Oral history interview with Carli Smith, 2018

EL: So can you go ahead and say and spell your name for us?

CS: My name is Carli Smith, C-A-R-L-I-S-M-I-T-H.

EL: And you're the?

CS: I'm the head brewer at Bold Missy Brewery.

EL: Awesome. Well, today is Thursday, June 14th, 2018 and we're at Bold Missy brewery in Charlotte, North Carolina. So Carli, can you start by just telling us a little bit about yourself? A little bit about your hometown and where you're from?

CS: I'm from Poway, California, which is a small suburb of San Diego, California. I was born and raised there, went to college thee. I went to the University of San Diego and I got my degree in accounting and finance. And now I make beer.

EL: Well, that's an interesting transition.

CS: Yeah.

EL: Can you talk a little bit about how you first got in brewing beer?

CS: Yeah, while I was going to school, I started working at a brew pub. I started a hostess there when I was 16 and I worked there for a few years. And then one point while I was in school, our brewer was in between assistance and I remember being at an all staff meeting. And he basically just said to all of us, hosts, servers, bartenders if anybody wants to come hang out and schlep grain around. And the only thing about it is that it was at 5:30 in the morning. And so for me, I had done crew in high school and college, so I was used to the early mornings. And I had just quit crew, and I was like, "Well, I've got nothing else to do on Tuesday, Thursday morning, it's extra hours, and it could 00:02:00be fun." So I started helping him and I did that on a fun unofficial basis for about six months. And then I really started getting into it, started reading some books on my own free time and really started trying different things. I studied abroad in Austria. I did Saltzburg and then I also did Vienna. And I really started getting into it over there because it was really cool. Each little neighborhood had their own local brewery. So all of the bars and pubs and restaurants in those areas would have big beers, but then they'd have their one local neighborhood beer. And I thought that was just such a cool thing. And so then when I came back, I finished my degree because my parents would've killed me if I didn't finish my degree. So then once I graduated, I remember being at one of the biggest beer festivals in San Diego. Every year is the San Diego Brewers Guild Festival that goes on during San Diego craft beer week. And I 00:03:00remember we were walking around and we were talking to everybody because I started to get to know everybody in the industry at that point. I had been working events with the brewer. And everybody was like, "Carli, now that you've graduated, what are you going to do in beer?" And I was just like ... And then as soon as that, I didn't even get to put a sentence out, our brewer would just be like, "No, she's going to be a CPA, she's going to be an accountant." I was like, "Doug, would you ..." The brewer was name Doug Hasker. I was like, "Doug, would you stop telling people I'm going to be an accountant? What if I wanted to be a brewer?" He's like, "Do you want to be a brewer?" I was like, "Yeah." He's like, "Okay." So then we talked to corporate about getting a budget for me to become officially his assistant. I became his official assistant for about a year, and then I moved over and was the assistant brewer for Rock Bottom, which is a sister company in our umbrella of brew pubs. It was a smaller system, so I 00:04:00wanted to learn a little bit smaller. Less automatic and more manual.

EL: And what was the name of the initial brew pub?

CS: So the first brewery that I was assistant brewer was Gordon Biersch Brewery in San Diego. And then I moved over to Rock Bottom Brewery in San Diego. Gordon Biersch had a 25 barrel system, and then I moved over to Rock Bottom which had an eight barrel system. So it was a lot smaller, a lot more manual. And my learning curve had exponential growth when I moved on to a smaller, more manual system. I was the assistant brewer for Rock Bottom under Marty Mendiola for a year and a half before he left to open up his own brewery. And I took over for him over there. I was the head brewer over there for three years before coming to Bold Missy.

EL: And how did you ... It's a long way from San Diego to here.

CS: Little bit.

EL: How did you even find out about this place?

