, if that gives you kind of an idea of what it looked like before. So, we put a ton of work into this, and I think it's turned out great. The reception's been 00:04:00fantastic and, you know, I would love that, the beer to be the favorite part of everybody's experience here, it plays a great part, but first thing everybody sees when they walk in here is the space. Most notably the mural here; we had a local artist do that. Lee Baxter, he does a lot of work around town here, and just—it all really came together. And we could not have done it if we didn't have people like Karmen [Guilyard, bar manager], and Jeff and Daniel, the other partners, who are all just one hundred percent in the game of managing all the details. Otherwise this project would have taken an extra three to four months.

BR: How did you meet Jeff and Daniel?

SM: I think we met off ProBrewer, which is kind of like Craigslist for brewers, you can buy, like, equipment and put up classifieds in there, but, they came to the brewer—the brewery I was currently working at, working at then, and they tried my beer, we chatted a 00:05:00few times, had a few dinners, I think we really just had the same overall philosophy. What we wanted to do in terms of our potential to bring, you know, really high-quality, eclectic, modern American styles to this area, which it already has, in no short supply, and all of our neighbors brew fantastic beer. And that crossed with, you know, where we wanted to be, from a business perspective, and what our approach was, in terms of, you know, financial goals, and expansion plans, and things like that. And I saw that they just really had their heads screwed on straight and new exactly what they were doing, so, it 00:06:00wasn't too great of a leap of faith for me because these guys just, they knew what they were doing.

BR: Can you tell me a little bit more about what it's like to work in the craft brewing industry?

SM: It's fantastic. Like I mentioned earlier, our neighbors are awesome. We've done collaborations with Natty Greene's across the street, Preyer [Greensboro], Trophy in Raleigh, Wooden Robot in Charlotte, we're brewing, we're brewing a collaboration with Pig Pounder [Greensboro] tomorrow, and Gibb's [Gibb’s Hundred, Greensboro] on Friday. So, our neighbors have been fantastic; the support has been incredible, and, you know, we buy all their beer too, and we put them on as our guest taps. So, we're all making money for each other, and we're all trying, working towards the same goal, which is pretty much bringing attention to the craft industry, converting ABI [Anheuser-Busch 00:07:00InBev] customers who are drinking

[sound of train horn]

Budweiser and things like that to craft handles. And helping bring that market share up overall from twenty percent to twenty-five in a couple years to thirty,

[sound of train horn]

and, eventually, just have kind of this—we're in the midst of this craft revolution right now

[sound of train horn]

and, you know, everybody tells me oh, you know, there's this bubble, and when's it going to burst,

[sound of train horn]

and I would say, not for a very long time unless you're in, you know, downtown Denver or San Diego, where they're starting to see those struggles. But, for North Carolina, all I see is us going up. Sorry about the train.

BR: So, can you talk a little bit about what a collaboration is, and how those are developed, and what happens when you do a collaboration.

SM: For collaboration beers, basically, we decide, each party decides, that, you know, we can 00:08:00bring value from a marketing, quality, Q&A perspective to each other, and, so, we sit down and design a recipe, we figure out what we want to get out of it, we order all the materials together, and we brew the beer together, and we do all the cellar work together, and at the end of the day we bring half our kegs, and half their kegs, and we keg it off together. And then we sell the same beer in our, each separate entity, and it creates a lot of great exposure for both of us, and, you know, the market goes wild for limited collaboration beers too, because they're limited release, one-offs, and it's just, I mean, that's the greatest part of this industry, is just that collaborative feeling that we get, and 00:09:00being part of something, and not worrying about, you know, pissing off your competitors or anything like that. We're all just here to take down ABI, in my opinion. So, we all have the same goal in mind, so we're all working together towards the same shared interest.

BR: So, one thing you do here that's unusual for this area is you have beers on tap that were made by homebrewers. So, can you talk about that?

