Oral history interview with Becky Ayers, 2018

Erin Lawrimore: Awesome, so how do you spell your name?

Becky Ayers: I am Becky, B-E-C-K-Y, Ayers, A-Y-E-R-S, and I'm a co-owner of Triskelion Brewing Company, and it's T-R-I-S-K-E-L-I-O-N.

Erin Lawrimore: And what is your-

Becky Ayers: My official title?

Erin Lawrimore: Your official title.

Becky Ayers: Titles. I am Controller of shenanigans, which is the top title. Beer taster, barmaid in charge, co-brewer, co-shenaniganizer. I have a security, keeper of the money.

Erin Lawrimore: Awesome. Well today is June 27, 2018, and we are at Triskelion Brewing in Hendersonville, North Carolina. So, Becky can you just tell us a 00:01:00little bit about yourself? Where are you from and how did you get here?

Becky Ayers: I grew up here, I've lived here. I've seen a lot of changes, I went to high school here. I ended up going to college at Western Carolina University for nursing, I got really burned out. Didn't want to be a nurse after all. I did live in Sarasota, Florida for a little while with an ex-husband. When I got divorced I came home, I met my husband that same year. I'm married to Jonathan [Ayers], he's also my business partner and co-owner of Triskelion. We've been together for 18 years, and it's been good.

Becky Ayers: I grew up here, it's a beautiful town. It's grown a lot but it has somehow managed to keep that small town feel where you can walk somewhere and still see people you know, that you went to high school with so that's kind of fun. But it also has all these new people, which is amazing. You hear about 00:02:00small towns all the time talking about, "I hate all these new people moving in my town because they're changing it." I'm not one of those, I think that change is good. When I turned 21 in this town, there was no place to go. I went barhopping to both places and that was it. There was no nightlife, there was no entertainment. There was nothing to keep kids occupied.

Becky Ayers: When I was in high school, before I reached high school, cruising Main Street was like a big thing. All the kids cruised Main but some of the downtown apartment residents, they thought we were too noisy. So when I entered high school and got my driver's license, they would block off Main Street on a Friday and Saturday night starting about 7:00 P.M. so you couldn't even cruise Main Street. We had one movie theater, we had a skating rink and that was about it. I definitely love the changes that Hendersonville has gone through. We've had our growing pains, but I think overall I think that the area has improved particularly Seventh Avenue. Seventh Avenue was not known for a great area of town.

Becky Ayers: At one time, this was the center of town. This was where people got on and off the train, so it was a life force to this community. Over the years it died back and didn't progress in the same way that Main Street did. Our city officials and our city council, they have done a lot to try, and improve our little street here. This is my second business on Seventh Avenue. My husband and I were in construction, and we owned a cabinet shop down at the other end by Lowe's. One day he said, "You know, I really hate construction, I'm so burned out. I have been doing it for 18 years or 20 ..." That time it was 16 years. I was like, "What are you going to do?" And he's like, "Well, I want to go back to school." I said, "What do you want to do?" He's like, "I want to make beer."

Becky Ayers: We'd been home brewers for about 10 years together, and he's like, "Yeah, I want to go learn how to make beer and open a brewery." I'm like, "All right. How you going to make that happen?" He goes, "Well, funny you should ask. I enrolled in school today." I'm like, "Great. Thanks for talking to me about it." He did, he finished the two year general brewing program at Blue Ridge Community College, which is a great school. Gabe Nixon is an extremely 00:04:00knowledgeable teacher, especially in and around the beer industry. He's got a great program over there, so Jon graduated. I continued to work to keep us floating while Jon was at school, and we ended up opening this. I think we formed our LLC in 2014, and we officially opened a tasting room in our brewhouse which was the first building to get done. We opened that up on New Year's Eve, and then we got this one done for Memorial weekend, so we were open for Garden Jubilee.

Erin Lawrimore: Oh, that's awesome.

Becky Ayers: We got a little bit ways to go yet, we still got a food truck that we're implementing, we've got a beer garden that we've got to finish and we have an upstairs that you can rent. We are renting it out for $10 an hour. That gets you your own bartender and a private bathroom, and the space holds about 50 people. That's what we want, we want a community space. We want people to use it and if it's priced too high, no one's going to want to rent it. I think that's a shame because it's a great space. It has two mountain views and you can see the 00:05:00two other new breweries coming in on the outside of Seventh Avenue, so I'm excited to have new neighbors as well as Southern Appalachia. They're the pioneers in this town, so we pay them homage a lot.

Erin Lawrimore: Right, yeah. Well you talked about home brewing and that being the switch.

Becky Ayers: The kick? Yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: How did you get started even with that?

Becky Ayers: The Mr. Beer Kit which was horrible. It was the worst beer ever and it was so bad that we're like, "Hey, we should do this again." So we actually got a second one. The first one was given to us. The second one we actually did buy and it was equally horrible, but it did fuel the flame to want to try and do something more with it. It wasn't until about two or three years after we messed around with home brewing that we actually had a friend of ours, who's an award winning, gold medal winning DJCP home brewer. He kind took us under his wing, and our home brew got significantly better after that, but we weren't real consistent with it.

Becky Ayers: We couldn't make a batch the same, it wasn't until after Jon gained the knowledge through a professional program that we were able to get through some of those issues that we were having as home brewers. Being a home brewer was the start of it, but I'm glad he went to school because there was so much more in the education process that he learned, that we didn't have access to as home brewers. It's a different level. It's a completely different level.

Erin Lawrimore: Right. So as you all have transitioned over from home brewing to operating the brewery here, are there resources other than the community college program that you've been able to lean on?

Becky Ayers: I'd say a lot of other brewers. They talk to other brewers, we're all friends. It's an extremely close knit community and I've never been a bartender. My whole life I've never been a bartender. So when we started to do research for this, Jon interned at Oskar Blues but where do you go intern to be a bartender? I had a friend of mine who went to Taphouse, and she's like, "Yeah, come bartend with me." She goes, "Can you be here next Thursday?" I'm like, 00:07:00"Yeah." So, I actually had to learn to be a bartender, I still didn't know everything obviously, so I did find a good taproom manager. He's been a bartender a long, long, long time and he was able to carry us forward and teach me a lot more.