CS: They found me. I have one of my really good friends from middle and high school that I grew up with. She moved up here about six years ago. And coming from a native Southern California person, North Carolina is such a foreign concept. I had really no idea what North Carolina even was. My friend told me, she's like, "Yeah, I'm moving to Charlotte." I was like, "You're moving where? What?" And so I finally came out, she's been out here for about six years. I finally came out to visit her last year and I was just blown away by the trees. Everybody always laughs at me because any time I'm doing anything, I'm driving anywhere, any time I don't have to be focusing on the road and I'm driving somewhere, we're in the car driving somewhere, I'm like, "Guys, look at all these trees." I am a California tree hugger, we just don't have the trees that you guys have out here, and the greenery and everything. So I was blown away by 00:06:00that, I really liked all the people that I met out here. I met some of the people in the beer industry and I was just like, "Wow, I could live out here." Because before, I was just like, "North Carolina? I don't know." And so then my friend came to an event that they were having. It was women in marketing. They were at Bold Missy and they were talking about how they were still looking for a female brewer. And my friend was just like, "Well, I have a friend that I've been trying to get to move out here. Maybe you guys can get her out here." Yeah, and then we started talking. And then less than six months later, I was here.

EL: Wow. So can you talk a little bit about ... You talked a little bit about the trees, which having lived in Texas for a little bit and then coming back to North Carolina, you forget how different it looks.

CS: It's crazy.

EL: Can you talk a bit about the differences in the beer scene and the beer culture between the San Diego west coast and here?

CS: For sure. Well, definitely the Haze Craze has taken hold out here faster because it's the proximity to the New England, northeast. But also I think we're dragging our feet. Well, I'm still trying to work out the "we." I'm no longer part of the west coast anymore. But I feel like the west coast is dragging their feet on it on really buying into the whole hazy IPA thing because west coast is so ingrained in the way that we brew and do things. That's one of the things. It's just different. One of the things that I've noticed about Charlotte specifically, I don't have a ton of experience outside of the Charlotte market, but I've noticed that a lot of times, people aren't really interested in the 00:08:00core, having their old faithful. Everybody's always looking for what's new, what's different. What are you releasing this week? I had what you released last week, but now I want to know what you're releasing this week. And that thing where I'm used to, back at home, one of my favorite beers is Ale Smith X. It's an extra pale ale, it's delicious. I'll drink it all the time.

CS: That might be a brewer thing, but I think the constant new releases is a new thing for me.

EL: Yeah. So as you've grown as a brewer, are there certain resources, groups, or even books that you've really kind of relied on to help you along the way?

CS: Definitely all of the publications from the brewer's association. All of the books that they put out and that they have on their online library are awesome. 00:09:00I'm blanking on his name right now, it's going to be terrible, but the practical brewer's handbook. It's basically the brewer's bible. That one I've read multiple times, and I will refer to it all the time. The technical type of things, there's a lot of new equipment that is obviously ... The book was written the 80s or the early 90s. And so a lot of the equipment that has come out since then is not, but the concept, like the fermentation hasn't changed in hundreds of years. So that's all the same, it's just the equipment we use to do it. So that book I look back at all the time. Other brewers, just fellow brewers are a really great resource. I've gotten to go to the craft brewer's conference the last two years and the seminars have been really awesome. And then what's nice is if you go to the conference, then you get all of the recordings of all the seminars. So when I'm mapping out my agenda for the conference, you can't go 00:10:00to everything because they all happen at the same time. So I make a list of everything that I'm going to listen to, or everything that I'm going to go to, and then everything that I'm going to listen to afterwards. And yeah, fellow brewers are really great help. I've been super lucky to have two really great mentors, from Doug Hasker, Gordon Biersch and Marty Mendiola from Rock Bottom, and then the other brewers within that company. It was really great. I miss it a little bit. I still have a lot of contacts over there, but it was really nice. I could just do a group email, it was "DL all brewers." And I could just be like, "Hey, this is happening. Has anyone else done this or had to deal with this?" And some of the brewers who've been with that company have been with the company 25 plus years. They've been brewing for 25 plus years. The amount of information and knowledge that they all have has been amazing for me.

EL: Yeah. So thinking about the brewing industry as a whole, where do you see it trending in the next five or ten years? Where do you think it's going?

CS: I definitely think we're going to stick on the hyper local trend. I'm really liking what's available out here in North Carolina because there are so many more malting companies, and farming areas that you can get some really great local ingredients. Hops pretty much are only done in the pacific northwest because that's just their happy place. It's really hard to grow those outside of anywhere else, but the amount of malting companies that are out in North Carolina has been really cool for me. I only know of a couple in California that are starting to pop up, but I definitely think we're moving away from the national craft breweries, like your Sierra Nevadas, your New Belgiums. It's really hard to get to that point now if you're not already there because everybody's like, "I want my beer that's from my city. I don't want your beer 00:12:00that's from Chico. This is what I want." So I think it's going to be a lot more craft breweries that are regional. Maybe the mid Carolinas, and Virginia, and Tennessee. That kind of area versus somebody that's going to be across the whole US.

