Oral history interview with Stuart Barnhart, 2019

Richard Cox: Okay. To start, can you please say and spell your name?

Stuart Barnhart: Stuart Barnhart. S-T-U-A-R-T, B-A-R-N-H-A-R-T.

Richard Cox: And today is Wednesday, July 10th, 2019 and we're at Fiddlin' Fish Brewing

Company in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I'm Richard Cox, talking today with

Stuart Barnhart, co-owner and brewer as a part of the Well Crafted NC Project.

To start, can you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

Stuart Barnhart: Sure. I'm originally from Galax, Virginia. Just an hour up the road, right on the

Virginia/North Carolina line. Moved to Winston-Salem whenever I was five, so

really consider myself more from Winston then Galax. I went to Hampden-

Sydney College in Virginia and then lived in Richmond for a little bit before I

moved back to Winston-Salem with my wife, Lindsay Barnhart, who's also from

Winston. And worked in finance for about, I guess eight years before deciding to

go off and start this.

Richard Cox: That's a shift.

Stuart Barnhart: Yeah.

Richard Cox: Well, to start you're a brewer but you're not the head brewer here, right?

Stuart Barnhart: Right. I started it and we brought on somebody with some more commercial

experience when we opened. I started out home brewing right out of college

and did that for about probably I guess eight years before doing this. So I had

the home brewers' background and then we brought on Jack Frazier to help us

out bringing all that to a commercial scale.

Richard Cox: How did you get into home brewing?

Stuart Barnhart: Just like drinking beer. I think very mathematically and 00:02:00chemistry minded and so

just really enjoyed learning and teaching myself about all the different factors

that go into brewing beer.

Richard Cox: And there's that whole math background from the finance too, right?

Stuart Barnhart: Yes.

Richard Cox: Because you mentioned the chemistry. What would you say your role is here as

co-founder and owner?

Stuart Barnhart: I'm I guess more of a I guess CEO. Do a little bit of everything. It's still a very

small business so doing our financials, taxes, as well as sweeping up the floor,

and fixing anything that breaks.

Richard Cox: How big is your brew house?

Stuart Barnhart: We have a 15 barrel system. We also have a one barrel pilot system that we can

test out some recipes on.

Richard Cox: Awesome. What actually led you to open Fiddlin' Fish in August of 2017?

Stuart Barnhart: I've always wanted to start my own business and coming out of 00:03:00finance, wanted

to get out of the office setting into something more hands on, making

something. And wanting to be an entrepreneur, I didn't really know how to do

anything else other than brew beer. So that led me into opening a brewery. And

of course beer is fun and everybody wants to do it. We were just fortunate

enough to be able to.

Richard Cox: Yeah. And you already sort of danced around this one, but why did you choose

Winston-Salem?

Stuart Barnhart: Just being from the area. Knowing it really well, growing up here and actually

living downtown. My parents moved downtown in high school, so I've seen the

resurgence of the downtown revitalization in Winston from the very beginning

of it. Back in about 2004 I think it was, that's right about when Foothills opened

downtown and a couple of restaurants started popping up and revitalizing it. So

seeing that and downtown growing from 2004 to 2017, knew that we wanted to

be a part of that and continue that growth more on the North side of town.

Well, we ended up on the North side of town.

Richard Cox: When you were opening in 2017, this is sort of what you're talking about now, if

you can expand on it a little bit. I guess jump forward from 2004, 2006 to 2017.

What would you say Winston was like? Outside of brewing, probably not that

different except maybe downtown. But the brewing industry in Winston. But

also where we are now? We can talk about this more in a minute. What's

changed in the area? What's changed for brewing and maybe even Winston

larger, that you've looked at?