Becky Ayers: It's definitely ... It's a skill, it's not easy work. I thought it was at one time. I thought, "Yeah, anybody can be a bartender," and that's not true. That's not true at all. I'm glad that I had that experience but yeah, the community you just walk in like a conference and say, "Hey, we're a start up," and everyone at the table, "Hey, have you heard about this? Hey, have you tried that? Hey, what do you do about this?" It's a wealth of information and knowledge that is just incredible, and most industries aren't like that. It's really refreshing that we have that. Then there's Pink Boots for women brewers and women in the industry, they've been a good source of just support. It's good to reach out to the communities that support you, and get their help with things.

Erin Lawrimore: We'll come back to Pink Boots in a little bit, I'll ask some more about that.

Becky Ayers: Oh good. I'm a new member but I don't have a whole lot of knowledge about them, but I do love what they've done and what they do for the industry, especially women in the industry. I think it's great.

Erin Lawrimore: So to focus on Triskelion for a little bit, you talked about what led you up to opening it and you're from here. What led you to pick Hendersonville but also the Seventh Avenue area? What led you to pick this area?

Becky Ayers: Well, I grew up here, I love it. We have a 12 year old son, we are raising him here. It's a great place and it's just home. When I lived in Florida, I missed this place every day. These mountains just get into your soul and it's just comforting to wake up, drive around and see them. When I got divorced, the first thing, the big memory I have about that whole time period because the worst is never easy, so I'm driving up the grade. I'm approaching it, I'm coming on 26 and there's the mountains right there. I just start crying 00:09:00and I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm home." I don't really ever want to leave again. This place is just awesome and a lot of people are seeing that. People are moving to this area because we are very awesome. You've got hiking, you got tubing down the river, you got all these great things. You've got the brewery scene, we've grown so much and it's just a good place to live.

Erin Lawrimore: You said that this area, the Seventh Avenue area, there's ... Did you say two more breweries-

Becky Ayers: Two more breweries.

Erin Lawrimore: ... In planning here?

Becky Ayers: In planning, yes.

Erin Lawrimore: Wow.

Becky Ayers: One of them is Guidon Brewing, they're actually right above Southern Appalachian and there's a building here on the corner of Seventh and Locust that he's already signed the lease. I can't tell you what his business name is because he's going through his trademark process right now. He's a student at Blue Ridge right now, in the program. So we'll have another professional brewer on Seventh Avenue, right on this street. Seventh Avenue, why I chose Seventh Avenue is I guess it's all about location, location, location. Right after that is price, price, price. Let's be honest, Main Street would have 00:10:00been great but the properties on Main Street were just a little out of our price range.

Becky Ayers: Seventh Avenue had the right price, definitely a good location and it is growing fast. In the last seven years, we've had Southern Appalachian open up in the district, we've had the bakery, which is amazing, Underground Bakery. The meat market which has been here as long as I can remember, it's a new owner now. He's been there about four years, he's come onto the district and it's just almost like we're our own community, but yet we're still part of Hendersonville. So we're getting a lot of buzz in town about how we're so up and coming, and I'm thrilled to be a part of that. Certainly not the start of it, Kelly and Andy over at Southern App.

Becky Ayers: They really have, they've really pushed the envelope here and trying to get this place where people want to come down, because again it had a bad reputation for so long, and it really hasn't been bad at all for the last 10 years at least. People still in this town have a stigma and even locals tell new 00:11:00people, "Don't go on Seventh Avenue, it's bad." I'm like, "Well it's not that bad. It's not even bad at all, look it's a great place." So yeah, Seventh Avenue is just what we were looking. We looked at several properties here on Seventh Avenue just because there's not a lot of properties around, or they're in our price range.

Becky Ayers: We drove by here and there no for sale sign on it, we drove by here every day for 10 years with our other business, and never even noticed anything. Didn't even notice it was an empty lot, we just drove by like it was wallpaper and didn't even see it. Then one day when we're looking for property, we drove by and we were like, "Who owns this lot?" So we tracked him down and asked if he wanted to sell and he didn't, so we got a good deal. I would say a great deal, but I definitely say a good deal but it is a good area. We love it and I tell you, I love just walking down the street. A friend of mine owns a salon down here and she does my hair, really cute and bright. We did a beer release with Pink Boots, and it was called Pinkies up so I had my hair dyed pink to go in the 00:12:00opening for that beer.

Erin Lawrimore: That's cool. What kind of beer was that?

Becky Ayers: It was a Champagne yeast style beer, it was really good.

Erin Lawrimore: Cool.

Becky Ayers: I think I drank more of it than anybody. I don't know maybe it's because I helped make it, I don't know but it was a lot of fun. That was a Pink Boots collaboration with Highland, and it was so much fun. That's where I met Katie [Smith, brewer at Highland] for the first time, and she's been awesome. She's the girl I go to when I need some answers, afraid to ask other people. I'm like, "Hey Katie, is it okay if I do this?" She'd say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine. That's fine." She's like my brewing industry etiquette person.

Erin Lawrimore: Did y'all meet through Pink Boots or did you?

Becky Ayers: Through Pink Boots, yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: Interesting.

Becky Ayers: Yeah. I get to meet a lot of the women around the area. Of course Jo [Doyle, Education and Engagement Coordinator at White Labs Asheville], she is Cicerone. She actually works at White Labs, so I got to know her just from picking up yeast and stuff but she's really sweetheart too. You should put her on your interview, she doesn't mind being in front of camera.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Are there other folks in the area that you might consider to be almost like a mentor, or something like that?

Becky Ayers: Actually Jo and Lisa [McDonald] from Sanctuary. I don't think I would have survived mentally the first year of being in a brewery business without her saying, "No, it's okay. Just bear with it, it'll be okay. First year is the toughest." I go to her for some mental support every now and then when I need it. Her and Jo were just self-aware people in there, they've done a lot for the community and animals, and everything else in all the stuff that she does. I just adore her.

Erin Lawrimore: When you started to open your brewery, how did you decide on the name?

Becky Ayers: Well this was not our first name choice, we actually were going to be Stags Head Brewing. We went to our lawyer, because that was the first person we hired was a lawyer in the industry. Derek Allen - Ward and Smith, so we went to him and, "Hey, we want to be Stags Head Brewing." He's like, "Hey, that's great. What's your second choice?" We were like, "We don't have a second choice, we've already filed for LLC. This is what we want to be called." He's like, 00:14:00"Yeah, that one's probably not going to go through trademarks very well." He explained that there was one guy or one business, and they had a beer name similar and they were probably going to stop the trademark, but they let two others go through without fighting them. So we might have a chance.