EL: Yeah. Yeah, that makes complete sense. So speaking about hyper local, thinking about Bold Missy, what do you see as the mission for Bold Missy?

CS: For me, we all have our own interpretations of Bold Missy. For me, it's a celebration of women and it's a celebration of beer. And it's really being a comfortable environment for women to come in and try beer and try different beers. I like to try and have lots of different styles on so that we have a beer for everybody. So people come in, I've had so many women that are friends, 00:13:00they're just like, "I just don't like beer." And I'm like, "Well, don't say that. Just try. No matter what, just keep trying beer." If you continue to not find anything, that's fine. Maybe beer's just not for you. Everybody has their own pallets. Drink what you like. Beer for me is supposed to be fun and relaxing. And I get really annoyed when people are like ... I'll go to beer festivals, and women will come up to my booth, and they're just like, "I'm really trying to like IPAs." I'm like, "Why are you trying to do anything? It's beer." Just drink what you like. If you like sours, if you like dark beers. My grandmother, she cracked me up because every time she would come and visit us at the pub, I would have lunch with her and my mom. And she would get tasters of ... Her favorite beers of mine was my bourbon barrel aged imperial stout. Grandma liked to drink, but she would only get these little four ounce tasters. She liked the little glass. But she'd get three during lunch, and I'm like, 00:14:00"Grandma, why don't you just get a glass. It's the same amount of beer." She's like, "I just like the little glasses." I'm like, "Okay. You do you grandma." For me, Bold Missy, it's a very comfortable environment and being able to have people come in and just be able to try stuff and not feel like they're going to be judged, or shamed for, "Oh, you want to drink this? You should really be drinking this," kind of a thing.

EL: Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about the system that you guys have here?

CS: Yeah, we have a 15 barrel two tank brew house, mash lauter tun, and then 15 barrel kettle. And it's from Practical Fusion, made in Oregon. And then we've got four 15 barrel fermenters and four 15 barrel brite tanks. Which allows me to be able to crank out a good amount of beer pretty quickly. And then our 00:15:00foundation is poured and set up for two more rows of tanks. So we're thinking probably by the end of this year, or into the first, second quarter of next year, getting a 30 barrel tank. 30 barrel fermenter with a 30 barrel brite tank so that we can do some double batches. Take a little bit of the load off so we can do a little bit more at once.

EL: Are y'all doing any barrel aging here yet?

CS: We are. So we've got six Woodford Reserve bourbon barrels. Four of those have our Conquer the Route Chocolate Stout and then two of them have the Solo Flight brown ale. And then we also just recently got two California red wine barrels that I put our Belgian triple in, which I'm really excited about. That one, we're going to release and do a bottle release in November. That one I'm really excited about.

EL: That sounds delicious.

CS: Yeah.

EL: So there probably isn't one, but can you talk about a typical day around the brewery?

CS: Yeah, so if it's a brew day, I've started coming in a little bit earlier because my little southern California body is not so used to this humidity, heat and the humidity. I'm going back to my Gordon Biersch early morning routes and coming in at 4:00, 4:30. That way I'm finishing up around 2:00 just because it gets so hot back there. There is no AC in the brewery. And then that's not so bad until you start boiling things. Once you start boiling things, and you're up on that platform, it gets real hot real fast. So I've been starting to come in a little bit earlier for that. So brew days, usually between eight and ten hours. I usually get my grain all together the day before so that I'm ready to roll right when I get in in the morning, make sure both my hot and cold liquor tanks are full. And then mash in, go through ... I don't have to go through the whole 00:17:00brewing process, but do the whole brew, get it over into my fermenter. Make sure my yeast is happy, and then look into other things. And constantly, during the day, making sure our keg cooler is filled with all of the different beers that we need, looking at my schedule. It's always the juggling act between I need this beer by this date when I have these beers in the fermenters, and I have these beer in the brite tanks, and I have this many kegs. So which tank can I keg off all of it so that I can move this beer here and I can get this fermenter open. It's definitely all of the juggling and multitasking, and scheduling. But that's one of the things that I like, that I've been able to pull from my accounting and finance background, is I love Excel. Microsoft Excel is probably my favorite program to ever be invented ever. So I have all of these different 00:18:00Excel spreadsheets that are tracking usage, and how much we're going through daily, how much we're going through weekly, when I need to brew things, that kind of thing.

