Oral history interview with Brian Mandeville, 2018

Richard: So, could you please start by saying and spelling your name?

Brian: Sure, my name is Brian Mandeville, B-R-I-A-N M-A-N-D-E-V-I-L-L-E.

Richard: Okay, and today is Thursday, August 9th, 2018, and we are at Fullsteam Brewery in Durham, North Carolina. I'm Richard Cox, talking today with Brian Mandeville, head brewer, as part of the Well Crafted North Carolina project. So we can start, if you just tell us a little bit about yourself.

Brian: Yeah sure, so my background was not in brewing. I went to undergraduate for political science. I worked as a field organizer for political campaigns. I worked for The New York Times for a little bit, and kind of my career ended up 00:01:00going in a really different direction. I think largely a lot of it had to do with the economy at the time. Work was not easy to come by.

Richard: About when was this?

Brian: It's so bad that I can't remember the years. I guess kind of late, early, or I don't even know what we call it, the 2000s that doesn't have a number in front of it, but late that time period really, so maybe around 2010.

Richard: Oh, so at the time of the recession.

Brian: Yeah, you got it. So I had applied to graduate programs, they all said I was a great candidate, but they wanted me to have experience. I applied to a bunch of experience, they said I was a great candidate, but they wanted me to have a grad degree, so I kind of started considering a lot of alternatives. And most of my family and friends were like, all you ever talk about, all you ever seem to want to do is make beer, why don't you try to make a career out of it? And at the time I thought that was about as realistic as someone saying they 00:02:00wanted to be a basketball player or a rock star. I was like, yeah sure, I'll be a brewer, that's realistic, but I did start reaching out to breweries, and told them what my experience was. I'd been home brewing for a really long time, never worked professionally, and basically just said I'll come work for free, I just want to get my foot in the door. And I started working under a brewer that had been in the industry for about 25 to 30 years, his name was Chris O'Connor.

Brian: Chris had been really important in the Smutty Nose kind of chain of breweries. He helped get Portsmouth Brew Pub up and running, and he had come down to Virginia to work at a brewery called O'Connor Brewing Company, that had nothing to do with him, totally different O'Connor, kind of other. So he was the head brewer there, and they're in Norfolk, Virginia, so I trained under him for a while, ended up going back to school for brewing, and one thing lead to 00:03:00another, and ended up at Fullsteam.

Richard: So before you went to Virginia, you were up in New York, I guess?

Brian: No, so I went to school in Virginia. I'm a military brat, so I grew up all over, but I went to college in Virginia, and my first brewery job was in Norfolk, Virginia, so that's where I was before here.

Richard: So you said you'd been in home brewing for a while before you even got into the brewpub, so how'd you get started home brewing?

Brian: There's kind of two elements of it. One of them is that my family on both sides, my grandparents did fermentations at home, so seeing some of that maybe made it seem less like this mysterious weird thing, and more of just what people do. My grandpa made muscadine wine. Neither one of them were making beer. I think it was a high school chemistry class, actually, we talked about the process of fermentation, and it seemed like unnervingly simple to me after it 00:04:00was explained. It was just basically like ... and in class it was pretty ... it was like not the focus of that lecture, and so it was pretty much just like, yeah, yeast, which is a fungus, consumes some source of sugar, and the byproducts of which are predominantly ethanol, CO2, some heat as a result of biological activity, but ... and then some other compounds, esters, phenols, nothing ... the major process was just sugar, yeast, alcohol, and that day my friends and I went home and tried to make our first batch of, at that time, wine, but ...

Richard: How'd that go?

Brian: Not great, not great. We used baker's yeast. We had no idea what we were doing. We were fermenting in milk jugs with balloons with holes poked in them, as air locks. It was terrible, but quickly we started learning a lot more about 00:05:00it, and we started making mead, and I think I started brewing beer ... this was all well before I should have legally been doing any of this, but I started brewing beer, I think my first batch was junior year of high school, and then kept up with it into college and afterwards, so it kind of became ... so I'd been doing it for a while by the time I was kind of looking to get into professional brewing.

Richard: So you mentioned going to school for brewing, where was that?

Brian: Yeah, I didn't do anything crazy. I didn't like go to Germany. I just basically did this online concise course through Siebel, which is based out of Chicago. I had been brewing, at the time, for three or four years, and felt like I had a lot of good practical experience, but I didn't always fully understand 00:06:00maybe the science of what we were doing, or how everything worked, so I really needed that as a valuable way to kind of fill in the gaps between what I knew how to do, and maybe why we did it. Does that make sense?

Richard: It does. So once you got into the industry, what resources did you start drawing upon to help you grow as a brewer?

Brian: Other brewers mainly, especially when I was getting into the industry. It's really crazy to talk about. I've only been brewing for eight years. That's not a long time to be in any industry, in the grand scheme of things. But when I started brewing, to now, are two totally different places. So, when I started brewing, there wasn't a lot of resources out there. A lot of the stuff that ... I hope that's not gonna cause ... A lot of the stuff that was out there was not great, and a lot of the online stuff was just like home brewers that had tried something, but maybe didn't ... there wasn't good, actual hard information. So I 00:07:00had all the stuff that most people did, like John Palmer's "How to Brew", the "Joy of Home Brewing", the classic home brewing books, but I didn't have anything more professional than that, so I relied really heavily on more experienced brewers. So I was really fortunate to work under Chris while he was at O'Connor, but he left not long after I had been there, so I had a couple of different mentors, most noteworthy was probably Hal Young, who was a brewer who, at the time, was working at a Gordon Biersch Brewpub at Virginia Beach.

Brian: Hal had been brewing for a long time, and was super knowledgeable, and also very much to my benefit, really willing to share stuff. So if I had a question, or wasn't sure about something, or just wanted to understand something more, he was somebody I reached out to quite a lot. But even ... luckily, and especially then, people were super willing to share information and be pretty transparent about process or ... so I leaned pretty heavily on other brewers, 00:08:00especially early in my career.

Richard: Yeah well, and you were making the move from home brewing to production, which of course is ... there are gonna be hurdles, so were there any you can think of as like, just walked into your production brewery the first time, you're like, okay?

Brian: I had done a lot of looking into what production brewing was actually like, before I decided I wanted to try to get into it. I think most of the people that I know, who are first getting into the industry, are not super familiar with what a production brewery is like, so I think I got to avoid some of the surprises that most people do, but I think, even just stuff like ... it's weird to say this, but I think if somebody wanted a brewing job, and they came in and were like, I already know how to work clamps and gaskets, and I'm familiar with both din fittings and tri clover, those are the things that, as a 00:09:00brewer, you use every day, day in and day out, and they're not the kind of thing that a home brewer will likely have much experience with. That's changing. I mean like making a lot of equipment for home brewers, that has like the clamps and gaskets that a professional brewer uses. They're much smaller, but that's the kind of stuff that we use every day. That's like the bread and butter of what we do, and it's not particularly glamorous, and it's certainly not something you'll have experience with as a home brewer, so you'll know what someone's saying when they're like, alright, we're gonna go in, our liquid to gross ratio is this, and we're brewing this kind of beer, but actually how you do any of that.

Brian: And it's weird, because I feel like when someone goes from being a home cook to learning how to be a chef, like a lot of those skills are a lot more transferable, and maybe you've never prepped hundreds of potatoes at a time, but you've peeled potatoes before. So it's the scale, even when you're going from 00:10:00like brewing five gallons at a time, to brewing five barrels at a time, that scale different can be pretty significant, which is weird to think about, because it's really volume wise. It's really not that much more. Yeah, I'm trying to think of things that really shocked me.

Richard: What was there ... how about hurdles you remember, when you first got started in production, way back when?

Brian: I think ... luckily I had been doing some landscaping stuff, so the physical demands of it I was more ready for, and even the ... I don't think that I had probably realized that I was going to be working in unconditioned warehouses as a career, but I was well ready for it, so it didn't really bother me too much that it was too hot or too cold, but I definitely struggled with 00:11:00packaging lines. We had a bottling line, and that was like a ... it felt like none of us fully understand what we were doing, and that every time it worked out it was kind of a miracle, versus an achievement, and especially early on. I felt like we were just fumbling in the dark with ... none of us had ever bottled before. We got this machine. There are other brewers we've contacted, but they give you ... they're not showing up to help us get it running, so it's ... it was a total nightmare. Bottling, before any of us had any experience, was like ... and it just felt like anything could have gone wrong, and none of us would have any clue what to do.

Brian: The good news about that experience though, was that like, I think a big thing that a lot of people struggle with in brewing is that, there's no calvary, there's no backup. The production team you have is it, and a lot of the stuff 00:12:00that we work with is so specialized that there's not even a person ... there's not even a professional to call in. So you can get the electrician to come in to help you prepare something, but they don't know what you're talking about, so you need to know enough to tell them what needs to be prepared. You can get an HVAC guy to look at your glycol system. They've never likely worked on a glycol system that's the size, even if they're in they're an industrial HVAC, they're used to really large AC units, they were not used to something that does that kind of process. So like, you can have them look at that, but they're not going to be able to troubleshoot what's wrong with it, so you need to know enough about what's wrong with it to have them work on it. Does that make sense?

Richard: It does.