Becky Ayers: He said, "What's your second choice?" "We don't have one." He goes, "Well, you should probably come up with at least one more, if not two more." We were like, "Huh, this is not easy." You imagine you want to be in business for 20 years, how do you pick a name that you're going to be able to live with for 20 years. So we started thinking about it and Jon and I are of Scotch-Irish descent. He's a McFarland Locks Ayers and I am a Cook Stewart, so we're very much into our Celtic and history and stuff. The first piece of jewelry my husband bought me was this pendant right here, this triskele. We were at a little shop in Fletcher called Crystal Visions, and it was like an old haunt of mine when I was in high school. It's like a story I'd like to go into.

Becky Ayers: So I took him in there when we were dating, and we walked by the case. I'm like, "That's a pretty pendant." As soon as I turned around started 00:15:00looking at other things, he was getting the girl to get out of the case for me and he bought it. So yeah, we started looking up what triskele means, or Triskelion means. It's a Greek word, it means three legs and it actually dates back to Greece and the Mesopotamian time periods. It was three human legs coming off in a circle, and it's still being used as the Isle of Man in the Isle of Skye's national flag. So the symbol has been around a lot longer than what people recognize as a Celtic symbol, but it traveled the trade routes, it ended up going through Gaul and happened to Anglo-Saxon area, again where most people recognize it as Celtic.

Becky Ayers: Then it also traveled over into Mongolia, and China, and Japan, and Korea as well. So the symbol has gone, and everywhere it goes it changed a little bit but it's always been like three legs in a circle. It means the past, present, future, it can mean growth, and planting, and harvest but it's always the changes. The seasons, the change that always comes around, goes around. For 00:16:00us though, we are a beer philosophy I guess if you want to call it. We always, when we brew something true to style, we always want to honor that past. One of the leg of us is the past, one leg of us is the future which we're always looking for, okay what people are starting to like, or how can we go that direction and also what are people like today.

Becky Ayers: So there's our three legs in the circle, it's always going around. The stuff that we're brewing today will be past, 100 years from now what we made today could be a classic style. It's always changing but yet it always goes around, so that's where we have our beer philosophy. It all started with this one little tiny pendant around my neck, I still wear it.

Erin Lawrimore: This ties into what do you see as the main mission for Triskelion?

Becky Ayers: Community. Yeah, community and definitely just good beer but we do like the community. Like I said, I grew up here. There's not a whole lot of spaces to rent, there's not a whole lot of places for people to go and hang out. We're big time geeks, we love gaming. So Monday nights we have a gaming night, 00:17:00we actually have now three DMs that come and run games. Dungeons and dragons force, and Monday we had like 30 people, we have three tables going, three DMs going all at the same time as big geek fest. So yeah, we have our community, but we also want everyone to have a space that they can feel comfortable in.

Erin Lawrimore: Of course tying into that is the beer. Can you talk a little bit about the beers that you guys are brewing? Do you have something that you consider your flagship?

Becky Ayers: We have actually several flagships. Moon Devil, which is an IPA. It's very mango forward, that is like our number one seller. Another one number one seller is a mango forward IPA called Firefly. We're geek sometimes sorry, we are geeks and then Angelicious, which is one of my recipes. It's a tart, blonde raspberry ale and it's not really a style. It's like an experimental fruit beer style, but I started with a blonde ale recipe, made it tart and I added lemon 00:18:00drop hops to give you that lemonade. It's like summery, it's like a raspberry lemonade beer. It's been well-received, I'm out of it right now. I got it in a tank and it's cooking, but I can't get it done fast enough for people. They're drinking it dry.

Erin Lawrimore: Talking about the tanks, can you talk a little bit about the system that you guys have?

Becky Ayers: Yeah. We went through Deutsche Beverage, and we had them engineer our system. It's a three and a half barrel, it is designed to batch quickly. So we can actually do a double batch in a day, and fill up our seven barrel fermenters and we have seven of those. So call them our lucky sevens, but we do have plans, the brew house is not full yet. Once we get the bar out that we had during our initial six months of opening, we had our tasting room back there, we will have room for another row of fermenters. Whether we go with 15s or we go with another row of sevens, we have room for a canning line that we're planning for. We also have distribution that we're going to be starting up around July, 00:19:00end of July. We have that manager all rehired and yeah, he's going to be doing some good work for us. He's probably going to be dragging us behind him by our fingernails because he's a go-getter. He's definitely a go-getter, so people already drinking us dry and it's like "ugh!"

Erin Lawrimore: So you're all going to start with just local?

Becky Ayers: Yeah, local. He's got about a 200-mile radius plans.

Erin Lawrimore: Cool, that's bigger than just hyper-local.

Becky Ayers: Yes, a little bit bigger than local because he knows he can get from one end to the other in a day if he had to. If a customer needed him, he could get from one place to the other. That's what he's shooting for but he's not actually a beer guy per se, but he's been in distribution and he's been a salesman. He knows how to sell things, and that's what we need. We got beer guys. When you go out to sell, you need company salesman in my opinion. My dad was a salesman, so yeah we're going to get people.

Erin Lawrimore: Let's talk about some of the challenges that come with opening a new brewery.

Becky Ayers: Where do I start?

Erin Lawrimore: Wherever you would like.

Becky Ayers: I will say that the city people, the people that we have 00:20:00encountered during this process, the officials, the people in inspections and people in zoning. I mean everybody's been just kind and great and very supportive. The ordinances are horrible though. I'm not sure why but I think somebody in the 80s, they decided to come here and change all our ordinances, and make them really hard. When you do new construction, you're not granted and fathered in on anything. So we had 100 years of ordinances we had to follow, like no structural wood. You can't use wood unless you're fireproof painted, and the fireproof paint was $139 a gallon, and it covered about five or six studs. So you'd need a lot of it. Things like that, things like that.