EL: Wow.

CS: Yeah.

EL: That's a pretty detailed system.

CS: Yeah.

EL: So you talked about the process, but can you talk a little bit about your brewing philosophy? How you come up with recipes even?

CS: It's changed a little bit since coming over to Bold Missy. Initially, I would start with either a malt, or a hop, or an adjunct that I wanted to use, or looking at a traditional style, or a hybrid style that I wanted to do. And go from there. I'm constantly tasting new malts. Whenever my rep comes through and is like, "Okay, what do you got that's new? What's different? What are people doing?" And then tasting different things, smelling different things. So I know what everything tastes like, and I can have this idea in my head of if I use this much of this and this much of this. When I put it together and ferment it 00:19:00with this yeast, I know what's going to come out of it. And I have to do that because I was never a home brewer. So I started on our 25 barrel system, and then went to an eight barrel system. So the smallest batch that I've ever made is six barrels. So I've tried home brewing a couple times, it did not turn out well. So I stopped doing that. It was just embarrassing. So I just stick to big batches. But for me to be able to do that and not have a pilot system to test out recipes, I really need to know my ingredients and what I do. So that's what I used to do, and I still do that, but for some of them, now when we don't necessarily have a beer that we want to do, but we have a Bold Missy that we want to make a beer for this bad ass woman. And I'm like, "Okay, well, I don't know what kind of style of beer I want to do, but what does that Bold Missy speak to me?" And so we just recently did this with our trapper keeper, which 00:20:00was brewed for Lisa Frank. And I'm a 90s kid and I had everything Lisa Frank when I was a kid. So I'm like, "Okay, to me, she's bright colors, and fun, and fruity, and she's just this amazing human being that made all of our 90s dreams come true with technicolor animals and sparkles. Hence, the glitter. So for that beer, I was just like, "Okay, what's light and fruity and bright? Saison." And then I was like, "Okay, well, what am I going to put in it?" And I've done a saison with tangelo and pink peppercorn before.

CS: And I was like, "Pink peppercorn for sure." So I was like, okay, pink peppercorn. And pink and yellow were in a lot of her designs. So I was like, "Okay, pink peppercorn and lemon saison." And then I've done a couple beers with edible glitter before. And so what better Bold Missy to put edible glitter in a 00:21:00beer for than Lisa Frank. So that's how that came about. So now, who we're naming these beers for comes into my recipe formulation. Which sounds so strange, but that's how that came about.

EL: Yeah, but it helps reflect the women better, too.

CS: Exactly, yeah.

EL: And do you help pick the Bold Missies that are honored?

CS: I do. One of the great things about when I was interviewing for this job, I was like, "I'm terrible at naming beers." There was one back at Rock Bottom, they let me name the beers whatever I wanted and I would have such a hard time doing it because I know which recipes I want to make, I have a million beer recipes in my head and beers that I want to do, but naming them I'm terrible at. And one of the ones that I did before I left Rock Bottom was an IPL, an India Pale Lager. And I had no idea what to name it, so I was just like, "Hoppy 00:22:00Llama." And everybody's like, "What?" I'm like, "Hoppy Llama." They're like, "Okay." And so that beer was the Hoppy Llama IPL. And so that's been really nice here is we have a really great staff that's really great with coming with names and coming up with Bold Missy's and everything. It's been really cool, fun. It's a very collaborative effort when it comes to naming things.

EL: Yeah. So does Bold Missy have a signature beer, or are there particular beers that stand out to you as the ones that are your best showcase?

CS: Our core beers, we've got our golden, which is the Get Your Gun Golden, named for Annie Oakley. Then we've got the Find A Way Wheat, which is probably one of our best selling beers. It's our tangerine Belgian wit. That one is named for Diane Nyad and then we've got the Rocket Ride IPA, which is a traditional 00:23:00American IPA. And that's named for Sally Ride. It was an originally an American brown ale, but I changed it to an English brown ale because English brown ale beers are my favorite. And I've been working on my recipe for English brown ales for the last three years. And so when I interviewed with him, I told him and was like, "Okay, everything's great, I love that you guys have a brown ale on your core beers, but I'm going to have to hard pass if we can't change this to an English brown ale because I hate American brown ales."