Brian: So bottling lines and can lines are definitely that way. Nowadays it's funny, because there is an, increasingly so, a support network that exists, but back then, when something went wrong with your bottling line, you'd call another brewer and they'd be like, oh man, I hope that never happens to me, because-

Richard: I hope I have a bottling line one day.

Brian: And you could call the manufacturer, and they would be helpful, but the most they're gonna be able to do is tell you what to do over the phone, so it was ... that was a hard learning curve.

Richard: So what's the setup at Fullsteam, in the back?

Brian: As far as brew house, or ...

Richard: Yeah.

Brian: So, our brew house is pretty unique. The original rig was designed as an all-in-one, with two vessels stacked on top of each other, so you would mash into the bottom, transfer it to the top, lauter from the top back into the bottom, boil in the bottom, transfer to the top for whirlpool, and then knock out of the top to the tank. So, it was very difficult, with that setup, to really stack batches, or do ... or gain a lot of efficiencies, so Fullsteam got a separate mash lauter tun. So when I started here, they already had the separate batch lauter tun in separate ... and then at that point we're just using that other vessel as a boil kettle. So sizing gets complicated. Our mash 00:14:00lauter tun is, I think it's technically a 30 barrel, but it's more, it feels more like an oversized 20, if that makes sense, in the sense that I think we would struggle to do certain ABV beers if we used it as a 30, but as a 20 you could probably do anything.

Brian: So one of the first recipes I did here was wheat wine that was like 75% wheat. There was no reason that beer should have been able to lauter as well as it did, which was because we had this ridiculous oversized mash lauter tun. So our kettle is in hectoliters, but we ... it gets way more complicated than it should be.

Richard: Let's hear it.

Brian: But fundamentally, the way to think about it, we boil around 14 barrels, and due to the design of our kettle, we normally get about 12 barrels out of it. So at any given time, we're knocking out about 12 barrels. Most of the 10 barrel 00:15:00rigs I've worked on, that's the same way, because most of the 10 barrel rigs I've worked on, we pushed to the point where you could get 12 or so barrels out, so that by the time we were filtering everything, you could get 10 barrels of finished beer. So normally the short answer, and that I tell people is, think about it like a 10 barrel brew house. We normally are boiling about 14 barrels, and we're normally knocking out about 12. If that makes sense?

Richard: Yeah, that's perfect.

Brian: That is a wildly complicated answer to a normally simple question.

Richard: Well, every setup's different, right? So it's a question that's really interesting to ask, because it tells a lot more than some people think.

Brian: Yeah, I would say so.

Richard: So to talk about Fullsteam for a little while, how would you, from your perspective, describe Fullsteam to people who are totally unaware of the brewery?

Brian: So, I normally start real basic, so I just say like, Fullsteam is a brewery inside of Durham, North Carolina. I think the thing that sets us apart, or what makes Fullsteam unique, is that we focus really heavily on farmed and 00:16:00foraged beer, so that means beers that rely really heavily on the agricultural traditions of the southeast, and specifically in North Carolina, as well as kind of traditions beyond that. So all of our beers have some sort of component coming from North Carolina, and most of them, that's kind of the driving focus. So yeah, I guess normally the elevator pitch is, farmed and foraged beers from Durham, North Carolina.

Richard: So what would you say then, which ties into that, is the main mission or theme of Fullsteam?

Brian: So, our mission or focus is to ... I'm not gonna get the exact wording of our mission right, but the idea is basically to help connect, or in some ways, reconnect the people who live here to the agriculture that has been here for as 00:17:00long as anybody's been here. So this idea of kind of like fostering a community around the idea of agriculture, and using beer as a way to facilitate to that, and beyond that, develop, we use the term southern beer economy, but it's this idea that it's sometimes difficult to get people really focused heavily on spending a lot of money on local agriculture. It's easy to get people to pay for beer, or easier sometimes. It's really easy for me to get excited about an ingredient, like candy roaster squash, and want to know more about that, and where did that come from, and who's growing that, and it's not always super exciting for just a normal consumer or customer, but if I'm able to make a beer that's really intriguing and tastes good, and people are excited about it, the 00:18:00conversation about that candy roaster squash becomes so much easier.

Brian: So that's kind of, in my head, that's often what I think of, is kind of what we're doing. So like, we make that both the economics of it, as well as the story of it easier, by using beer as a vehicle for all of these things. And that's easy, because as long as it's good, beer, people tend to be more willing and interested. So we have this unique position, where we get to kind of act as a translator between farmers and consumers. So farmer's markets serve that similar purpose. I like to think of us as kind of the beer version of a farmer's market.

Richard: There you go. And I think a lot of people forget that North Carolina's still primarily a rural state.

Brian: And it still is. We talk about the post-tobacco South a lot as well. I think it's a very rural state, and it's a state that has relied, for a long 00:19:00time, on agriculture, and it's a state that primarily relied on tobacco culture for a very long time. And we're in this period now, where there's still a lot of farmland, there's still a lot of folks who want to use that as farmland, and we very much need farmers, so it's good that that's the case. But they need viable alternative crops to tobacco, and our hope is that, in some small way, that the purchases we make, and ultimately the purchases that people make from us, help to provide more realistic alternatives to tobacco, in a state that has a lot of good reasons to want to continue to be an agriculturally driven state.

Richard: Sure, absolutely. And what role do you feel breweries such as Fullsteam have played in changes in Durham, or other local communities? Durham's changed a lot since Fullsteam opened.

Brian: Durham has changed a ton. It's tough to ... I think, in many ways, we're 00:20:00humbled and honored to be part of what's happened in Durham. It's very chicken and the egg, as far as we are one of the early businesses to move into this part of town. This part of town has grown a ton, and doesn't look anything like it did when we came here.

Richard: How would you describe, because we're not quite in downtown?

Brian: I don't know what the official name of this neighborhood is, but I think most people probably would say it's near Central Park, or near the farmer's market. I think Central Park is maybe the name of the neighborhood, but the part we're in, there were a lot of warehouses here, a lot of auto shops, and there wasn't a whole lot else. And for the most part, these buildings were empty, so when we came in, Motorco wasn't a thing, Cocoa Cinnamon wasn't a thing, Geer Street wasn't there, so the only thing that was really over here was King's, 00:21:00which I gotta give full credit to King's for, and then the old Durham Bulls ballpark. Outside of that, this little corner didn't really have much to speak of. Obviously there's some housing and stuff, but as far as businesses go.

Brian: So I think that we've been heavily involved with kind of that change that this neighborhood has seen, but it's hard to know how much, what's happened, both in this neighborhood and Durham as a whole, could really be accredited to us, and how much of it is just like ... I think, in many ways, we were earlier than a lot of folks were on Durham's growth and change, but I think we came at the right time in many ways. Durham was changing. I think what Fullsteam definitely did, is provide a focal point in this neighborhood for people to meet. People may be meeting not even for beers, just a space that people can 00:22:00meet at and hang out at, that was fairly casual, and that didn't have an expectation of even purchase. Hopefully, when people come to Fullsteam, we hope that they want to have our beer, but at the same time, if you want to bring your kids here, the expectation isn't that everyone who comes in the door is gonna have a beer, so I think providing that space made a big difference, at least especially in this neighborhood.

Richard: Awesome. So let's go back around to your poli-sci back world ... back world? Background, and your field organization, and talk about community engagement and fundraising. Fullsteam has been very engaged in a lot of different organizations in the community, and activism. Is there anything you'd like to say about it, or talk about it?

Brian: Sure. It's tough, 'cause so much of ... the team here, from the owner 00:23:00Sean, down to our delivery guys, are all pretty engaged and passionate people. And I think one of the things that attracts a lot of people to Fullsteam, and especially want to work here, is the level of involvement we have in the community. Community is really important to us, and it's part of our mission, and part of our focus. We want ... we're really fortunate to be in such an amazing place and community, and I think in many ways we have a responsibility to give back to that. So sometimes that means fundraising for things like Full Frame, which is an amazing documentary film festival that's held here. I can't remember the specific accolade. I want to say it's the biggest one in North America. It may be more than ... it may be more significant than even that, but it's a really impressive thing, and I don't think something that a lot of folks even fully realize is here.

Brian: We have a long partnership to support Full Frame, because that's an amazing thing. So everything from like that, to we work a lot with Triangle Land 00:24:00Conservancy, which is a really amazing group that's protecting a lot of ... keeping a lot of land around here wild, both for people to enjoy, so open parks, but then also closed spaces, that are more for wildlife and water rights, trying to make sure the watershed is protected. They do some really amazing work, so working with folks like that, to working with the North Carolina Museum of Art, or even beers that have been more focused on single issues. I guess what I, I'm all over the place, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that, it's tough to know, maybe how to approach this question, because it's such a ... there's so many different ways that we do that, but I think the biggest thing is just that kind of recognizing and acknowledging the importance that this community has had to our success, and knowing that it would be ... it's impossible for me to think 00:25:00of a way that we continue to move forward, that doesn't involve that community, so being heavily involved in it and supporting it any way we can has always been ... and it's also super rewarding.

Brian: It's cool to be involved in so many different things that are really exciting, happening in the Triangle, happening in Durham. Even if I didn't work at Fullsteam, I would think that Full Frame is really cool, same with TLC, and they're properties or parks that I had been going ... before we started working with them, I was a fan of what they were doing anyway, so when that opportunity came up, it was just cool to be like, wow, this is something that I really appreciate that's in the triangle, and that I'm super glad is here, and there's actually something I could do to help them out, which just felt like an amazing movement.