Stuart Barnhart: I mean going back to 2004, downtown Winston was really, I guess I'd call it a

little sketchy to be in after dark. Fourth Street started having more and more

things to do on it, Foothills opened. That was really the first craft beer moving

into Winston. I think they opened up some things downtown and more

restaurants popped up. Trade Street became the arts district. We're now on the

very edge of that arts district on Trade Street. So you really saw those things

come first. And then more recently it's continued to expand even farther

outside the very central downtown and it's very safe now. There's, I think five or

six breweries right downtown. So it's really seen growth in not only breweries,

but the whole downtown has been growing. Especially with Wake Forest and

Innovation Quarter coming in. They really sparked some growth.

Richard Cox: It's also interesting because Winston, it is a downtown districts, 00:06:00or as you

compare it to just Greensboro, which is nearby and it's basically a street that is

downtown. So it's interesting how the two different cities evolved their

downtowns or re-evolved them, I suppose. You said you're at the edge of the

arts district here, so can you tell us a little bit about your location and what your

space is like? I mean we see your fish behind you right now.

Stuart Barnhart: We're in a very old tobacco warehouse. I don't exactly recall when it was built. I

want to say the 20s but I could be wrong on that. A place where farmers would

come and bring their cured tobacco for the buyers to come in and pick through

it, and bid on it and sell it. It's about, I would say 20,000 to 30,000 square foot

space in total. About six or seven years ago, a developer came in and cut out the

middle of that space for a parking lot. Then now you have a U shaped complex

around a central lot. So the warehouse is broken up, we have about 6,500

square feet of that total space. About half of it going to the tap room, half of it

to the production. When we actually moved in, we actually didn't even have

four walls.

Richard Cox: Oh wow.

Stuart Barnhart: It was being used as an open market. It had the roof and so it was fully covered

and they'd have events in here. When we took over, we added the fourth wall

to enclose it. And you can see our murals behind us was actually covered in

graffiti. Purposeful, thoughtful graffiti that the previous tenant had put in. But it

didn't really match our theme, I guess you'd say. So we hired a local artist to

come in and just do this entire mural [crosstalk 00:00:08:06]. His name's

Hieronymous. He had done several things around Winston that we liked and he

came in with a vision and we just trusted him to go with it.

Richard Cox: Oh cool. Yeah, because I was going to ask if you had any sort of direction, but

you pretty well let him have run of-

Stuart Barnhart: Yeah, we gave him, you know...

Richard Cox: Can you describe some of... We see a fish, but some of the other things?

Stuart Barnhart: Yeah, we've got a big, I guess you'd call him a guitar player, a bluesy looking

man with a guitar looking instrument. And then you've got our fishing theme, it

ties into Fiddlin' Fish, music and fishing. You've got the music theme

throughout. You've got some notes going across the wall and you've got a

couple big lures, a drifted boat with fly fishermen up top. Obviously the big fish

behind me, and then outside on the patio, that fish morphs into a big fiddle. And

then you've got another big trout outside [inaudible 00:09:12]. We were really

happy with how it turned out.

Richard Cox: It's a pretty great space. Opening in what was a tobacco warehouse that

became an open space market, were there any particular challenges you faced

when you were opening the brewery?

Stuart Barnhart: It actually lent itself well to opening the brewery. We wanted to keep the

industrial, old feel at least in the tap room. So we left all the floors as is. I didn't

have to do anything with that. And it being just a big open warehouse space, it

was pretty easy to come in and do whatever we wanted to it. It was starting

from a blank slate. In the back we did end up breaking up the concrete floors to

be able to pour sloped floors to drains. But beyond that there weren't a whole

lot of challenges with the building.

Richard Cox: That's awesome.

Stuart Barnhart: Actually went pretty smoothly.

Richard Cox: Any challenges for permitting or anything like that?

Stuart Barnhart: Always challenges with permitting.

Richard Cox: Always challenges, yeah.

Stuart Barnhart: The city was actually pretty good. They wanted people to come in.

Richard Cox: They'd seen it by that point.