CS: And it's not something I can get over. And they're just like, "Okay. Wow, she's weird." I'm probably the only person who has such a strong opinion on brown ales, but luckily I had some of it with me, and they tried it, and they're like, "This is really good." I was like, "Yeah, I know. There you go." So that 00:24:00was fine. And so our solo flight, English brown ale, is named for Amelia Earhart. That's definitely my favorite, my baby. And then we've got a chocolate stout named for Allison Levine. So those are our core beers. Definitely our best selling beer would be the Find A Way tangerine wheat, which I'm really happy with how it's turned out now. Originally, it was done with a lot of extract and I hate extract in beer. For me, it's just a very overwhelming ... Depending on how you use it, it starts to no longer taste like beer. It's more candy like. So I've changed it to being all natural tangerine flavor. So I put dried tangerine peel into the whirlpool on the hot side. And then I've sourced tangerine puree from Oregon fruit products that we put in on the cold side. And we've got this really great balance between aroma and flavor going from the hot side and the 00:25:00cold side. And it's a really natural tangerine flavor. It still tastes like beer.

EL: Yeah. So you mentioned this a couple of times with the brown and the tangerine process, but are there other examples you can think of of ways that when you came in, you put your stamp on things?

CS: I changed a lot of the recipes. Just cleaned them up a little bit. For me, I think one of my brewing styles would be the simpler the better. You don't need to throw 3% of this, and 4% of this, and 6% of this. You can get a good clean beer with minimal malts and just simplifying things. So I did a lot of that with the recipes. And then I also changed some of the recipes to go back to what they were supposed to be. Our Rocket Ride IPA, Bell's Two Hearted is one of Carol's 00:26:00favorite beers. And she really wanted that to be in that realm. And the hops that were being used for it were not exactly what Bell's Two Hearted is. And so we shifted back towards the traditional American IPA hops and cleaned that one up a little bit. Stuff like that, just little tweaks here and there. Other than the English brown ale, styles all stayed the same.

EL: Yeah. But you had to draw the line somewhere.

CS: I had to draw the line on that one.

EL: So what is your favorite part of brewing? The whole brewing process from recipe development to someone drinks your beer? What's your favorite part?

CS: I love the organization of it. I love the organization and how systematic it 00:27:00is. One of the things that I think I say all the time that brought me into brewing is as a kid, and even now still, I love to bake because I'm a little OCD. Not super OCD, like clicking things all the time, but I like putting this amount of this, and this amount of this at this temperature for this amount of time and you get this product every time. I love the organization of that. I love talking to people about beer. I'm pretty introverted, but until it comes to beer. If I'm talking about beer, I can talk to anybody, as long as I don't have to talk about anything else than beer. I love having people try the beer and having people like it. I love having something on that people are just like, "I don't think I'm going to like that." I'm like, "Just try it. It's a free taster. Come on, it's not going to hurt you." And then they're like, "Wow, I really like that." Especially with brown ales. I feel brown ales are the unsung heroes of the multi beer world. And so getting people to like different things or taste 00:28:00different things is really fun.

EL: Yeah. So what about your least favorite part? Waking up at 5:30?

CS: No, that's fine. Let's see. What's my least favorite thing. Also talking to people about beer. It's a love hate relationship with me. When I first got into brewing, brewers were still back of house jobs. And with the rise in social media and everybody ... Celebrity chefs now, it's like brewers are like, "Do you know your brewer?" When I got into it, that wasn't really a thing. And so now, it's very much that way. So I had to shift because I was like, "Okay, well, I've already fallen in love with brewing, so now I've just got to figure out this side of it. So that took me a little while to adjust to, and I'm still adjusting to it. Especially coming into a new city.