Richard: Yeah, that's great. So you started here in December of 2014?

Brian: That's right.

Richard: So when you first walked in the door in Fullsteam, what were your first impressions?

Brian: So I think ... I had had Fullsteam's beers before, but the first time I actually came to the brewery was for an interview, I think a month or so before that, and I had only ever even passed through Durham. I had not really even spent any time here, so I think, in many ways, it was an introduction, both to the company and the people who work here, but also the town. My family on both sides is from Georgia, so I passed all over, from Virginia to Georgia, and back again, and I'd spent maybe an evening in Durham before, but that was about it. So I don't know, first impressions were ... and the major thing was that the people I worked with that day, so the production team at the time, some of them are still here and some of them aren't, but were just like incredibly driven and 00:27:00hard working and focused people, and they're also incredibly friendly, which is big. So I think that that was the major kind of takeaway that I had, was the team that was here, and they seemed really eager and excited to have me here as well, which felt great, so ... I'm not sure, though. I'm trying to think of what was the first thing I felt when I walked in the door, when I was driving away from here. I'm not sure.

Richard: Great production team, there it is. So since that time, how would you think Fullsteam's come to reflect your personal brewing approach, interest, or philosophy?

Brian: Well, in many ways, what attracted me to Fullsteam was that they were already doing a lot of things that I really wanted to be doing. So a big part of 00:28:00the ... when I applied for the job here, I didn't even know Fullsteam was hiring a head brewer. I sent an email to Sean that basically just like, my name's Brian, I've been in the industry for this long, and this is my work experience. I've been a production manager for a while, and I love what you guys are doing, I'd love to be making beers with foraged ingredients. I would really love to be focusing a lot more on sourcing as much as I can locally, and I think you guys do a really good job of that, and I just really want to be a part of what's going on. So if you have any positions available for someone with my experience, let me know. If you don't, that's totally cool too. And he sent me back an email that was basically just like, we're actually hiring a head brewer right now.

Brian: Which is amazing, because that's really what I wanted, but I'd gotten to a point where I wanted to be ... I realized it was more important that I maybe take a different role, but be at a brewery that was doing something that was 00:29:00brewing beers the way that i really wanted to be, than be a head brewer at a place that I was less excited about what we were doing. So that decision is why I sent that kind of random email. So, it's tough, 'cause I would say, in many ways, I've just helped to facilitate a lot of those things, so I have a bit of a foraging background before I started here. And I think that helps a lot, so to help dive deeper into those kind of beers. I think, as far as agriculture goes, I think I've learned as much from the farmers we've worked with, as this place has probably ever learned from me. So it's tough to say that it's really changed a lot to reflect my philosophy of brewing, or how I approach beer making, as 00:30:00much as it was already doing a lot of those things, and that's why I came here, but outside of more technical stuff, I don't like ... I'm not a big fan of doing hop editions, like a 20 minute, a 15 minute, a 10 minute, a five minute.

Brian: I'm really a firm believer in either like we're going for bitterness, so we're gonna do a really early boil edition, or we're going for flavor and aromas, so we're going to do a big whirlpool edition, or we want some aroma, but we don't want to worry about bitterness, so we're gonna do dry hopping. So simplifying, that kind of thing, or even just like, I think one of the big changes that the recipe saw here, when I started here, as well as just process in general, was that I had a little bit more experience as a production brewer, so I think one of the major changes, or things that maybe reflected the way I approach beer making was, organizationally, I simplified some of the recipes, 00:31:00and I like to think that I improved some of them, but the major focus, especially early on, is that we need to improve consistency and improve ... we need to make sure that, whatever we do, we can do again. So record keeping was a big thing, I had all these brewing logs and stuff like that, but most of the, as far as my philosophy of how I approach beer making, or what kind of beers I like to make, that was what Fullsteam was already doing. I think maybe the bigger impact that I had was more on applying a production brewer's mindset to how they were operating, so ... if that makes sense at all.

Richard: Yeah, it sounds like you had already been doing things with foraged or agricultural ingredients already, so it sounds like what you're saying is, you brought more ... it was more of a process thing that you feel you brought

Brian: Well yeah, that's very accurate, and I think the major benefit of that is 00:32:00that I'm a really firm believer that, in order to be creative or have space for us to explore working with new ingredients or working with a foraged ingredient, or even working with something that's a little difficult to process. The only way you can really do that successfully is if you have a really solid foundation and framework in place, like that structure and rigidity and routine paperwork, I'm sure my team thinks I make them record more stuff than they would like to, but all of that is what gives us the room to explore these other things. If we don't have a really tight process, then it only makes it even more challenging to introduce these other elements, so I think having that approach, and being 00:33:00that we're serious and deliberate about record keeping and processing consistency, is actually what has allowed us to explore a lot more and be more creative. I even think that typing up our production scheduling and stuff like that has allowed more room for other beers.

Brian: Whereas it was challenging to fit into the production schedule, because we were just maybe a little bit more broad in our focus, and how we were doing things, kind of bringing some of that scheduling stuff. It's tough. I think, when I talk about a lot of that kind of stuff, people don't get as excited about it, but it's like, I really don't think we would have been able to do as much as we have been able to if it weren't for that. It's like, mise en place cooking where have everything prepared. I'm the same way with brewing. I don't want to 00:34:00be weighing out hops moments before we're adding another edition, I don't want to be weighing out water treatments as we're going in. Everything has a place, everything should be done ahead of time. It's only by doing that, that we then open up ourselves to start questioning like, is there a better way to do this, or how can we work with more interesting ingredients, or how do we drive these kind of flavors/aromas. Anyways, it's just ...

Richard: Well, it's also important for ... because you all distribute.

Brian: Yeah, and so that's kind of the other thing, is that like, Fullsteam, we take a very yes and approach to things, so we want to do farm and foraged beer. We also want somebody to be ... we want to be accessible. I think for both Sean and I, something that we really see eye to eye on is, something that attracted both of us to beer, and maybe about other ... because both of like spirits, both 00:35:00of us like wine. There's lots of really great beverages out there. I think one of the things about beer that's really attractive, was that it's approachable, and that it's something that should be for everybody and should be accessible. So as much as we want to focus on farmed and foraged beers, and esoteric ingredients that I get really pumped about, we also ... it's important to us that you can also get a six pack of our beer at a grocery store. And I think, in many ways, I view, of the large scale production that we do is often what people think of, and it's mostly because they're not in Durham, so maybe they only think of Pay Check, our pilsner, or Humidity, our pale ale, as like the gateway to ... it's like, well, if they make a good IPA, right, then maybe I'll be willing to try this Gose with blueberries.

Brian: It's an easier ... it's like a stepping stone for people to be like, 00:36:00okay, I can trust this place, they can make good beer, let's see what else they got going on. So yeah, I think ... and tightening a lot of that up, so that that part of our production, which is really the majority of our production, 75% of what me make is Rocket Science, our IPA, Pay Check Pilsner, or Humidity, our pale ale, so making sure that those are super solid and consistent, and deliver on expectation, has to be taken care of before we can worry about doing a lot of the stuff that's maybe more fun. So another thing too, that gives us ... brewing, in many ways, is like a ritual, right? You have this process that you do over and over and over again. There's a certain order that things are done in. In many ways, kind of perfecting, doing that with IPA or a pilsner, is what really prepares someone to be ready to ... when we're like, okay, now we're 00:37:00gonna turn this process upside down, only by knowing that super well can you do that. I think it's easy to forget that those kind of building blocks and basics are really the foundation for anything else you do, and in many ways I see them as equally important, because they provide the basis for which we can do all these other cool things.

Richard: Yeah, absolutely. So, how would you describe your average week? Normally you'd ask average day here, but I know there's like weekly schedules and that sort of thing. It's interesting, yeah.

Brian: One of the double edged swords of the brewing industry, and I think something I really like, but I know some people don't, is that no two days are exactly the same. So it keeps you on your toes, and brewing is a pretty physical 00:38:00job, which is great. I like working with my hands, but it can be mentally taxing as well, and that's also really rewarding, because working a job that allows you to kind of exercise both of those things, I think helps me stay engaged. So I appreciate that it keeps me on my toes, and that it's constantly changing, but I would say, we run three brewing shifts five days a week, so I'm normally on one of those brewing shifts, and so that's either a shift that starts around 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, a shift that starts around 7:00 or 8:00, and another shift that starts around 11:00 or 12:00. And we could probably start a little later in the day, but we finish a little later in the day, so we're not doing totally around the clock right now. We do do that on occasion, but my average week doesn't involve that. So, normally I'm gonna run one of those brewing shifts, and then normally have some cellar work to do.

Brian: We don't have any full time cellar people, so we have people who are 00:39:00focused on brewing and people who are focused on packaging, so all of our cellaring, so filtering, transferring, all of that, is gonna be normally taken care of by the people who are brewing. So normally I'm brewing, I'll have some cellar work to do, and then normally, following that, I take care of more admin responsibilities, so scheduling staff, and then somewhere in there I find time for sourcing ingredients and recipe development. And how that plays out each week is maybe a little different. I'm really fortunate to have a team that's super understanding of the different demands that my job has, so they've been crazy accommodating to make that all work, and so Tuesdays are my guaranteed planning days. So normally, on Tuesdays, I don't brew, and that provides me the opportunity to build out schedule, make sure our calendars is set, and really do a lot more of the recipe development side of things, as well as like sourcing 00:40:00ingredients and meeting with farmers, or foraging, or ... so Tuesdays are kind of like my magical try to get everything done days, and then there's always the unexpected stuff.