SM: Yeah. Our Homebrewer Spotlight Program is awesome. It's—that was Jeff and Daniel's idea, and it's one of the aspects that initially attracted me to this concept. Having been a homebrewer forever, and getting my brewing career started out homebrewing, and just entering competitions, and being part of homebrew clubs, it made me really want that part to be integrated into our program. So, every month we have a homebrewer come in 00:10:00here, and we sit down, just like we would with a collaboration beer, and we design a recipe, within reason—the thing about homebrewing is, you can, with a five-gallon batch, you can really do whatever you want, but, from a production standpoint, on a commercial system, you have limitations in terms of, you know, what hops you have, and, you know, we're not going to buy forty-four pounds of hops, of some obscure, New Zealand hop, just to brew a single batch, and then I'm stuck with forty of them [chuckles] to figure something else to do. So, there are certain limitations, but, broadly speaking, it is a fantastic opportunity for homebrewers to really showcase what they have, you know, to the public forum. And, so, as you see on the menu board there, our first homebrewer 00:11:00spotlight was with Alex Craddock, who owns and manages Three Horses Hops [near Saxapahaw, North Carolina], which they own a small little hop field, where they just sell fresh Cascade, and Apollo, and, I think—don't quote me on this—Zythos hops, it's a local homebrew shop, some local homebrewers, and it was a rosemary red IPA, and it turned out fantastic. We had dinner at the bar across the street, and just asked for a couple of empty pint glasses, and just pulled off rosemary needles off of these branches while we were getting ready to brew, and then, the next day, we brewed off, and dumped the rosemary in there, and we used fresh—well, not actually, dried—whole cone cascade 00:12:00hops from his hop farm that we dry hopped with, and it really created this beautiful, piney, hoppy, slight citrus, that combined surprisingly well with all the rosemary. I was a little bit skeptical at first, but it turned out to be a fantastic beer, so I'm just really happy with that.

BR: What was the first beer you made for this brewery?

SM: It was our Jim's Lunch Stout, and it turned out—I'm just super thankful we didn't have to, you know, dump it down the drain, because we didn't, we were rushing so hard and I was so involved with the construction process here, and we didn't have a pilot system or anything like that, so, that was our first test batch. And, you know, through divine 00:13:00intervention or something it turned out great. And we have tweaked that recipe a couple time since, but just, to be able to brew your first test batch and sell it as quality beer is just, it's a huge feeling of relief, because, if it didn't work out, then that would push our opening date back another week, and it would all be on me. So, it turned out great, and our subsequent beers have turned out fantastic, and not to say that they're all the greatest beers that we have the capacity to make, every single batch that we brew is a little bit different than the last batch of that style. And, here at Little Brother, complacency really just does not have a place in our corporate culture. We are striving to be the best, and the 00:14:00best part about our concept is that we sell everything in-house, and we struggle to do it, our sales are fantastic, and we do our best to keep up with production, I do. But, what's great about that is that it allows us to tweak each recipe every time we brew it in order to make it a little bit better. We don't have to worry about, you know, putting kegs out to market and it not being consistent as compared to the last batch, which allows us a fantastic degree of freedom into really dialing in what our vision is in terms of quality, in terms of craft, in terms of, you know, what we want our final vision for an IPA or a stout or a hefeweizen to be. So, we're always playing around with variables like yield and 00:15:00ABV, IBUs, you know, what can we get out of this amount of grain, at this IBU, and how many kegs can we get out of it. And, so, that's, you know, the constant battle. But that freedom to play around is a huge factor in our success so far. We've been open eight weeks and it's been—the Greensboro community has embraced us really well, and we're just so thankful for all our regulars and everybody that's come out to support us, because it's been fantastic turnout. Sorry to drone on.

BR: So, I'm going to switch gears a little bit. Can you talk about how the brewing industry has changed since you first became interested in it?

SM: Oh man, it's changed a lot. My first introduction into brewing was with Birdsong 00:16:00Brewing Company [Charlotte]—oh, gosh, I think that was back in 2012? —and they brought me on as assistant sales guy, and so I would go around dropping off coasters. And, back then, it was pretty much them, and NoDa, and I think Triple C and OMB [Old Mecklenburg Brewery] in Charlotte. And since then, there's five times as many breweries. So, let me start by saying, all their beer was fantastic, and the quality has, the quality has maintained that level, if not much more so. And, but, like, that was the time to get in, you know. 2009, 2008. That's when basically, those large markets had fairly little 00:17:00competition, especially with bars that had twelve, fifteen tap handles. So that was the best time to really grow in that market. I prefer to think that we are kind of experiencing the same thing in Greensboro, as of five years ago, that Charlotte experienced, in, you know, 2010, 2011. And we're able to do the same thing with the added benefit of, you know, all this market research and, you know, all the brewer—having the privilege of being able to speak with all these brewers, around the Triangle area, the Charlotte area, the Triad area, and say "hey, what's worked for you over these last three, four years? What hasn't?" And having the ability, for me, to get such great feedback, and learn from all these just 00:18:00incredibly talented brewers, has been absolutely integral into our success here and my personal development as a brewer, and I don't think I could have done that back then. So, I am really benefiting from everybody else's experience, and just having that ability to say, "here's what we did wrong and here's what we should do," and talking with all those people has been completely invaluable. We could not have done it without, you know, all our great neighbors.

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

SM: Here, nationally, globally?

BR: Here.

SM: In Greensboro?

BR: Yes.