Stuart Barnhart: Yeah. They worked with us. It was of course a slow process or slower process

than we wanted it to be. We were ready to get open and start building. But I

think that's a common theme based on talking to other people who've done

similar things.

Richard Cox: Why did you name the brewery Fiddlin' Fish?

Stuart Barnhart: Being originally from Galax, Virginia, still have a lot of family up there. They've

got the Old Time Fiddler's Convention and I just grew up going to that. And

fishing on the New River or fishing everywhere around here that we could and

just our love of fishing and music led to the name. We thought what can go

better than beer, fishing, and music?

Richard Cox: Yeah, I was going to say, and having a beer while you're fishing or listening to

music.

Stuart Barnhart: So just merging all those ideas together. And my father-in-law, my wife's father

actually has a branding firm so he actually drew our logo, which turned out to a

really cool morphing that fish into a fiddle.

Richard Cox: Right. Which again goes back to your wall too, right? Tying into that, how you

named it, what would you see as your main mission or theme at the brewery?

Stuart Barnhart: We've got a big tap room and having a big space with good beer, good music

and good people to be able to come and just enjoy the surroundings, the beer

and have a good time.

Richard Cox: Awesome. If someone's thinking about coming here to have that good time,

how would you describe Fiddlin' Fish to them, if they've never been here

before?

Stuart Barnhart: It's a tough question. I think we're, for the most part, just pretty laid back and

we've got a lot of space for people to just come hang out and watch sports. We

love sports so thought, well other people must too and want to be able to see it.

We have a lot of people coming in for Panthers games and college football

games, college basketball games. We've had a lot of fun having that. We just

had the Women's World Cup, had a great crowd here for the finals.

Richard Cox: Oh yeah, I bet.

Stuart Barnhart: That was fun to be able to see all those people together, enjoying the beer and

the sports or music. We have a lot of live events or a lot of big events out in our

parking lot too where we'll set up a stage and have a full day of bands and

activities outside.

Richard Cox: It's a community, right? It's a community space. Back to when you were opening

Fiddlin' Fish... Or actually now honestly, are there any resources or people that

you've drawn on to help you when opening and growing the brewery? Both as a

co-owner or as just operations of a brewery for example?

Stuart Barnhart: Yeah, I mean I the brewing community is so open and helpful, that's the biggest

resource. It's just fellow brewers going through when we were opening. I mean I

even sent our floor plans to people I knew and they went through and said, "Oh,

this is a good idea. This is a bad idea. You should think about this, you should

think about that." And that was the most helpful thing in setting it up.

Stuart Barnhart: Our architect had done other breweries before, so that was also very helpful.

But as I said, the biggest help is just the community of other breweries. Both

locally and across the country. My dad actually lives in Colorado now and so

there's also a ton of breweries out there. I would just go in and ask to talk to the

brewer and they would always just sit down for a few minutes with me and talk

to me about their brewery and what worked well for them, what didn't. Just

picking people's brains like that was, I think a very valuable [crosstalk 00:14:27]

resource.

Richard Cox: That's not something you get out of a lot of the industries.

Stuart Barnhart: No.

Richard Cox: You're not going to walk in and ask someone how they put together their

business as a potential competitor, I suppose. It's interesting. Are there some

examples of community outreach, engagement, or fundraising work that Fiddlin'

Fish takes part in in the community?

Stuart Barnhart: Yeah, we do a lot of events where we'll have charitable groups come in or a

group trying to fundraise for something else. And whether we're selling tickets

to that event or just donating a dollar of every pint sold or something like that.

We've done a lot of events with charitable organizations to be able to give back.

I'd say we usually have one about every week on a smaller scale. And then we

do a couple of bigger ones throughout the year as well.

Richard Cox: Cool. Are there any organizations that you tend to work with on just an ongoing

basis?

Stuart Barnhart: We work a lot with Stepping Stones Canine Rescue. It's I guess similar to the

Humane Society. They foster dogs and look for forever homes for them. A lot of

times we'll have them come and actually bring the dogs and they'll set up on our

patio. Pretty much every time they do that, everyone gets adopted.