Brian: I don't know that there's a week that goes by that there's not something that goes terribly wrong, that I'm like, oh, now we also, on top of all that, we're doing this. So, my normal week involves a lot of production, but brewing and cellar work, a fair bit of kind of scheduling and planning, and then as much as I'm able to squeeze into it, recipe development. The part that's really rewarding about this job for me, is getting to develop partnerships with amazing folks. So whether that's a farmer who's growing sorghum or a malt house that's 00:41:00malting, grains grown in North Carolina, or a group that's helping to protect properties around here. So the kind of partners we work with are all over the place, but that's my favorite part, so normally I try to make sure that I have a lot of time for that, because it's important to me.

Richard: So in early 2018, Fullsteam took home four Good Food Awards, including for three different beers in the Farms Edge series, so first, what are the Good Food Awards?

Brian: The Good Food awards, they're really cool. I don't know that they're super well known in the brewing industry. In the culinary industry they're maybe a little bit better known. Their focus is on high quality, like well made products. The very first thing is that whatever wins and award has to taste 00:42:00good, and it goes through panels, and it's judged, so that's like one of the first criteria. But the other sides of it, it's not just about making tasty beverages or food, it's also about responsible sourcing and community engagement. So, in many ways, it falls pretty heavily in line with our three kind of focuses, so really high quality, good beer, that is resourced locally and as responsibly as possible, and also hopefully gives back to the community, in meaningful and impactful ways.

Brian: So that's what the Good Food Awards' focus is, and yeah, we were honored to win for three beers. And the fourth one I imagine you're talking about, the Dusty Foothills? Yeah, so McKnight had won for the sauces that he makes. Plug 00:43:00for Dusty Foothills, their hot sauce is really killer. McKnight's a good friend, so if you get a chance, I recommend it. Yeah so, the awards are in San Francisco, and they're west coast based, but there's a lot of North Carolina ... North Carolina was super well represented in pretty much every category, when we were there, so it was really cool to see a lot of other chefs and producers that I know take home awards. I thought it was really cool.

Richard: Yeah, and how does that feel to go up there and receive the awards, 'cause it's a national award.

Brian: So, it was very humbling, and it was certainly an honor to win. It still feels a little surreal, to be honest, and I think the major thing is that it felt, I don't want to use the word vindicating, but it felt like a confirmation 00:44:00in many ways that we're on the right path, that we're doing things correctly. The things that the Good Food Awards focuses on are some, hopefully, things that we're focused on all the time, that we're always working really hard toward, but to have an organization like that acknowledge us for it, it feels like someone being like, yeah, all that stuff that you guys are working on, that you say you're doing, you guys are doing it, and people acknowledge it. So in some ways it just felt really amazing to have this kind of like outside organization see what we're doing and say, yeah, you guys are crushing it. It was super exciting. It was really, really cool to have that experience, which is really amazing. I felt really optimistic that we were going to win at least one award with the three beers we entered. I felt like we had entered three really strong beers, 00:45:00but I was not expecting, by any means, that we would win three.

Richard: So they're all three Farm's Edge beers, different titles, so which three were they?

Brian: So, one of them is Dinnsen's Orchard, which is a tripel made with paw paws, named for Wynn Dinnsen, a man in Chatham County who's doing amazing work to try to commercialize paw paws, it's thanks to him that I've seen paw paws the size of almost footballs, so I have paw paws a lot, but most paw paws ... like a big paw paw to me was the size of a rustic potato, like that's a huge paw paw, and this guy is growing paw paws that are way bigger. And the other thing about them is, that there's the fruit to pulp ratio, so like both of them you get a wild paw paw, you cut into it, and you're kind of sucking fruit off of seeds. The seeds are very large and they take up a majority of the fruit. His paw paws will have same size seeds, and just way more flesh, and despite that, opposed to 00:46:00like strawberries, where you get these strawberries that are a lot bigger, they don't taste like anything, because paw paws also still retain this amazing flavor. So anyways, total tangent, so Dinnsen's Orchard, the paw paw tripel. Alexis, which was one of the early kind of mix fermentation beers that we had done. It was a collaboration with an organization called Seal the Seasons.

Brian: They're a company that sources North Carolina produce, and then I think they also source in South Carolina as well. And what they do is, they provide ... farmers are often stuck in this weird situation where they have more produce than you can really sell a season, so they provide the ability to freeze and package that, so that it can end up in grocery stores. And they can store it, so what's amazing is that now, if you go to Harris Teeter, you can find North 00:47:00Carolina blueberries in the freezer section, grown by sometimes very small farmers. So Seal the Season is this middle man that basically ... 'cause it's not economically viable for these farmers to be doing all of that, to be freezing and packaging and figuring out how to work a grocery store. It's like, a lot of these folks are just like growing stuff and selling it predominantly at farmer's markets and to local chefs. So like, to be able to have those farms then work with somebody like this, is a really amazing opportunity and provides them with resources they otherwise wouldn't have.

Brian: So this collaboration with them, mix culture beer that we worked with blackberries that we got, so this kind of purple hued saison, that's like tart and very dry, has these wine-like notes, with the blackberries. The blackberries provide these really great tannins, so that was a lot of fun. I really like that beer a lot. And then, the last beer that won, it's probably one of my favorites 00:48:00that we do, is Brumley Forest, so that's actually named for one of Triangle Land Conservancy's properties. It's a Baltic porter made with foraged black walnuts, foraged hickory nuts, foraged sassafras, so it relies on kind of the woody and tanniny notes of those nuts, and a little bit of like licorice, elements of sassafras. They're gonna play up a lot of what is already nice about a Baltic porter, so that's another favorite product of mine, and another one that I'm sure my staff is thrilled about. I think, the reason I say that is that, the processing of black walnuts is an undertaking.

Richard: How so?

Brian: So we use hundreds of pounds of black walnuts, and most black walnuts, if you've ever seen one, if you've seen one out in the wild, I think a lot of people have seen black walnuts, and have no clue that that's a walnut. I'm blown away by the number of people ... because, growing up, we would gather them, and 00:49:00you would either just dry them out, like getting the hulls and stuff off, just dry them out to eat like that. Or a lot of times, I think my favorite thing we did, is we made ice cream with them, which if you've never had black walnut ice cream, the combination between the kind of tannin bitter nut, because they're not like a normal walnut, they have like a little bit more of this kind of intensity to them, but you pair that with the sweetness and the cream and it works super well. So they look like a, they're the size of a tennis ball almost, and they're this kind of weird greenish color. And the outer flesh, or the hull, of black walnut, is maybe a quarter inch thick or so. And it's got this liquid that will stain, anything it touches, a very dark black, if just a little bit gets on it, it's almost a yellowish color, so like ... we'll wear gloves, the gloves do not matter. Our hands, during that season, will be like solid black.

Brian: And the stain lasts, like on your skin, will last, if you've got it in there good enough, will last for weeks. We'll be done processing black walnuts, and everybody's hand will still be like black, and then the edges of your hands will be like yellow. If you've never really worked with black walnuts, most people who have worked with black walnuts before will recognize that staining, but if you haven't, people think you have some sort of weird disease, or something's wrong with us. So getting those hulls off, and then the walnuts are really, really tough to crack, whether they're black walnuts or not. They're a very tough nut to crack, so de-hulling them and then cracking them is an involved process. And the hickory nuts are a little bit better, but they're also ... they don't stain, so there's that. And their hulls are really different, they're much more thin and leathery, versus like kind of ... the outside of a black walnut, it looks like ... the texture is hard to describe, but it's fleshy.

Brian: It's not like something you peel off. So the first year we're doing all that by hand, and we try ... people love to be like, oh, we used to run over them in the driveway. You can do that, but working with like hundreds of pounds, there's not a good way. But my grandmother had this de-huller, so I looked all over to try to find one of these things. So we have this cast iron, it looks like something from the antique shop, but it's ... I got it new. And you basically put it in there and it has a crank on it, and there's this big wheel of spikes all over it that rip the hull off. It looks like a torture device, but it's super efficient. So we went from it being this super labor intensive process, to like people enjoy actually the processing, so we've improved the efficiency on that. Either way, every year, gathering black walnuts is a lot 00:52:00easier than some of the other foraging ingredients that we gather, you can just pick them all off the ground.

Brian: Black walnut trees tend to be pretty prolific, opposed to hickory nuts, which squirrels love, there's not many critters that can get through the hull, and then if they do, want anything to do with this rock hard nut. So there's not like natural competition for them, and so you can gather a ton of black walnuts. If you want them, they're out there. And Brumley Forest, where we get most of them, has tons of black walnuts all over the place. They're also just, they're probably a favorite tree of mine. They're really pretty trees, kind of grand. We gather them in kind of the early fall, which is a really pleasant time to be outside in North Carolina, so that whole project, for me, is a lot of fun.

Richard: That's awesome. And they're all three Farm's Edge series, and Farm's Edge is the series that you all do that's foraged ingredients?