CS: Back in San Diego, I knew everybody and it was fun. I wasn't constantly getting introduced to people. And now, it's like I had someone come up to me the other day at a beer festival I was working. I worked Moon and Brew Beer Festival and someone came up to me and they're like, "Aren't you the brewer?" And I was like, "Yes." And they're like, "Why are you working beer festivals?" I was like, "Well, I like talking to you guys." And now I'm like, "Shoot, now people recognize me." Yeah, it's definitely a love hate relationship with that kind of stuff. I like talking to people about beer, I just don't like being the focus of that talk, if that makes sense.

EL: No, that makes perfect sense. So thinking here about Bold Missy, what are your hopes and dreams for the growth of Bold Missy, or changes even, or how you see it going in a few years?

CS: I definitely want some more tanks. More tanks, more beer. I definitely see 00:30:00as building our footprint in Charlotte. I think Carol and I are very much on the same page with we don't want to become too big. We want to be a local hangout, local regional type of brewery. And I'd love to, once we get more tanks, start doing some canning of our beers because I love our logos. Are logos make me so happy. And I think that they would just rock on cans. I want Bold Missy to do well because I love our story and I love our mission. And I think one of the things that Bold Missy is doing well is we're celebrating women and we are using women on our labels in a tasteful, classy way. And I think that's definitely in 00:31:00the forefront of what's being talked about. And I think once we're able to get a lot of our logos out there and people can see this is how you do it, this is the better way to do it. You can still put women on your label, you can still do it in a proper way. And I think I'd really like that to get out in the market and for people to see that.

EL: Yeah. Is there a particular style you're looking forward to brewing once you get your new barrels that you haven't had a chance to play around with yet?

CS: I love pale ales, especially west coast pale ales. It's so bad.

EL: It's an expected west coaster answer.

CS: Yes, or hop forward but a little bit of malt. I'm not a huge fan of session IPAs. Session IPAs sometimes tend to be a little bit too thin for me. You need to have the malt to carry those extra hops through, so that's why I'm more on the west coast pale ale end on those things. Just more hoppy beers, I think 00:32:00that's where the market is going. But we also want to have a wide variety for everybody. But I think the market, you've got to have three or four hoppy beers on it at a time. So in order to do that and still have all of our other stuff on, more hoppy beers. It's such a west coast answer. More hops.

EL: It's not a bad answer, though.

CS: Yeah. But yeah, I just like doing lots of different things. What was the beer that I was thinking of brewing? I can't remember. Lagers, I'd love to start making some lagers with more tang. I just don't have the time to leave a beer in a tank for five weeks. We're just pumping through them so fast, I just don't have the time to do that. I'd love to make some lagers, go back to my Gordon Biersch roots.

EL: Yeah. So shifting gears a little bit, Bold Missy has its main mission. The 00:33:00owner is a women, head brewer is a women, this is not a combination that we come across often.

CS: Not often.

EL: In the craft brewing industry. Can you talk about that unique position, and maybe even some challenges or benefits that you see to that kind of set up?

CS: It definitely is an interesting set up. Me being in the beer industry is very male dominated industry. It's starting to shift. I'm very used to working with me, I grew up with brothers, I was very much a tomboy growing up, I hated pink, and I would only wear dresses if I could wear my sweatpants underneath them. So coming into Bold Missy, it was a little bit of a culture shift for me with working with so many women, and being around so many women all the time. So 00:34:00that was a little bit of an adjustment for me. There's just certain things that you can say to men, and they won't read into things. So I definitely changed how I approached things. I'm still very honest about things, I'm just maybe not quite as blunt. And I'll explain myself a little bit better just to make sure that nobody's reading ... As women, we always just read between the lines sometimes, which we're very intuitive. But sometimes, you can try to read too much in between the lines. But I think it's really awesome. I think everybody thinks it's really cool and I'd love for people to see that. There's a lot of breweries that are women owned, but it's owned with their husbands, or it's male brewers and that kind of thing. Or it's male owned and a female brewer, so it's 00:35:00really cool for people to see that you can do everything. You can own the brewery, you can be the head brewer. You don't need to ... It's not a gender role. And I think that's cool for people to see that not just guys are brewers. Anybody can be a brewer.

EL: Yeah.

CS: I think we're more open to different things. I'll come to them and be like, "I want to do this with the beer." And they're just like, "Okay, Carli. You do you, as long as it turns out okay. We're fine." Especially when it came to putting glitter. They're like, "Really? Glitter?" I'm like, "But it's Lisa Frank. Come on guys."