Becky Ayers: I understand this is keep people safe, it really is but it's just something you have to go through. We had to have an engineer do these plans, even though we're in construction. We were in construction, my husband knows how to do chief architect. He drew the plans and we still had to have an engineer put a stamp on it before the zoning would let it go through, and that was a lot 00:21:00more money. Everything was a lot more money.

Erin Lawrimore: It's almost like the beer part wasn't the really challenging part in getting started at all.

Becky Ayers: No, it was construction, 100% construction. It's just, it is the industry and it's why we were desperate to get out of it. We were so close, we were definitely so close but yeah, that was probably the biggest challenge is just maneuvering through the piles of ordinances that you have to follow to get a building a brand new in this town, especially in city limits.

Erin Lawrimore: Right. What would you say now that you guys are up and operating, what would you say is your favorite part?

Becky Ayers: Sitting in the taproom, having beer with my customers. Sometimes I just like to sit here quietly and just watch, see and hear and you pick up little comments. Like one I've got a hundred rating on my health inspection which is like yay, but you just sitting on the end of bar and a couple beside me are like, "Oh my God, look they got 100. You never see hundreds here, this is 00:22:00amazing." Just hearing that stuff it's really fun, but I do like talking to people. I've been a bookkeeper and an office manager for the last 20 years, and I don't get it out and talk to customers much. I was always in the office, nobody came to me unless there was a problem and I had to deal with that.

Becky Ayers: Now it's like I get to talk to people and I get to hear what they have to say. They're like, "You have great beer. Yeah, you should do this. Oh my God, you guys have this great thing going on." That's my favorite part of the day, because at the end of day when I can hang out my brewer's hat and come in here and have a beer.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Talking about the brewers' hat part, so you mentioned the fruit beer that you've worked on. Are there are others that you consider your babies?

Becky Ayers: Well I did a very traditional saison and it's already out again, I got to get that back on the brewer schedule and back to my beers that are out. Now my husband though, he's got a brew called Shojo which is named after Japanese god of intoxication. They're going to be geeky, but it's like an Asian 00:23:00farmhouse. We brewed it with seeds of paradise and Thai basil and lemon drop hop, so it's a super tart. It's not bordering on that sour though but it is tart, and it's just really good. It's actually almost half gone, we just put it out on tap like a week ago and it's already half gone. So we're putting out one back and I just ordered new materials for that. So we're going to do that back in the production cycle.

Becky Ayers: This is phenomenal, we used a second-generation Corbin dark craft yeast, which it's kind of like an old Viking strain. They found it in a piece of equipment in a farmhouse in Norway and they were able to propagate the cells, and it took us a while to get that yeast strain but we read a lot about it and it was phenomenal. The first brew we did with it was called Winter War, which was a just a farmhouse but we brewed that one with juniper and ginger, yeah and it was good too. Then we did the second, the Shojo.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. The flavorings stuff for you guys, are you sourcing it? Is some of it from around here?

Becky Ayers: Some of it is, yeah. It's almost impossible to get everything 00:24:00local, I wish it was different but that's the way the world ... We get a lot of stuff from Country Malts and I've gotten some things from Riverbend Malts, White Labs, which is right up in Asheville. We'd like to go local if we can, honestly just because shipping times suck. It takes like a week and a half to get stuff, your hops are a week and a half out because they're coming out of California or the distribution centers. So it is a little difficult some days to get everything in time for your brew days but yeah, if we can get local, we'd buy local. Our grains are going to a local farmer, we're going to have a composting trashcan here, she's going to pick that up for her farm. I buy meats right here, I get my hair done right down there, buy my coffee right here. So yeah, if I can do as much local as I can, I'd do because that's what community is about.

Erin Lawrimore: That's your favorite part, can't all be sunshine. What are ... Like now that you guys are up and operating, what's your least? What's the part 00:25:00that's just the most drag for you? Least favorite is not a good way of putting it.

Becky Ayers: Sometimes just the comments, the not so positive ones. You can't please everybody and you get that, but some days your skin's just not very thick. Some days it's like I get all this great thing, my heart and soul's in this, why can't you people like it. Fortunately, we haven't had too many negative comments but we have had a few. It's ones we take to heart like okay let's see what we can do to change this, let's fix this but at the same time, it's like being in the public eye so much. It's very daunting. We were at a grocery store somebody tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around like, "Oh my God, you're the Triskelion company. Oh my God, we follow you on Facebook and we love what you're doing." I'm like, "Yeah great, who are you because I don't know who you are?" People who like our business page will send me friends requests, and you can't not accept them. You just have to be in the public eye and I'm outgoing and sociable, but on small-scale. This is a little bit over the top for me, a little bit.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah, especially you were talking about more behind the scenes work before coming into this, I can see that being a challenge.

Becky Ayers: Yeah, coming into the open. It's a little daunting. Like I said we went to a beer camp , Sierra Nevada's beer camp, some customers of ours gave us tickets. Really good customers, so we were there I'm like yeah we were getting recognized all over the place. I was like we just want to have a day off, go enjoy a beer but when you own a brewery, you can't do that. There is no day off and we're always working. We are working whether we're having beer in our Tap House, we're working in the brew house, we're working at the grocery store. When somebody sees us and recognize us from Facebook, it's just we're always working. I think that's been a little bit harder to adjust to than anything else.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah, I would think especially being featured in your hometown that you've grown up in for forever and everything too. So that would be an extra challenge.

Becky Ayers: It's like when you grow up in a place everybody knows your mistakes. Everybody knows all the bad things you did.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah, I'm from a town that's much, much smaller than this one so I understand.

Becky Ayers: This was a smaller town at one time. My husband he graduated in Minnesota and he graduated with 1,200, so he has no idea what it's like going places and being recognized until recently. He's much better at it than I am, I'm just like, "I don't want to see people I know today." When you walk in the, you just run to the grocery store in your yoga pants with slippers and got no makeup on, and somebody recognized me like, "How's the brewery going?" That's the part I don't think it's as fun.

Erin Lawrimore: It also means you have a lot of community support behind you.

Becky Ayers: It is a lot of community support and I do love that part of it, but like I said I'm a little shy. It's been hard, that's been the hardest to adjust to I think.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. So thinking into the future, you have the taproom, the new taproom that you're working on, and the food truck. Can you talk a little bit about that and even other plans that you might have?