Brian: Yeah, not always. So Alexis, for example, is like blackberries, and the 00:53:00paw paws in Dinnsen's Orchard, while we do use some foraged ones, are mainly coming from Wynn Dinnsen and their farm. So Farm's Edge is a series of beers that focus ... they kind of like ... so all of our beers have some sort of North Carolina component in them, right, but Rocket Science has some North Carolina barley, but all of our Farm's Edge beers are ones where we really double down on that focus, and we try to drive home the point more. So they don't always have a foraged component, and some of the foraged beers we've done aren't in the Farm's Edge series. We did an IPA with pine needles, called Pine State, for example.

Brian: Or Brawny was another IPA we did with fir tips, although those were farmed. The whole idea is basically, these are beers inspired by this place that exists between the edge of industry and agriculture, and kind of the wild, so 00:54:00it's kind of exploring what that concept means to us, and what inspiration it can draw from that place, because that line in between the two is where we feel the most comfortable, and the space that is most exciting and interesting to us, so it's kind of like a respect and understanding and drawing inspiration from agriculture, but also leaning into the wild, and that's why a lot of them do have foraged ingredients as well. So that's maybe not a great elevator pitch for what the Farm's Edge series is, but-

Richard: No, that's great. And just, I guess, the same sort of question, because I think this is what we've been really talking about a lot, but what do you see as unique about southern beer, if we're talking about a southern beer economy, and specifically what's unique about North Carolina beer.

Brian: It's super easy now for ... there was a time when, for a brewery to have a focus, or for a brewery to exist, its focus would have been locally driven. 00:55:00And by this, I mean like hundreds of years ago. Not every brewery would have had access to what we think of as the traditional brewing ingredients. A lot of breweries would not have access to hops, for example. And for hundreds of years, thousands of years, fermented cereal grain beverages were flavored with things other than hops. So, when we fast forward to the modern era, you think about a brewery in the southeast, hops don't grow particularly well here, we make hop forward beers, and we enjoy them, but the real question starts becoming like, so what flavors and aromas do we focus on, if we're not focusing on that? And we kind of pull from those traditions of these older brewers, so the answer is, well, what grows around here? And luckily we have an amazingly robust agricultural tradition, so some things are easy, right, like sweet potatoes. I don't have to explain that to anybody. I'm like, we're a brewery that focuses on farm and foraged beers, here's a beer made with sweet potatoes. Everyone's like, 00:56:00oh, you're North Carolina? It's an easy conversation. Sometimes it's a little more complicated. People don't always know what sorghum is, for example.

Richard: Right, paw paws.

Brian: Paw paws, but my hope, and what I hope makes us unique, and also one of the things that I see as like a cool opportunity that we have, is kind of hopefully reconnecting people with things that were already here, paw paws, persimmons, and getting people to view things in a new way, sweet potatoes, sorghum. So I think the approach to brewing is like, is how do you deliver these flavors and aromas that are true to this region, and speak to the traditions and cultures of this area, in ways that probably haven't been done before, because the other thing is like, you think of the ... there are regions in this country that have really ... have longer brewing traditions. The southeast doesn't really. We didn't have as many immigrants coming from brewing heavy regions, 00:57:00distilling was much a bigger tradition. That's why you think of American spirits, and I think most people think of bourbon.

Brian: So we had a lot of Scottish and Irish immigrants coming over and introducing distilling, but we didn't really have as many people coming over and introducing traditional brewing. So the weird thing about brewing in the southeast, or southeastern beer, or North Carolina beer, is that we're taking these traditions and ways of ... or ingredients and ways of preparing them, and thinking about how do we translate that into brewing, and especially modern craft brewing, which is, even if we had a really big German tradition of brewing in this region, we're not talking about a pretty serious departure from how they made beer. So thinking about those ingredients and like ... and the other thing is too, we talk about sense of place a lot. So sometimes the beer doesn't necessarily have like some crazy story behind it about these ingredients in it, but it's just the kind of beer that hopefully people would want to drink in the southeast.

Brian: So being mindful of the fact that it's hot, so its the reason we don't have a year round dark beer, right, and tend to make things that are refreshing is often a focus. We like to make really complex beers that are intriguing, and that you want to sip on, but as much as we enjoy those and want to make those, we also want to mainly make beers that someone, after like a day in the southeast, in September or August, is gonna be like, yeah, I still want to drink a pint of this. So it's being mindful about the flavors and aromas that we can derive from this area, and the traditions associated, as well as the actual climate and just the realities of this region.

Richard: And so, in talking a lot about farming and foraging, I think we're getting a lot of benefits. You're getting your sense of place and it's really 00:59:00interesting, but there's also unique challenges, so can you talk a little about some of the things that go along with that, challenges and benefits if you like.

Brian: Sometimes we come across stuff that's just a pain to work with, there's no way around it. I think good example of this is, hearty oranges, or trifoliate oranges, they're these small, like the size of a golf ball or a little bit bigger oranges, that have ... the outer skin of them is kind of fuzzy almost. They grow on these kind of rambling, crazy looking trees, with these huge, huge thorns. It's like inches long. And they're very firm, and they're loaded with seeds, and they're extremely tart and bitter. So most people don't really think of them as this really awesome fruit, but they have all of the flavors and aromas that I associate with American hops, so they have this weird pine 01:00:00element, that I don't really associate with citrus, but they have it. They have a ton of grapefruit and orange, so in many ways they have like, just smelling the outer skin of them is very floral. It almost reminds me of more traditional brewing hops, [inaudible 01:00:22] crystal, whereas like the flesh is much more robust and citrusy, so they're really, really cool. But getting ahold of them is difficult, because they grow on these terrifying trees.

Richard: They're death traps.

Brian: So they're mainly planted ... most farmers that we work with, that have them on their property, they were planted as a hedgerow, so like divide property. No one was growing them for the oranges, they were all grown as like, this will make a great perimeter, because no animal or human will want to pass through this plant. And the oranges are kind of a byproduct of it, so a lot of the farmers that we work with who have them are like eager to find an outlet for them, because they're like, they'll just go to waste otherwise. So that's one 01:01:00challenge, the other challenge is that they are filled with this very, very intense resin, and any equipment that you work with those oranges on, is gonna get covered in a thick layer of ... it's almost like pine tar. And the first year we worked with them, we threw them in a food processor, and it took us days of ... we tried ... we have these pretty serious industrial chemicals that are designed to like clean a kettle after boiling for hours in it. So normally, when it comes to cleaning stuff, it's like yeah, we can get some ... oh there's some sort of fruit based like tar on stuff, sure we can get that off, whatever, but the only thing that worked was manually scraping this stuff off.

Brian: So they have benefits, right, they have this amazing flavor and aroma. 01:02:00We've done a couple of different products with them. They're super bright. They have a delightful acidity. They can play the bitterness that we want in beer, to help balance the kind of natural sweetness you get from malt. They have awesome citrus and pine notes. This huge flavor profile, but then they're difficult to get, because they grow on these terrifying trees, and then they're difficult to work with, because anything they touch is just going to be covered in resin forever. I think that's a fairly good allegory for a lot of the ingredients we work with, where it's like, the rewards are normally pretty easy to see, and sometimes it's easy as well. We work with triticale a lot, or triticale, this really cool wheat/rye hybrid, that a lot of farmers were already growing in North Carolina, but there wasn't a ton of a market for. And Epiphany, a craft malt in Durham, malts it. Most of the stuff they get is from a company called 01:03:00White Hat Seed Farm on the coast. We've been lucky enough to actually visit those farmers and check out their farm.

Brian: So that's super easy, it's a cereal grain, it's malted, so it's a lot like working with wheat or rye, something that we've done plenty of times, so that's an easy one. And the flavor impact is great, it has a really awesome mouth feel, similar to wheat, a touch of rye spice. It quickly became a favorite grain of mine, but that one, it's like, from my perspective, I don't really have to do a lot to work with it. It's great. I have an amazing local partner who's malting it, so making it very easy for me to work with. There are some awesome farmers on the coast who are doing everything they can to grow it in a quality that will work for malting. So I think those are the two sides of the coin, so there's like hearty oranges, and then there's triticale.

Brian: And sometimes it's even deriving flavors and aromas from things that are traditionally found in beer, citrus and pine, but deriving them in ways that 01:04:00people don't often think about, so like whether that be pine needles or fir tips, versus using ... or pine forward hops, or hearty oranges, versus using citrus forward hops. As I said before, people often, in a lot of interviews like this, I get questioned like, don't you feel like what you guys do is kind of like a gimmick? And it rubs me the wrong way in a lot of ways, but what cracks me up about it is that, this is going back to a tradition of brewing that is older than working with hops. So this isn't like a weird, like people are like, you guys make crazy, weird beers. And it's like, well, we actually just make beer the way that beer had been made for a couple of thousand years, before hops became the predominant flavor aroma ingredient.

Richard: Sure, around here, molasses beer and spruce pine beer, we have cookbooks from the 18th century.

Brian: So actually, when I looked for beer recipes from this area, most of the things labeled beer are not beer in the way that we often think of them, but 01:05:00yeah, people were working with these kind of ingredients here, especially in the southeast, for a lot longer than they were trying to introduce a flower from a vine, that doesn't grow particularly well here.

Richard: So another one that we've sort of hopped all over already, but what would you say are maybe some examples, or maybe some of your favorite examples of local ingredients that you use in beer?