Richard Cox: Really?

Stuart Barnhart: Yeah.

Richard Cox: Oh, that's amazing. How many dogs do they usually bring?

Stuart Barnhart: Six or seven.

Richard Cox: That's plenty. That's great. And they get the adoption done. That's awesome.

Stuart Barnhart: I'd say that's who we've worked with the most and-

Richard Cox: Well you obviously have a love of dogs.

Stuart Barnhart: Right.

Richard Cox: Oh, no that's amazing. Very cool. How would you describe your average week?

Stuart Barnhart: Me personally?

Richard Cox: Yes, you. Or you can expand it, average week at the Fiddlin' Fish is fine. But

yeah, you.

Stuart Barnhart: It changes week to week for sure. One week I'll be sitting in my closet of an

office that I share with all of our toilet paper and paper towels, back stock. Just

doing our excise taxes or sales tax reports or just doing the general accounting

and day to day paperwork that can pile up. We do a lot of different brews, a lot

of new beers all the time so I spend a lot of time formulating those recipes. And

then there's a lot of time just fixing things in the back and you never know

what's going to pop up. And you might have a plan one day to sit down and go

through all your emails and get all your taxes done and then all of a sudden the

glycol is not working so you instead of spent the day troubleshooting that.

Stuart Barnhart: We actually built most of this furniture in here ourselves, or at least tabletops.

And these tables are actually made of old cable spools from electric companies.

So we refinished them and did all that ourselves, made all of our in flight boards.

So anytime we're doing something like that we still do those type things as well.

I'm pulling out a saw later to do something to a table. It's a lot of odds and ends

along with what you would normally think.

Richard Cox: But you also mentioned you're still involved in recipe development, so you still

do some brewing here?

Stuart Barnhart: I do.

Richard Cox: How do you go about, this is personally, how do you go about developing new

recipes or tweaking old ones, I suppose? What's your approach?

Stuart Barnhart: It depends on the beer. If it's a more of a historical style, take a Helles lager, it's

just mainly researching what makes that beer. Looking at the guidelines set by

the Brewer's Association. Looking at what makes that beer the Helles lager and

looking at other people's recipes, what they've done and then trying other

beers. I always want to have a taste for what I'm trying to go for before I sit

down and try to develop that recipe.

Richard Cox: Do you work mostly on the pilot system here yourself or you work on the full

system [crosstalk 00:18:55]?

Stuart Barnhart: I work mostly on the pilot system. I would love to be on the 00:19:00big system more but

I just-

Richard Cox: You're the CEO though.

Stuart Barnhart: With the time constraints it's hard to sometimes get a full day to devote your

attention to that.

Richard Cox: Do you miss it?

Stuart Barnhart: I do. It's definitely a lot less brewing than I thought I'd be doing.

Richard Cox: Oh yeah. Is there a beer or a recipe that you've created that you're most proud

of?

Stuart Barnhart: Well actually the one I was just talking about that Hardy Bear Helles is one of my

favorites that I've done just because I think it's a harder style to nail. Because if

you get it wrong, you'll taste it.

Richard Cox: And it's a lager right, yeah.

Stuart Barnhart: It takes longer. If you mess up at all or there's any kind of contamination, you're

going to taste it. There's not anything to cover up any off flavors. With the IPA

you can just throw a bunch of hops in it and you can cover up a lot. But with

that one, I think that doing really well on a hard beer to make is one of my

favorite things. It's very different from our most popular beer, which is our New

England IPA right now. Of course-

Richard Cox: I was going to say, "Shocked."

Stuart Barnhart: Yeah. That's definitely our best seller. I really like that one too. but I tell you, the

Helles is probably my favorite.

Richard Cox: It pulls in both the art and the science of it right?

Stuart Barnhart: Right.