Becky Ayers: Well, I think we're pretty well tapped out on the new stuff right now but within five years, we'll be stepping up a production. That building back 00:28:00there can support up to 5,000 barrels a year, so that's our five and 10-year mark. We're going to hit half of that in five years and all of that in 10 years before we have to start looking for other properties. I said this is my fourth startup company and my husband's, mine and his second together. So yeah, I think yeah we got a good plan but like with everything and we're not fast food, we can't just pop up there we are. Things take time, I think people they don't realize how much time and effort and energy we've put in.

Becky Ayers: Close to 18 hour days every day for months now. Months without much of a day off. We've had one day off, we'd take Sunday off this week. That's the only day off I've had like probably two or three months, because we're chasing down construction, they're wiring speakers right now as we're doing this interview. We're still putting things together, we're still fixing things, we're still getting things done and trying to brew, and trying to cellar and all the other stuff we have to do to make beer. So it's a little overwhelming but we got 00:29:00a great team. Ernest, he's helping us out in the brew house now as well as managing the taproom.

Becky Ayers: We have a full-time marketer. Sam, she's amazing. She's been in the industry a long time, has a lot of experience and customers love her. We got two new ones, Chris. He's a young man and he's been a bartender for a while too though. Then Matthew, he is a brew student who is looking to hopefully get into the next brewing position we have. So yeah, we got plans because the last thing ... I know the first year, or two, or three, is hard in any startup because again, done it but we know how to delegate and we know that you don't want to be here 24/7. Nobody wants to be here 24/7, so our plan is to get processes in place and people in place, so we can walk away and enjoy a trip, or we can walk away and spend a day with our son. The place isn't going to fall apart if we can't show up a day, that's what we're getting to and it takes time. It takes time in any startup.

Erin Lawrimore: We were talking before we started filming about the setup you 00:30:00guys are going to have here with the taproom, and the POS system. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Becky Ayers: The food truck, I can talk a little bit about that. Viand is our food truck, it just means a specialty food. It's a French word, I think it's French. Anyway, yeah they're going to be hopefully be opened by 4th of July, and I just see the food truck is already here. They're going to get a mural painted on it, that's one of the things they're going to do. We will be tying their POS in with our POS, so it's called Arryved, and it was designed by a Brewing Company. We've loved it, we switched over to it on Memorial weekend. We were using square which is also a great POS system, but as a longtime office manager and bookkeeper, I hate credit cards behind the bar. I hate that, absolutely hate it.

Becky Ayers: It's such a liability if somebody were to grab that box of cards and run, you're liable for all those charges and I don't ... I hate it. I hate leaving my card behind a bar because I've left my card in a bar before. We were 00:31:00at the Philadelphia conference and a big one, two years ago. We ran in Mitch Steele, he's the brewer at Stone, or not anymore. He's from Asheville now but he got us pretty well buzzed and my husband gave the credit card to the bar to open up a tab. I didn't realize that so I gave him my credit card and open a bar, so when we were leaving I was like, "Did you close the tab out?" He's like, "Yeah, I got my card." Not even realizing I thought he got my card. my card stayed at that bar for two days out of town.

Becky Ayers: So yeah, I hate credit cards behind the bar. That's the worst thing and like you were saying, if somebody comes in and orders the beer at the bar and they leave the credit card, how are they going to go about there and order food, unless they have a different card.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah, and you mentioned that the food trucks operated, it's going to be operated separately.

Becky Ayers: Yeah, it is going to be operated ... So if you're here, you're here at the bar but you order your food out there, but if you ordered your beer at the bar and you've opened a tab, they can add the food to that tab. You don't have to open up a separate tab, you don't have to have your credit card.

Erin Lawrimore: So it'll be seamless.

Becky Ayers: Yeah, exactly.

Erin Lawrimore: That's a really cool system.

Becky Ayers: Yeah and when you open up a tab, we swipe the card, hand it back to you because it just keeps the credit card information in the system long enough to close to tab out, and then it deletes it. So it is a very secure system, I was very pleased with that part of it. It doesn't keep any customer information, although I wish it did. Square did, I could look up everybody else Square but you can't do that with Arryved.

Erin Lawrimore: You mentioned Pink Boots a little while ago. Can you talk a little bit about Pink Boots in this area? How each region seems to be opening their Pink Boots chapter, and so can you talk a little bit about Pink Boots in this area?

Becky Ayers: I can although like I said, I've only-

Erin Lawrimore: You're new.

Becky Ayers: Yeah, I'm very new. I've only been a member for about two months, three months. My first introduction with them was a collaboration brew with Highland Brewing, and that's where I met Katie and Hillman. Brandy she was there with Hillman beer, a couple of other people I knew but also some people I didn't know. I met this wonderful girl named Kim, she works at Riverbend Malts. She was really fun to talk to, it was a good day. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was really 00:33:00nervous because these were women that have been in this industry professionally a lot longer than me, and then walk in there not knowing anybody, it was again I'm much more of a shy person. That was really hard for me to just get up the gumption to go in there and say like, "Hi, I'm Becky. I own Triskelion."

Becky Ayers: They were really welcoming, really friendly. They have a great support system, everybody's really nice. You can ask them anything, just a good community. They do get together a lot more than I've been able to get together with them, they have a Girls' Pint Night thing that's done separately by one of the other girls that is a Pink Boots' member. I think they just had their chapter meeting this past Sunday, and I wasn't able to make that. I can't tell you a whole lot but I just think it's a great concept. I've trained in jiu-jitsu and there is a whole group of women, Girls in Gis, that support women and in jiu-jitsu. Pink Boots has that same feeling, it's just supportive, you can ask them anything. There's no embarrassing questions, they're just really open.

Becky Ayers: I know I can call any of them and say, "Hey, I've got this question. I'm having this problem with this yeast." I can call Jo, White Labs and say, "I'm having trouble, I can't figure out why this yeast isn't doing what's supposed to." She can walk me through a whole bunch of processes and she's a good source of information.

Erin Lawrimore: Brewing and beer is so stereotypically considered, I think when you picture a brewer.

Becky Ayers: Flannel and beards, yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: Can you talk a little bit about brewing?

Becky Ayers: I'm happy to tell you about that.

Erin Lawrimore: There you go.