Brian: Triticale, black walnuts and sorghum are definitely high on the list. Triticale, I've gotta give full credit to Epiphany for it. They're the ones that introduced me to it. I'd heard of it, I never worked with it before. I didn't know what it tasted like, I didn't even know what it looked like. I'm totally head over heels for that grain now, and it was amazing to have the opportunity to actually go walk the fields where it was being grown, and meet the team of 01:06:00people who make that a reality. And it's also great to have a partner around the corner, who's ... when they first introduced it to us, and I was like, I think we're gonna make a year round beer with this. Do you think that's something you guys could do? Instead of just being like, what are you talking about, they were really eager to figure out how to make that work.

Richard: That's great.

Brian: But black walnuts, I have a long history with. My family's ... black walnuts are something I associate with some of my ... where my family lives in Georgia, and it's something that I just like a lot. But then some of the other really cool ... I like spice bush a lot. We've gotten to work with that a number of times. Every part of spice bush is different, so the berries are very peppery. The leaves are a lot more citrus. The twigs have like more cinnamon, and each ... it's a really crazy plant, and it's native here. And back in the day, it was really common back when spices wouldn't have been as easy to come by 01:07:00in the southeast, this would have been a plant people would have really relied on year round as a way to season food. And it's crazy, because the berries also have citrus in them, like flavors, like the leaves do, but not nearly as much as the leaves. And it's cool to have one plant that has three different things on it, and each one of them tastes phenomenal. And it's like, the berries are like all spice, and peppercorn, and a touch of lemon. So it's cool to work with beers, or work with them in a beer. Sassafras is another one that I like a lot. I think even basil, we work with a lot of basil, to make Southern Basil, our summer seasonal.

Brian: I don't know that I fully appreciated the diversity of basil before 01:08:00working here, and by that I mean ... I'll have two farms both growing Genovese basil, sweet basil, and the way the plants look, the way they smell, the way they taste, totally different just based on the growing conditions of each of those farms. And just the amount of variants you get is like ... also you quickly start becoming like very picky about your, all of a sudden, normal, the basil that you find in grocery stores won't cut it for you anymore. I don't know, it's tough to pick favorites, just because I can ... a lot of the stuff we work with, I get pretty amped about. I'll never forget, I got some spruce tips that we were gonna do a beer with, just testing them out, making teas with them, and the first tea I made was so amazing, like the flavor and aroma, that I ran around the brewery making people try it. And I didn't even realize fully that 01:09:00this is what I was doing until I was in the front office, and I think like one of our, I want to say it was one of the accounts payable or accounts receivable folks, was just like, Brian, what the ... this is just a jar with what appears to be pine needles in it. And it was spruce tips, this was different.

Brian: Like what are you talking about? So it's very easy for me to get animated by a lot of these things, especially that moment when you realize that that ingredient that you're working with, or that you want to work with, is gonna be able to achieve the desired flavor aroma results, or maybe, in that case, actually having elements that I wasn't expecting. I'd worked with spruce before, but this had so much more citrus. Is had so much more ... it had almost like cola notes. It was crazy. I would have drank that, just as a tea, I would have drank that very easily. It was really cool, so there's a ton. I guess, I think 01:10:00my favorite ingredient is probably the one I'm getting a chance to work with, so right now I'm foraging for fig leaves and chicory for an upcoming project, so I think that's where my mind's at right now, as far as what's at the forefront, so those are really cool. Fig leaves have this really awesome vanilla and coconut and cinnamon tones, that I don't think anyone would ever expect from just ... I think most people, they hear leaves, they just assume they're gonna get tannins from them, so I think even my team here when I was like, yeah, I'd like to do a project with fig leaves, they were like, so what are we gonna get from that? But they're really, really cool.

Richard: Yeah, that's awesome. So, we've been talking about how you use a lot of local ingredients, so it's obvious that it impacts the flavor of your beer in unique ways. Is there a specific approach you take to deciding or thinking about 01:11:00which local ingredients you're gonna be using?

Brian: Yeah. I think a lot of products we end up doing actually start with the ingredients, in a sense that while the farmer who has something that they're really interested in us trying out, or there will be a foraged ingredient available, and it's like what can we do to ... the way I often describe it is like, what can we do that's gonna help to amplify the components of this, or tease them out more, and respect the ingredient as much as we can. Sometimes it happens the other way around too, but I would say most of the time it's like, we get really excited about an ingredient, like autumn olives, for example, which are these little red berries that have this kind of cranberry/raspberry flavor, and a lot of acidity. So then we start thinking, instead of kind of working backwards and saying, well I want a beer that tastes like this, we start thinking, what kind of beer could you do with ... that has those kind of flavor 01:12:00components, that's really gonna be ... that's really gonna work and be desirable. I think, because we often start with the ingredient and build the recipe around it, it's actually easier than maybe the other approach.

Richard: I know you've already talked about TLC, so how do you approach identifying and partnering with local farmers, groups, or individuals?

Brian: Man, every way possible. So, first off, when I started here, Fullsteam had already developed a lot of partnerships, and that made things a lot easier, but then, after that, the amazing thing is that it kind of feeds itself. It becomes this kind of like positive feedback loop, where like the more we work with farmers, or the more we work with a particular farm, the easier it becomes for them to work with us, so in the sense that like maybe they only grew a small 01:13:00amount of something, because they normally didn't have a big market for it, but then they know, every year, we will buy a ton of it, so that means the next year they're able to justify growing more of it, so that means the next year it's easier for us to work with them, and it kind of snowballs like that. And it kind of goes the same for working with various farmers, so like one of the ways that I got to meet a lot more of our basil farmers actually was we ... downy mildew or powdery mildew are these two kinds of mildew that really destroy the basil crop in North Carolina, and they come every year.

Brian: Its depends on how much rainfall, how early it starts, but when the rain caused the powdery mildew to ... I think it was powdery mildew, just kind of started blooming. I don't know what you call when mildew starts really taking over stuff, but it was destroying a lot more of the basil than we were used to, and I got introduced to other farmers by farmers who couldn't provide the basil 01:14:00we normally would get. They were like, well I know this farm hasn't been hit by it, so let me introduce you to them. Sometimes it's even ... making a lot of phone calls. Sometimes there will be an ingredient we really want to work with, and we'll start calling folks to try to see who grows it and if they're able to provide it, and maybe they don't grow or provide it, but they know someone who does. So those kind of networks are really big. I think the willingness and openness of most of the farmers we work with, who tell us about other farmers, is like an outstanding ... I don't know any farmer that I've talked to, when I was like, do you grow blank, who if they didn't grow it, wasn't immediately trying to tell me who does.

Richard: That's awesome.

Brian: So that makes things super easy, or if we ever wanted to work with lemon basil in a particular project, a variety of basil that's really cool, has these 01:15:00kind of lemon notes. And not a lot of folks grow it, so I had one farmer that was growing it, but I could only get a few pounds, so I needed to find more, and every time I reached out to another farm about it, that didn't have it, they were eager to tell me somebody they knew who did, which makes things just a lot easier. A lot of it kind of falls in to our lap. TLC reached out to us, which was amazing. They're really interested ... a lot of their supporters are older, and they really want to engage younger folks to get excited about land conservancy, because the future of land conservancy relies on the next generation to care about it. So I think they saw beer as a cool ... an easy way to get that generation, that's already excited about beer, excited about the work that they do. And I think they're doing much more valuable, impactful, and 01:16:00meaningful work than what we do, so being able to help them was huge, because it does help.

Brian: I think that's the other thing too, is like a lot of ... and kind of going back to some of the activism and community involvement, for me, at least, a lot of my political aspirations and personal objectives didn't stop when I stopped working in politics, it's just how we go about them has changed. So being able to help support an organization like that, that I think is doing just like really important work, just feels like such a big dream. As a brewer, just feels very humbling to be like, this kind of non-consequential thing that I'm really excited about, beer, in the grand scheme of the world, I think it's very important, but it's really not the biggest deal in the world, but I can use that as a vehicle or a tool to help somebody preserve wild property in the triangle, 01:17:00which is like that is profoundly meaningful and important. And so being able to use beer as that, as that vehicle, is really rewarding. I don't even remember the question you asked. I'm sorry.

Richard: No, you're doing well. It's just talking about identifying your partners, so I think yeah. You mentioned TLC, who are some of your local partners, that you partner with a lot?

Brian: Everybody from like value added processors, like we work with Escazu for cocoa nibs and Counter Culture and Muddy Dog for coffee. Those things aren't being grown in North Carolina, but they are being roasted or otherwise processed here, so sometimes those kind of partners. Other times it's folks like Seal the Seasons, who helps to ... will make a way for these ingredients to go past when they normally would be available, or East Carolina Organics is another one we 01:18:00work with a lot. They work with farmers all over, Eastern Carolina. And they're great for great like seconds on fruit and stuff. So, as a brewer, my fundamental job is to intentionally rot stuff. It doesn't sound super appealing when you put it that way, but yeast is a spoilage microbe. It's really no different than if an orange on the counter gets a yeast colony on it and goes bad. I just control that process in a way that hopefully is delicious, and that's the real difference. But ultimately, my job is to help a microbe that is normally going to try to spoil food, spoil something in a way where it keeps longer, and that's what fermentation is. It's the partnership of humans with microbes to spoil stuff, in a way that we deem desirable. Anyway, so I can't even remember where I 01:19:00was going. I apologize.