SM: In the next five years, I see another five, six breweries opening up, and, after that, I mean, 00:19:00I don't think there is any shortage of demand for craft beer, especially in this market, I think that interest in craft beer in Greensboro is burgeoning at a highly accelerated rate, and this isn't, you know, just me looking at the numbers. This is me talking to, you know, all our guests that are just wandering down the street, that happen to find themselves, and say, "you know, I really like drinking Stella and blah blah, and I don't really drink anything else." Alright, well, why don't you take a taste of this and see if that's something you may or may not enjoy. And I would say, far more often than not, we're able to convert those, you know, macro beer drinkers into local beer drinkers. It's not really 00:20:00always just about craft beers. I think most of it is really about contributing towards a small business that exists in your community, and being part of growing that business with that community, and just helping them find their place and celebrating that. I mean, it's—you don't get a whole lot of emotional attachment from, you know, drinking a Budweiser, unless, of course, you've been drinking it for forty years, which, you know, a great majority of the customers have been. So, I think that being able to convert our local populace into craft beer and to really signing on with, you know, who we are as a local business, is just absolutely integral. And I don't think that there's any shortage of potential 00:21:00customers that will continue to develop as more breweries open up. There's always—All these breweries open up in different areas of town, so, each area has its own contingent, contingency of its local populace, and there's just so many macro beer drinkers out there that are just waiting to be converted. So, yeah, I guess that's my two cents on that.

BR: How do you view your role in the community?

SM: Well, I'm not really sure, personally, what role that we play in terms of the Triad generally, just because we sell all of our product in house, but I can tell you in terms of our impact just on Hamburger Square, which is this intersection here [S. Elm and McGee 00:22:00Streets], it's been great. I was a little bit nervous, that, you know, we would be super busy, and that would be taking away from our neighbors, and they would get salty about it, but what I had hoped has happened, would have happened, has happened, which is we're helping to, along with all our neighbors, like Natty's, and Longshanks, and Shortshanks, and Boiler Room, and Beer Co, and, you know, we are kind of in here to help create a destination for this square here. And every, every single one of our neighbors has embraced us wholeheartedly, and it's just, it's been, just been such a relief to see that our being here, and being busy, has helped bring business to our neighbors, and they're better for it, and we're better for it, and that's just, it's just, really brings a 00:23:00warm feeling to your heart, that, you know, it's not about competition, it's about collaboration, whether or not you're a brewery or not.

BR: What is your favorite beer from a North Carolina brewery other than your own?

SM: Oh, gosh. That's a tough one; I don't want to piss anybody off. You know, it's funny, I think one of my favorite breweries in North Carolina is one that I don't even know anybody at, and, I've got to say I really love everything that's coming out of High Branch in Concord. They are, they are brewing some excellent stuff, and if you look through their taproom you can see their brewery, and every single piece of equipment and tank is 00:24:00from a completely different distributor, it's like a Frankenstein set-up, and I think that's so valuable in how it goes to show that you don't need a fancy system or all the best brewering to produce world class beer, and I think they're the best example of that kind of point of view.

BR: What is your favorite beer that you've brewed here?

SM: I'm kind of a hop head, so I love our IPA, Gostosa, that translates to "tasty" in Portuguese. [redacted per request of interviewee] Super juicy, super hoppy. I like bitter IPAs, but I think I like less bitter IPAs a lot more, and this one is just super juicy, floral, hoppy, approachable, less than seven percent alcohol. It's definitely our top seller, by far. 00:25:00I have to brew a batch of IPA every single other batch. And if I brew two batches in a row that aren't IPA, then I have, then we are out of it for a week like we are right now. We're kegging today, we're putting it on today, but not having IPA is a killer in this industry, so doing whatever we can to keep it on tap is essential.

BR: You have a really interesting logo; can you tell us about how that logo was developed or who the artist is?

SM: The logo is actually just kind of a mash-up of ideas that we all had in the beginning of, kind of, what we wanted, and we pitched it to a marketing firm which, in turn, put some 00:26:00rough drawings together, and then we put that on a local artist, and she actually created this logo out of wood carvings, so I think the process is you carve a little bit out, and you lay it down to print, and a little more, and you lay down to print, and so, over an exhaustive process, this was the final result. [In video, slides over growler and holds up to camera to show logo.] And, yeah, it turned out great. It's—I love it. We, we push out a lot of stickers here too. So, I wouldn't be surprised if you see it on light poles or bumpers around town because we've put out three thousand stickers in the last four months, I don't know where they've all gone, but I know they're somewhere.

BR: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

SM: Yeah. Come drink our beer. Give us money. [laughing in background]

BR: Great. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today.

SM: Appreciate it.