Becky Ayers: Again being not only just a co-owner but a brewer too with my husband, yeah I don't get the, I guess the immediate respect. It's always a surprise, "You brew too?" It's almost you feel the mental pat on the head when they say that, and it's usually it's an older generation. I would say probably the early baby boomers that there are the ones that are more guilty of that than some of the younger generations, but yeah. We were at beer camp and a couple 00:35:00walk by, "You're the Triskelion people, oh my God." As we were talking to him and so the older man he looked at my husband says, "You're the head brewer, what is she? The marketing girl?" I looked at him and said, "You know I brew beer too. Women are allowed to brew beer in this country, you know that."

Becky Ayers: He just took a step back, his wife laughed. She just thought that was the funniest thing. I went on to say like, "You know my husband lets me out of the kitchen every once in a while, put on shoes between babies. Just saying." Another guy at a party he's like, "You brew beer too, that's cool. You know there's not that many women brewers in this country." I'm like, "Yeah, because America is really chauvinistic. I go in other countries, women are the brewers because we took care of the household and beer was part of the household." This is the only country where you think you have to have a beer and wear flannel. My favorite comeback is like, "You don't have a beard, you can't be a brewer." I'm like, "I have a beard, I grow it on my legs." I did jiu-jitsu for a number of years and I got the same kind of respect from jiu-jitsu.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah, and you probably ran into that with some of the other startups too.

Becky Ayers: Yeah. Most of the people in the industry are great. Asheville has a lot of women in the industry, I met a lot of women whether it's packaging or cellaring or working at Riverbend. We have a lot of women in this industry in this area, maybe we're lucky but it's not like that in other places. Like I said again, I found that with jiu-jitsu is like if you're a woman and you wear a gear it's like, "Do you train with your husband?" "No, he doesn't train. I do it on my own." The funniest was in jiu-jitsu especially like and I can't do that in brewing unfortunately, because it would be really fun.

Becky Ayers: I always had a young kid and he's not wanting to tap out to the girl in the dojo, so I'd literally hold him down for five minute till he was like deer in the headlights panic and he couldn't do anything to get out of anything that I'm holding. I wouldn't even submit him, I would just hold him and when we got done I was like, "Are you going to respect me now?" He's like, "Yeah. Yes ma'am." Usually they're friends like, "Dude, you just got beat by a girl." I'd turn and I'd say, "No, he got beat by somebody old enough to be his mom."

Erin Lawrimore: That's awesome.

Becky Ayers: You do have to speak up for yourself in the industry and again, the industry is great. I've had no issues with industry people but it's usually that older generation of baby boomers that think that especially, I don't know maybe we just can't do anything. We're in our home and we're taking care of the babies or doing office work. It's rather unsettling I think at how often it happens though, I wish it didn't happen that much but all we can do is keep pioneering as women, and keep moving forward and changing that perception. That's the only thing we can do and just keep fighting back a little bit, keep pushing, keep being smart asses.

Erin Lawrimore: If we had a woman wander in and ask you, how do I get into brewing or owning. Either one but mainly brewing, what would be your advice?

Becky Ayers: I'd say look at Pink Boots Society, start there because they have some scholarship funds and stuff that they do that you can apply for, and go to school for it and just start talking to people. Start talking to a lot of people about it and find your support group, because we're out here. Just start small, start with a single five gallon batch and move on from there. Practice, you have to practice. You have to practice it a lot, it won't always be good. Definitely go to school, I think that if you have the intention of opening a brewery, you need formal education for it. It helps, it surprisingly helps.

Becky Ayers: Again, we were on both sides but we were home brewers and now we're professional brewers or I guess we're professional something. So I think though that going to school we learned so many more tricks. When things go wrong, how do you fix it. If you got diacetyl popping up, how do you fix that? There's steps that we didn't have access to, we didn't have access that knowledge. You can search online all day long and you're not going to find specific questions like that. You really don't have any people you can talk to as home brewers to 00:39:00get that information. So I think the education is a huge part of that. I think that yeah, if you want to take it seriously go to school for it.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. You touched on this already but what's your favorite part of just working in the craft beer industry in this area?

Becky Ayers: I like cellaring side, yeah. Anybody can make sugar water but not everybody can create recipes now, that's where it gets tricky. The first step is to get the recipe right. To get some cool recipe that somebody can brew from, or that you can brew from. I think that's where it should start but the whole brewing process, I thought I'm a weakling. I can pick up a sack of grain, I can't quite pick it over my heads dove it in the mash tun. I pour mine in buckets and then dump off buckets, so there are some things I have to do differently than my husband, pick everything up. I don't know, I just I don't really enjoy that side of it.

Becky Ayers: The cellaring side is much more a personality because of my little OCD. There's a lot of sanitation and there's a lot of following the steps, and you got check it this day, check it that day, check the gravity. I'm finding that much more of my forte, I'm getting good at carbonation which is been tricky. When Jon went to school, even he learned all about the room side not so much the cellaring side. So I've had to learn some things on my own and again Pink Boots and the other ladies in the industry that I'm comfortable, I can ask questions. They've been immensely helpful.

Erin Lawrimore: Well you mentioned the recipe development and I'm always fascinated by this, because different people come about it in different ways. When you're developing a recipe, what's your process in doing that?

Becky Ayers: I approach it like I'm tasting food. I've always loved cooking in my kitchen, I can't say that a really great cook but I do love it. I love to switch things around and change things, so I don't know. I approach it like I'm literally like okay what do I want my food to taste like, and then I back it up from there. How do I get that taste, what malts are going to give me this flavor, beer or what malts are going do that for you? What hops are going to 00:41:00give me these flavor profiles? Now Jon brews, he brews more scientifically. He brews to specific gravity and ABV more, and I just stay on the other end. So we approach things a little differently.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah and that's I think different people like I said, come about at different ways and so it's always interesting to me. This is the tricky question that trips up brewers and brewery owners all the time. So what would you say is your favorite beer from a North Carolina Brewery other than your own? It can be your favorite today, or some of your favorites.

Becky Ayers: I have to say growing up here, Highland. Highland Gaelic, that's a memory bear for me and not in the way you think. It was horrible the first time I tried it, because again I was young. You don't drink craft beer when you're young, you drink what you can get cheap. I was a cheap beer girl, and somebody we went to up there and somebody got me a Highland Gaelic. I tried it I'm like, 00:42:00"This is awful." I've learned over the years that you can never say never. If I were to say that that was the one beer that got me started, and my enjoyment of craft beer that was the one beer, because it opened up the door even though I didn't like it first. It opened the door to try new flavors, to break out of my box and get something that wasn't dirt cheap.