EL: There's got to be glitter for Lisa Frank.

CS: Yeah. And so as soon as I showed them, they're like, "Yeah. Yeah, let's do this."

EL: Yeah. So I now that a local Pink Boots group here has recently started.

CS: Yes.

EL: Can you talk a little bit about that?

CS: Yeah. So I was a Pink Boots co-chapter leader back in San Diego when I was part of a brew pub that was a production brewery. And I also had an assistant over there. So currently, I was helpful in showing that we needed a Charlotte chapter of pink boots because it's way too hard during the work week or on weekends traveling two to three hours to get to a pink boots meeting. And I think one of the greatest things about Pink Boots is the education and the networking between women. I mean, that's why they started it. Teri Fahrendorf she didn't even know that there were other women who worked in the beer industry. And Laura Ulrich, who's the president of Pink Boots is one of my really good friends from back in San Diego. And that is the greatest part about 00:37:00it, is being able to talk to other women and, say, you had an issue. I had an issue with this thing, and the guys told me to do it this way but that doesn't work for me. How do you guys deal with it? There's just different stuff that we run into as women that the guys just don't deal with. And not to say that you can't do it, you just have to figure out the right way for you to do it. And when you're having not monthly meetings, and they're three hours away, we had so many women in Charlotte that didn't even know that Pink Boots was a thing. And so I was trying to talk to the Pink Boots North Carolina woman, like, "Hey, we need a city chapter." And one of their big things was like, "Well, we don't want to have city chapters because it divides us." And I'm like, "We need to have city chapters." We can have one North Carolina Pink Boots, but we need city chapters because we need these women to be meeting more regularly than once a year. Some of the women don't see the other women, except for Biere de Femme 00:38:00every year. And Beer to Fem is awesome, but it's a beer festival, it's so crazy. You don't really get to get that feeling of comradery and friendship that you get when you meet with people that live in your city, or multiple times a year.

EL: Yeah.

CS: So I think I was helpful in explaining what the benefits of having city chapters are. And now, I think there's going to be a Winston-Salem chapter. And I love that we're expanding into these city chapters so that the women can get more time together. But Laura had to give me some tough love. She's like, "Carli, you do not have time to be a chapter leader." I was originally telling them, I was like, "Yeah, I'll be a ... I've done it before, I know all of our programs and everything. And Laura had to just sit me down and be like, "Carli, you do not have time to do this." I was like, "You're probably right." So I told 00:39:00the girls that Jordan Boinest and Rita Welder are the ones who are going to be running the Charlotte chapter. And I just told them. I was like, "Whatever you need more for, I can help you. I know how to use all of the programs. I just can't do it." And so it's been good. I'm really excited that Charlotte is now having a chapter. And I'm really excited about Biere de Femme and the whole North Carolina, Pink Boots society chapters. But it's really awesome.

EL: About how many women do you think are in the Charlotte group?

CS: I'd probably say maybe 25 to 30, maybe. They just had a meeting that I had to miss and it was their first meeting. And I got teased for it. It's Sunday. But we had about maybe 15 to 20 women who came in for our Pink Boots brew, which was so much fun and super awesome.

EL: And you guys did that here?

CS: Yeah, we did it here. We named it for our Bold Missy, was Queen Charlotte. 00:40:00And we named it Long Live the QC.

EL: What kind of beer was it?

CS: It was a hazy IPA. It was my first hazy IPA and I was just like, "Well, it's a collaboration. I need to take in the input of the local people." And the hop blend that YCH put together for Pink Boots Society, which raised almost $30,000 for Pink Boots, because of a portion of the proceeds of the hop sales went to Pink Boots. And then everybody who brewed beer with those hops then donated a portion of sales. So it was awesome. It was double the amount of donations that Pink Boots got. But the hop blend, it was mosaic, citra, laurel, palisade. It was just screaming for an IPA, so it had to be an IPA. And then pulling in the east coast, I was like, "All right, I guess it'll be hoppy, or I mean hazy."

EL: A little bit of both.

CS: A little bit of both.

EL: So if you had a young woman walk in here right now who said when I grow up, I want to be a brewer. What advice would you give her.