Richard: No, keep going.

Brian: Seriously, I totally lost my train of thought.

Richard: Local partners.

Brian: Local partners, so anyway, sorry. I really apologize. I don't know where I was going. So seconds on fruit, there we go. East Carolina Organic. So fundamentally, I want to destroy fruit, and what I'm going to do to it, it will not look pretty when we're done. That's why the photos are always of the ingredients before we use them. So if a farmer has fruit or vegetables or 01:20:00produce of any kind that doesn't look super appealing, it might not do well in the market, but that's perfect for us, so they had strawberries, for example, one year, that they were like, had rained really, really bad, and the strawberries had basically softened in the field, and they were all crazy ripe, but they were just getting bruised and damaged, and there was no way they were gonna keep particularly well, and there's no way that they could sell them to a ... but East Carolina Organics provided this awesome ability to kind of have sourcing from all these different farms, and then be like, hey, we've got strawberries that nobody probably wants. And it was amazing, because the strawberries tasted phenomenal. They were like way sweeter and more intense than normal strawberries, they just weren't gonna keep very long, but that was fine for us.

Richard: That's perfect.

Brian: We were gonna use them really soon, and we're going to destroy them anyway, so it's okay that they don't look pretty. So partners like that, 01:21:00Riverbend Malt in Asheville, Epiphany in Durham, Carolina Malt House more recently, are some amazing partners for that. We work with probably 30 different farms for basil. Triangle Land Conservancy has been great for foraged ingredients and giving us a space where we can forage in a way that's respectful to actually land conservation, which is another thing. I'm trying to think, sorry. I'm actually going to look at a menu real quick. Yamco is this random ... Yamco. They're in Snow Hills, North Carolina. They source sweet potatoes from North Carolina farmers, and they puree them, and they just have to repackage them. And we've worked with sweet potatoes in every form, just straight sweet 01:22:00potatoes, cubed, diced, whatever. Their puree is a lot easier for us to work with. They're very transparent about their sourcing, and it's ... makes for a more consistent beer, so they've been an amazing partner.

Brian: Triple Creek Farm is where we get almost all of our sorghum from. There's a guy there who's named Peter Fleming, whose family has been growing sorghum for several generations. He's really, really serious about convincing people that sorghum is an important and viable crop, and that there's a lot of uses for it, so he's worked with bakers and [inaudible 01:22:45], [inaudible 01:22:44] sorghum flour and things, and sort of like pop sorghum, it pops just like popcorn. So you end up with these tiny little popcorn kernels, but they're sorghum, flavor's a little nuttier. It's really good. But really passionate farmer who ... so who's been a partner for sorghum. We've done three or four 01:23:00projects with his grain sorghum, and then we even work with, further out, Muddy Pond for sorghum syrup out of Tennessee, or Bulls Bay sea salt, out of South Carolina, or ... tons of different farmers for herbs, spices, peppers, and fruit. There's everything from ... I feel like I'm all over the place.

Richard: No, no, it's fine, it's good. So what would you say it's like to work in the craft brewing industry today? You talked about how much it's just changed since you got into the industry.

Brian: It's matured a lot, and for the most part in good ways. So like, one of the ways breweries used to distinguish themselves is by making good beer, and nowadays the expectation is that, if a brewery is open, and it's been open for a 01:24:00while, it's making good beer. And you have to set yourself apart in new ways, so quality has moved from like a unique thing to an expectation, and I think that that's been a really good move for the industry as a whole. I will say transparency of process has maybe changed a little bit. Brewers, if you like the way a brewery is making a beer, and you're a brewer, you could call them, and they would tell you very specifically, normally, how they did it. There's no like trade secrets. There's no ... everyone is very transparent, everybody is very open and honest. And everybody just wanted to see the industry develop and flourish, but as we've gotten more mature, I think that has kind of gone away maybe a little bit. So I miss maybe some of those elements, but the sense of comradery and the sense of kind of willingness to help each other is still there, for sure. I think you're just less likely to get ... like even from a 01:25:00sustainability perspective, we really start going down that road, and wanting to figure out ... we constantly ran into things.

Brian: We were like, I don't want to reinvent the wheel. There's another brewery that has figured this out, and one day Amanda Richardson, who was running a lot of ... she was our lead brewer, and running on the sustainability side of things, she was like, I'm just gonna reach out to Sierra Nevada and New Belgium, because both of them do a lot in this field in sustainability, and we'll see what happens. And the people in charge of those departments of those companies bent over backwards to help us out and provide resources for us, give us insight into what they did that worked, and what didn't. And helped, really, for us to start developing a roadmap for like, how do we go forward on this issue, and that is still true for all sorts of stuff. Same with, we wanted to get right with OSHA. There's no other way around it. We wanted to be a facility where, if 01:26:00we got an inspection, it wasn't anything that scared anybody, it was something that we ... so reaching out to larger breweries, or other breweries about that, the community's still good, people still want to help you. You just might be slightly less likely to have someone tell you about a source or an ingredient.

Brian: Or slightly less likely for someone to tell you the specific process they used to achieve a result. But it's good, I think that sense of comradery is a big part of the attraction of the industry. And people are doing ... I will say, we've also entered this like, I don't know how to describe it other than this dadaism of beer. We're in a really weird landscape of people doing very strange and crazy, weird things to beer, so it's a really weird time to be a brewer. The 01:27:00industry has matured a lot, so it used to be this unlimited growth for anybody who was willing to fight for it, and now that's not the case, so people are having to be smarter and more measured in how they grow, and what they focus on, or how they distinguish themselves. And meanwhile people, like the styles of beers that are coming out, some of them are like really innovative and amazing and ground breaking, and some of them are just, I feel like very weird experimentations, that almost like exit the realm of really beer.

Brian: It's a weird time for being in the industry, but it's super interesting, and I think there' still a very bright future for it, especially in the southeast, where the industry as a whole has matured a lot. In the southeast it's still very young. We don't have the concentration of breweries that you would see in the Pacific Northwest, or the northeast. You think about what's 01:28:00going on in Oregon and California, the brewing industry, and their landscape is just so different than what's going on here. So there's still lots of towns that don't have breweries, there's still lots of towns that can handle having a lot more breweries. And I don't know if you can say that in a state like Vermont, where like saturation is really starting to happen. So it's exciting, it's a little nerve racking, but it's a weird time to be a brewer.

Richard: So where do you see the industry going in the next five years? Three to five.

Brian: I think a continued focus on small, kind of small, tavern focused production. I think the trend for a long time, the breweries were trying to grow as big as they could. I think now the focus you're gonna see is people are focusing really heavily on trying to sell as much beer as they can over the 01:29:00counter, at their own establishment. You get a better margin on it. You don't have to deal with distribution. There's a lot of reasons that it's attractive, but I think the other reason that I see the industry moving more and more in that direction, it's kind of like, I always use kitchens and restaurants and chefs as an allegory, but I think the room for a lot of like large scale franchise restaurants in America is slim. There's not many people are gonna do that anymore. There's a lot of them out there, competition is pretty steep. The barrier of entry is very high. But the room for a lot more mom and pop restaurants is limitless. I think breweries is the same way. So there can only be so many more Foothills or Highland right? I don't know that North Carolina is really gonna see another one of those sized breweries.

Brian: The market's just not there anymore. And the ones that are established 01:30:00are doing a really good job of making high quality beer that ... so I don't see a lot of breweries continuing to get to that level, becoming these like ... what I think you're likely going to see more, is kind of ... is more breweries that are like, we're gonna sell more beer out of our tavern, maybe we'll distribute to a couple of local restaurants, but we don't have ambitions to be much bigger than that, whereas when I got in the industry, I don't know that I met many breweries who didn't have ambitions of being big. I don't think that's ... so I think that's a trend you're gonna see around, is that desire to be big. And instead of it being kind of this, we lament the fact that we can't get bigger, it's gonna be we embrace the fact that we're small, and that's an amazing thing that allows us to have more creative freedom, and we run a smaller crew, and a little bit more focused, so I think that's gonna be a trend. It's hard to say where beer styles are gonna go. I don't think anyone was ready for New England 01:31:00IPA to become as dominant and ... there are styles that did that.

Brian: They were like, they kind of disrupted the industry, but I'm hard pressed to think of any other style that came in, where there were breweries that were opening that were like, this is all we're gonna do. And where every brewery is kind of ... it's no longer a debate about how you feel about that style, it's just consumers want that style very badly. So if you're not making it, you're probably doing a disservice to your brewery, because people want that beer. So I think IPA will still remain a big, big category in craft, I just think we'll see some really cool innovations. I don't know if brut IPA is gonna really become the next New England, like some people are saying. I think it's a cool thing. I think it's another innovation within IPA. I think we're gonna continue to see the exploration of what a beer ... I think both of those are styles that say one 01:32:00thing, which his people now want hoppy beers that aren't bitter.