Becky Ayers: Something in the out and it had a little bit more different flavors, so that started that path so it's a memory beer and I don't think it's changed in 20 years. I think it's the same beers, it's still awesome. My kudos to them and their consistency because every time I drink it, I go back to that one moment in time where I was like, "I don't really like this." I think back like how far I've come, how much beer I've drank since then and how much I've learned to love. At one point I hated IPAs, I was like "I'll never like IPAs" and IPAs my favorite style right now. Another one is sours, I don't really like sours yet but my experience is never say never, because what my taste buds like right now, once I educate them and know that what I'm tasting what flavors are 00:43:00now, now I can start like breaking it down.

Becky Ayers: I can say, "Okay, yeah this isn't so bad." Then next time I try it like, "Wow, this is really good." As my bar manager says Ernest, he's like, "You don't like IPAs, there's thousands of IPAs. Just because you don't like one doesn't mean you're not going to like the next one, or the next one." You keep trying them until you find the one you like and just keep at it, and eventually yeah, you'll find that one great beer you can't live without. So I think it was Highland Gaelic, that was the one beer that just sticks out in my memory.

Erin Lawrimore: How about a beer of your own? Do you have a ... Can you pick a favorite amongst all of your beers here?

Becky Ayers: I'm narcissistic, I like all my beers, I really truly do.

Erin Lawrimore: That's okay, that's acceptable.

Becky Ayers: If the beer doesn't turn out, we dump it. So it's just I think it's really good beer. I do like my Angelicious, that was I wanted a summer beer and I got one. Now I can drink it whenever I want. Actually I do try and drink the beers that we have the most inventory of, because when I know in the inventory 00:44:00is getting low I'll back off myself drinking that one so my customers can have more of it. Right now it's Gorilla. Gorilla is my favorite right now, because it's the one we have the most inventory of. It's a West Coast IPA, it's piney and bitter. About the keg up light American lager called Grumpy Hipster, and that one is probably going to be my next favorite.

Erin Lawrimore: So you guys are doing ales and lagers.

Becky Ayers: Yes, yeah we do have a glycol system that we have double jacketed utility tanks and so yeah, we can absolutely do lagers. We have one called Beers Beer, Dude. That was our barman that came up with that. Ernest, he's like, "I just want people to come in and ask what do you got besides Budweiser?" He goes, "Beers Beer, Dude." It's a Mexican lager so it's light. Imagine Corona butter and it's already got a lime flavor built into it, the yeast that we use and the hops that we use. So it's really clean crisp, it's very drinkable this time of year. Now one of the first brews we did, we named it Trusted Advisor after our lawyer, because it was the most expensive beer we did and named after the most 00:45:00expensive person in our employment.

Becky Ayers: It was Imperial Coffee Breakfast stout, so yeah very complicated. Very, very much layered flavors in that one. Talked about buying local, I got the cold brewed coffee from next door. They roast their own beans, I got a Sumatran. I brewed it up to 11 gallons of cold brew and that's what went into the final product end. Like I said, we brew something true to style, we try and get as true to style as we can and we try and buy local. That was a very expensive coffee purchase, like you bought how much coffee? I bought this much.

Erin Lawrimore: Thinking about the industry as a whole, not just you guys but this whole area, where do you see things going in the next few years? The beer industry in Western North Carolina.

Becky Ayers: I don't think it's ... You hear a lot of people talking about it's busting, that we're going to hit our cap, the bubble is going to burst. It's like a housing market we went through in 2007. I don't think that, I don't think that it's going to do that at all. I think it's going to change yes, because it 00:46:00has to. It can't stay still. I think what's going to happen is though going back to the education, when a home brewer, even a really good home brewer tries to open up a professional production brewing system, I think they struggle a lot. We started to see some of that here, we've seen two or three breweries already starting to close, again because their beer was average. I think they couldn't compete quality wise.

Becky Ayers: They had a great place, they had great service but when you have a couple of beers and they all have a certain flavor profile to it, it's not coming out of the hops, it's a problem. We started seeing those people go out of business and it's unfortunate, because everybody wants to dream and live a dream, and it's horrible to see a business go out of business just because there's a ... It's just sad. I know what it would mean to me if this place went under, it'd break my heart. So I hate seeing that but I think that the education, if people really want to take brewing seriously and they really want to keep this industry growing, then they need to educate themselves. They need 00:47:00to go back to school and they need to learn it, they learn it from a professional side and not just from a home brew side.

Becky Ayers: I think that's extremely important, I think that's what gave us our leg up, gave us that push that we needed to get into a business that we hope is a lot more successful than it would have been. I can tell you just knowledge base, we did not know what we know now, a year or two years ago even when Jon was still in school, we did not know this stuff. It was a really good program and I know that AV is equally as a good program up in Asheville. There's a lot of kids coming out of there that are just phenomenal brewers, and they got a leg up on this industry already. They got a leg up on getting a job, they got a leg up on just being in the service industry in general. They're also, problem with that is they're also competing for very limited spaces in this area now.

Becky Ayers: They go outside this area that's great, but having an area with two amazing brew schools, it's very competitive here. Bartending is very competitive, most of the brewers that I know that they're coming out school they work as bartenders so they can hopefully get a spot in a brew house. It's insane 00:48:00but I think that that's how the market's going to change us. We're all going to have to step up our game, we're not really competing with each other but we're competing against a consumer base that is becoming more and more educated about what great beer is. They're the ones that are going to drive the differences in this market, they're going to be the ones that are driving the change. It's like one of the largest segments coming up, they're women millennials.

Becky Ayers: Women millennials are drinking a ton of beer right now, a ton of craft beer and if we don't cater that market, we don't step our game up to cater to them and what they want, then we're missing out on a big huge segment of the market. I think that's where the lot of the big guys are getting into struggles, because they have banked on this whole brand loyal thing that they've had with the older generations. My parents and my uncles and everything they drink, Budweiser and they drank Millers, they always drink his beer. They were so brand loyal and they, "No, I won't drink that. That's not my beer." Now we got a 00:49:00whole, we have like three generations past them now that are epicureal. I come to a place like, "What's new? What do you got that's new? I had that last week, what you got new?"