CS: Take plumbing, and mechanics, and engineering, and electrical. Because as a brewer, 5% of your day is spent brewing, and most of the day, it's fixing stuff and plumbing. I'm constantly working on my ... I've finally got all of them working, but my temperature controllers for all my tanks, getting those all dialed in, and plumbing all the time. But yeah, read all the books, learn all the things you can. I love that my path that I went on because it got me to 00:42:00where I am right now. And I know that I wouldn't be where I am without being where I've been. But not having those student loans for that degree I'm not using would be real nice. You don't have to do the traditional route. You don't need to do a four year degree, and go to college. There is a huge need for tradespeople and makers. We need people that are making things. So looking into those types of things and not just going with the flow and doing what is expected.

EL: Yeah. So thinking about the North Carolina scene, and you haven't been in North Carolina for too long.

CS: Six months three days ago.

EL: But do you have a favorite part of the North Carolina beer scene? Is there something about North Carolina that stands out as a favorite piece to you?

CS: I think one of the things that I'm really digging is the hyper locality of it. I was able to get two five gallon buckets of honey, it was like 80 pounds of honey from this really cute, local little man, honey farmer. I don't know what you call a honey farmer, beekeeper. I think there's three or four different malting companies that are just in North Carolina. And they get their barley from the farmers that are in their areas. I love free range brewing company just down the street in Noda, because they do all local stuff. They've got their farmers that they get all of their herbs from for their saisons, and adding all 00:44:00of their different spices and seasonings to their beers. I think that's really, really awesome. That's definitely been one of the coolest things about coming out here and seeing what is available for pulling from your local community.

EL: Yeah, so the local ag plays into it.

CS: Yeah, for sure.

EL: So do you have a favorite North Carolina beer? Have you found a favorite yet, or do you have a favorite today?

CS: A favorite that's not mine.

EL: That's not yours.

CS: I know. Let's see.

EL: There aren't a lot of English browns.

CS: No, there are not a lot of English browns. I do the Birdsong Paradise City. That's their session IPA. I really like that beer. I haven't had it in a while. I really liked some stuff that was brought to me from Ponysaurus.

EL: In Durham?

CS: In Durham, yeah. And then I really liked the beer from Southern Pines. I really liked some of the stuff that I got from them, which has been really awesome. I'm really trying to get out and go visit new places. I'm excited, I'm going up to Asheville for the day in a couple weeks. And I'm going to try and putz around and see a bunch of stuff. But I have been so busy here. I'm really excited about getting an assistant, because now I can actually take the time to go other places.

EL: Yeah, that'll be exciting.

CS: Yeah.

EL: So is the English Brown your favorite that you do here or do you have another favorite?

CS: It depends on my mood. Then there's also my west cost IPA, the surf star, which is mosaic, citra, super clean, simple malt bill. So that one's definitely 00:46:00hard. I always call mosaic and citra the cheater hops. You can't go wrong with mosaic and citra, unless you ... Well, citra would not do very well in a black IPA. Mosaic would be okay. So those hops are super easy, but I love that beer. Definitely not sours. Although the sour has been very popular, it's just not my jam.

EL: Me too.

CS: Yeah.

EL: So you haven't had much time to have free time lately. But on those rare occasions when you do, what do you like to do when you're not ...

CS: Camping. I love camping. That was one of the things that I was really excited about moving out here. I got a new truck a couple years ago. It was a used truck and it just happened to come with a camper shell. And before my truck that I have now, I was always super against camper shells because I only ever saw them on my dad's old F-150 that was a long bed and not a double cab. So to 00:47:00me, it always looked like a hearse and it was black. I was like, "That's a hearse, dad. No." But then because mine's a double cab and it's a short bed, it makes it look more like an SUV. And it has made camping even easier because all I have to do is roll up and I just sleep in the back. So that's one of the things that I love to do with my dog. We just go camping and that kind of thing. I'm going camping in a couple weeks, after Asheville, so I'm super excited to start doing that kind of stuff. My roommate has a boat, so we go boating a lot, which is nice. I spend more time in the water, granted it's not the ocean, but I spend more time in the water out here than I did the last five years in San Diego. So it's fun.

EL: That is fun.

CS: Yeah.

EL: So that's pretty much the last of my questions. Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to talk about today?

CS: I can't think of anything. No, we hit Pink Boots, we hit beer.

EL: Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you very much.

CS: Yeah, no problem.

EL: Thanks.