Brian: Fundamentally that's what they are. They approach that very differently, but I think that exploration of what can a beer ... what can a very hop forward beer look like, that doesn't necessarily have some of the traditional trappings of trimmings of a traditional IPA, I think that exploration is gonna keep going. I think sour beers are gonna become more accessible. I think the level of acidity will be peeled back hopefully. And by that I mean, the trend right now is to make stuff that's like ... almost the enamel on your teeth is coming off, where nuance and complexity is harder to achieve. I think brewers are gonna lean more towards kind of older brewing traditions, when it comes to sour beer, and making things that are more complex and nuanced, and less just like aggressively sour. But it's tough to say, I think it's very easy to gaze into a crystal ball and not get very far, as far as what's gonna happen in the future. Who knows, 01:33:00maybe golden ale is gonna come back. I don't think that's the case, but at this point, I would just be like, okay, sure.

Richard: You wouldn't be surprised at this point. You're moving north to Virginia at the end of the month, so what new opportunities are ahead for you?

Brian: That's a good question. I don't have a job lined up, so I am pretty nervous about finding work. I used to brew in Virginia, I still have a lot of contacts there, so I'm optimistic about finding something, but I've been spoiled here in many ways, about being able to make beer really the way I want to, so I don't know if I'll have that same opportunity in Virginia. So I'm not sure, that's a good question.

Richard: It's an open horizon.

Brian: Yeah. We'll go with that, there's a lot of possibilities.

Richard: So what's your favorite bar from a North Carolina brewery, other than Fullsteam?

Brian: Oh, that's a good question.

Richard: That's the one people think about, or style.

Brian: I think the one I had most recently was Southern Saison, from Fonta Flora. Fonta Flora is another brewery that's very near and dear to my heart. I think they approach beer making a similar way to how we do. And I admire a lot of what they do. And they're also just very genuine, friendly people. Good people make it easier to enjoy their beer, but they did make a Southern Saison that was everything I wanted it to be. It was just like very ... it's effervescent and dry and had great citrus tones, and they had worked with tea in it, and had a really tannin presence, and it was hot out and I was doing some 01:35:00gardening. It's just perfect, like for the weather, for everything, it's really, really enjoyable. I don't know. It would be hard to say that's my favorite North Carolina beer, as much as that was the perfect beer at that moment, and they're a brewery that I really respect. Same with like ... I've been really fortunate. I've been spoiled by the quality of beer in our region.

Brian: Even within Durham, I've been fortunate to have good neighbors making really high quality beer, so I'm trying to think of another beer that I've had from a North Carolina brewery, that I was really stoked about. Casita Cerveceria, they're a gypsy brewing operation that's made most of the beers they made at Duck Rabbit. The guy who's running that is really cool, I've got to meet him a number of times. He's good friend with our... the woman who's in charge of sales here. They know each other from long ago. But he did a collaboration with 01:36:00Duck Rabbit actually, I think it was called Coffee Talk, and it was a coffee stout that was nitrogen packaged in cans. It was super ... like absolute no bitterness, very, very smooth, really great coffee presence. I had it with ... [inaudible 01:36:24]. It worked so well with that kind of rich, meaty dish, so that was fantastic. I buy Hoppium pretty frequently. I think that's a beer that's often in my fridge. When it's fresh it's like ... it's very much what I'm looking for in an IPA. I like a lot of stuff Burial does. I'm really good friends of both of the folks at Pony and Mystery, so I like a lot of their beers.

Brian: I love the fact that when I go to the Durham Bulls' park, they've got really good beer that's brewed on site. It's tough, I think a lot of the time when i get asked a favorite beer or favorite style, it's difficult, because I love the diversity that beer has. I think it's like one of the major benefits of it, versus a lot of other spirits or alcoholic beverages. I think beer trumps anything else when it comes to the sheer variety of flavor you can pack in something. Wine can pair with tomatoes better, I'll give them that, but we get the benefit of diversity, and I think ... I love the fact that whatever situation I'm in, or scenario I'm in, there's a beer that can suit that super well, and nine times out of 10 there's a North Carolina brewery making it, which 01:38:00is really awesome. I love that we're at a point in the industry now where, there's really no reason for me to buy beer from a brewery out of state. There's just enough really phenomenal beer that's scratches the itch, that fills whatever niche I want, being made right here, that's pretty amazing.

Richard: That is amazing. So I think this might be an easy one to follow up with the hard one, but what would you say is Fullsteam's flagship beer?

Brian: If I just had to pick one?

Richard: You can pick two, Sean picked two.

Brian: So, we have three beers that we do year round in cans, and I think those are our ... do you mean flagship as in they represent the brewery the best, or do you mean like ...

Richard: Choose to answer how you will, either what people think of when they think of Fullsteam, or what you feel is the one that sort of holds your flag.

Brian: So, we make three beers year round, in 12 ounce cans, that I think are our flagship and core lineup, so that's Rocket Science, our IPA, Pay Check, our 01:39:00pilsner, and Humidity, our pale ale. I think of those three, if I had to say which one of these is really our truest flagship of the three year round beers, would be I think Humidity, because the other beers use some local grain for sure, but Humidity uses a pretty significant amount of triticale, and the story of how we got involved with working with triticale, being introduced to it by a local partner, to meet these farmers on the coast, I always feel that is much more true to what we're trying to do. It's not to say that Rocket Science doesn't help contribute to our mission, In many ways we make Rocket Science because, as a brewery of our size, you kind of have to make it. It's the reason the name of the beer is Rocket Science, right, it's ... and it makes up a larger percentage of sales, than Pay Check or Humidity does, but I think Humidity, of those three, is probably like the truest flagship we have. Outside of that, it's 01:40:00like what's maybe the truest or deepest to our mission. It gets complicated.

Richard: Well this will be a good question then, what's your favorite Fullsteam beer? Which is a much more difficult question, in some ways. Pick your baby.

Brian: I mean, I think one of the ones ... there's a totally kind of ... you're good. It's an unsung hero in many ways. This beer flew under the radar. I don't think a lot of people got excited about it. I don't think it made a big splash on the market. It lingered here maybe a little bit longer than most beers that we make of that size volume, but we did a beer called Triple Creek, which is 01:41:00named for the farm we got the sorghum from. It's a sorghum grisette, kind of lower ABV, mildly tart, very refreshing, had a really nice citrus, fruit, ester tones, with yeast. Really great nuttiness from the sorghum, and that was probably one of my favorite beers we ever made.

Richard: Awesome.

Brian: It was the kind of beer that every day after work, if I was going to have a beer, that was the beer I wanted. There are beers that I think I liked more, but that was definitely the beer that I lamented the most, or made me the saddest when we ran out. I think there are beers that I've had, that I was like wow, this is a much better ... this is the kind of beer that I would take to one of my mentors to be like, you didn't totally waste time on me. But Triple Creek is the beer that when it kicked, I was like, we're really out of Triple Creek? That's not ... and because it didn't do particularly well, like people didn't 01:42:00get super pumped about it, we'll likely never do it again. So I think knowing that, too, has made it maybe even more ... so that's definitely a favorite of mine.

Richard: Is it your favorite recipe you've done? Slightly different question.

Brian: That's tough. I don't know. There are beers that I make, that I don't make many of them, that are very selfish. I make them because I want to drink that beer. Triple Creek is one of them. A lot of my favorite beers that I've made here, it's difficult because every once in a while I'll make a product like that, but for the most part, I always try to keep in mind what I think ... because a lot of all this stuff, supporting the local agriculture, it's not meaningful or impactful if I can't get people on the other side of the bar 01:43:00excited about it, so this means a lot of times avoiding styles or things like that that are maybe gonna be less appealing to a wide audience.

Brian: So when we do those projects that are like, I think a lot of those are my favorite, that are the ones that I get most excited about, that are kind of like a double edged sword, because they're the ones that don't do as well. We did a gruit a long time ago. A non hop beer. People don't get excited about reds, but we did a grodziskie which is like this really amazing and refreshing crisp wheat beer, that happens to be oak smoked, so it's smoky, but also it's like all of the elements of a refreshing, crisp wheat beer, but smoked. And that juxtaposition is very intriguing to me, and it's an old Polish style that's 01:44:00really obscure, also did not do particularly well, but I love that beer. It was called Low 'N Slow. We smoked it with old barrels that we couldn't use anymore, North Carolina wheat that we smoked out back, and it was delightful.

Richard: That's amazing.

Brian: A couple of chefs I know got really pumped about it, because they were like, this works with food in ways that I didn't think beer could. They're like, it's smoky, but not ... because normally, for beer to be smoky, there's some other associated flavors, like normally it's a dark beer.

Richard: I was gonna say, like a porter.

Brian: So I got pumped about it. For the most part, that's one that I got really excited about more for me than it was for the market. So I think a lot of my favorite beers fall into that category.

Richard: That makes sense actually, because you're getting to stretch your legs. Great. That's all I have. Is there anything you'd like to add, anything I didn't talk about, what you do in your spare time?

Brian: I like gardening a lot. I read a lot. I spend as much time in the woods as I possibly can.

Richard: That surprises me.

Brian: Actually, my loved ones often joke that the whole foraging thing is just an excuse to keep me in the woods more, but partly it is. I think foraging, in many ways, part of the allure and appeal, is anything to connect people with the ingredients that are all around us, that are amazing in ... that in many ways our culture has lost touch with. But selfishly, it's also very much a reason ... it's amazing that, for part of my job, I get to go out in the woods and collect black walnuts, elderflower, or sassafras. So that's... anyway. Yeah.

Richard: Awesome, well thank you.

Brian: Yeah, no problem.

Richard: Appreciate it. It was great.