Becky Ayers: I hear that all the time, what's new, what's new, what's new and they're the ones that really drive in craft beer. I think it's scaring the big guys to death because they don't understand it. I think that's really where it's going to be, we're going to grow bigger and bigger collectively. We're not going to be one big conglomerate, we're going to be collectively because generations, they're looking for community. They're looking for how to support local and they're looking for great beer, because they know what a great beer tastes like. The people that are just there sub-part, I think those are the ones they're going to go out of business. I don't think if somebody makes great beer and they have a great location, they got great events, I don't think they're going to lose that. I think that the ones that don't have that will, because I think that's how the markets going to change.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah, that makes sense. You were talking about 18-hour days, so this may be an absolutely ridiculous question but what do you do for fun when you're not here?

Becky Ayers: We have our bikes in the back now, so we have the Oklawaha Trail literally two or three blocks down the street. It connects all the parts in Hendersonville County, Jackson Park, Patton Park and on it to Berkeley Mills. So yeah, when we take a lunch break, when we can and we're not brewing because when you're brewing you just have to be around for that. If we're just doing cellaring, if we're doing paperwork, yeah well let's go to lunch. We'll hop on our bikes, go right up through the trail. We'll hit the park and then we'll go over like subway, and then go back through the park and back here. So yeah, that's what we're doing for fun right now.

Becky Ayers: Typically in the past, we do medieval sword fighting. We'd play a game called Dagorhir and it's a foam weapon, it's not LARPing because we're full-contact. We beat the hell out of you, that's something we do for fun and jiu-jitsu too. I haven't had much time for jiu-jitsu in the last year but hopefully get back to it.

Erin Lawrimore: Did you do competitive?

Becky Ayers: I did not compete. Mostly I did women's self-defense classes, I taught kids. I just worked on getting up through the ranks, so I'm almost a purple belt. Been doing it for five years, so yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: That's awesome.

Becky Ayers: It's a lot of fun, a lot of exercise too. You would burn like 500 calories the night you're doing jiu-jitsu. It's like rolling, when you're rolling, you're fighting. It's like running while weightlifting, while playing mental chess all at the same time. It's intense yeah, I like that. I like the challenge of it, working out is boring to me. Although working out back here, we have this great exercise place right beside us and they're like, "You should come work out with me." I looked at her and I said, "Girl, you should come wash kegs with me." They weigh about 12 pounds apiece and you have to lift them 8 times when you're washing them for the three cycles. I said, "You should come workout with me, we'll see who has a better workout." She goes, "Can I send some folks over? That's part of the CrossFit?" I'm like yep.

Erin Lawrimore: I think a lot of people don't realize how physical.

Becky Ayers: Very physical. Very, very, physical. I was shocked brewing a five gallon system is nothing like brewing a three and a half barrel. It's a lot of work, the kegs are heavy, equipment's heavy, the grains are heavy and it's an eight-hour day in the brew house. That's a half batch, that's only a three and a 00:52:00half barrel and we do seven. We're here 12 hours and we're splitting, like Jon starts, Ernest comes in in the middle and I finish. I'm at the end, making sure everything's clean and put away, but it's fun. It's hot back there though.

Erin Lawrimore: I'm sure it does.

Becky Ayers: Talk about a big ass fan. It still gets really bacon hot in there when the boilers go on. Most people don't realize how dangerous it is. If you ever boil spaghetti over in your stove, imagine 100 gallons coming at you at one time, and you got a platform that you have to jump off of before you get scalded with 212 degree boiling sugar water. Another reason the mash tun and we got paddles to go around and if we're cleaning, and I look away for a second, I think it'd take my arm off at least. The chemicals, these parasitic and caustic soda, I have to like suit up like Moon or Mars, pour out chemicals. People don't realize how dangerous it really is to brew beer, this is manufacturing. At this level, this is absolutely manufacturing and people just ... It does surprise me 00:53:00how many people just walk in.

Becky Ayers: We have the doors open because it's 90 degrees in there, we have a little barrier across our garage stores but people still just walk in, "Hey, how are you guys doing? Just coming to see how you're doing." You know what, working. If you explain is like well if I come to your job, and I sit there and just chat with you and you're trying to get stuff done I mean it's not exactly fun, is it? "I didn't think about that." Well, what do you think we stay here all day and drink beer? "Well I guess I did think that. It is very glamorous to be a brewer, I don't know why." I'm sure a day of brewing, nasty, I'm sweaty and my hair is all frizzed out because it's curly naturally. By the time I get done, it's like a clown because of the humidity back there. I go home exhausted, yay brewing is fun. It is a lot of fun.

Erin Lawrimore: Then you get to sit and listen to people talk.

Becky Ayers: Then I get to see people enjoying what I make, and that's yeah. I love making stuff, I was a knife maker for a while and I tell you that was fun. That was one of my startups as I was a custom knife-maker, so I would talk to customers. They would order a hunting or fishing knife from me and I would manufacture it in my dad's shop. I did that for about four years, loved it. It's just having something that you make, that lives on a lot longer than you. I know my knives will probably be passed down to kids and their kids, who knows maybe 500 years from now, somebody will be like, "There's Ayers knife." That's a lot. It hits you, it's like I can live on with what I make, not that beer will last that much long.

Erin Lawrimore: You're not going to sell it for that long.

Becky Ayers: I'm not going to sell it for that long but yeah, when you make something, it's a good feeling. It's a part of you, it's like your heart and soul goes into that product. I think that's what I really enjoy, it makes all the long hours, and sweat, and muscle soreness, backache and everything else, makes it all worth it. I guess it is a fun industry. The camaraderie around it 00:55:00is great and just being able to do what you love. I quit my job in October and I haven't worked a day since. I've worked my butt off but I have not worked today.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah, well that's the end of the questions that I came with but is there anything we didn't talk about that you want to talk about in order to get the full story?

Becky Ayers: Cool. No, I think you covered about everything.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah, and this was great. Well thank you, thank you very much.

Becky Ayers: I appreciate it.

Erin Lawrimore: We really appreciate it.

Becky Ayers: That was fun.