Richard Cox: I can totally understand that. Sticking with you and brewing again for a minute,

how would you say Fiddlin' Fish reflects your brewing interests, philosophy,

feelings about beer and brewing?

Stuart Barnhart: We have 14 different beers on tap generally. So we have a super wide range and

only I think about five of those are core beers that we have on all the time. So

we've got nine beers that are constantly rotating. One of the things I love about

brewing is just trying something new all the time. We generally always have

something new that we've never done before. And even if I don't like a

particular style, we'll still make it and see if we can do it well and see if we can

make a popular beer that people really like, even if we don't. I for example,

don't particularly like fruit in beers, but that's also a very popular thing right

now. So I started doing that and opened with the mindset, "Oh, we're not doing

any fruit in beers," and then as people ask for things we make them and we

adapt. And it's fun to figure out something new.

Richard Cox: Well, yeah, there's that balance between your wanting to make your lagers and

the need. Your wants and the community coming in, your consumer needs.

Stuart Barnhart: Right.

Richard Cox: And how do you balance those two things? Looking forward now, how 00:22:00do you

see Fiddlin' Fish growing in the future?

Stuart Barnhart: Once again, when we started out, we weren't planning on distributing very

much and I guess you could say that we were better received than even we

expected. That quickly led to us distributing more around the Winston area than

we were expecting. And that eventually morphed into we're as far as having a

sales rep in Raleigh right now.

Richard Cox: Oh wow.

Stuart Barnhart: So we are continuing to expand across the state and just looking to keep that

steady, slower growth. I think it's better to slowly expand then all of a sudden

try to become the next Sierra Nevada or name a big brand, but-

Richard Cox: Exactly. Since you're distributing in this area, Winston and you say you're at

Raleigh, do you see any differences in distribution approach? Because you are

talking about your home base and the triangle-

Stuart Barnhart: It's definitely easier here. Just because we are the hometown brewery. Raleigh

is different in that I think it's a different consumer base.

Richard Cox: Really?

Stuart Barnhart: Just in what people are looking for in beer styles. I think a lot of people in

Winston, I'm sure that it's true in Raleigh to an extent and I just don't see it as

much just because the nature of the places we distribute to in Raleigh is more of

a craft centric focused. Whereas here we get a lot of people that are still looking

for a Bud Light or a Coors Light. We sell probably more blonde here than

anything other than New England IPA. And I don't think we distribute any of that

to Raleigh.

Richard Cox: So some are more mature there perhaps. Is there an educational component for

you then? Here I mean, so when you have someone coming in and I'm a Bud

Light drinker, what should I try? Is there an educational component for the

people tending? How do you approach them to introduce them to your beer?

Stuart Barnhart: Well, I mean, I think we've trained our bartenders and all of our staff well to,

"Oh, you like a Bud Light, well try this." And we're very liberal with our samples

and letting people try as much as they want until they find that beer that they're

going to be really happy with. We don't want to give them a beer that they're

not going to like and they'll never come back.

Richard Cox: Try this porter.

Stuart Barnhart: Yeah. I think we've done a good job of being able to educate people on, "Oh,

you like a Blue Moon, well try our Blood Orange Wheat." And I think that's the

best approach to educating people that aren't necessarily craft beer drinkers to

becoming more involved.

Richard Cox: And such an opportunity too.

Stuart Barnhart: Right.

Richard Cox: That's great. Let's talk a little bit about the larger brewing industry. How would

you say, and again 2017 doesn't seem that long ago, how would you say the

brewing scene has changed since you first went into the business?

Stuart Barnhart: Well, even in Winston, we've gone from, I think we were the fifth brewery to

open to, I think we have eight or nine now with a couple more in planning. Even

in the less than two years we've been open, we've seen more growth and that's

common I think everywhere, not just here.

Richard Cox: And for you personally, what's it like to work in the craft brewing industry

today?

Stuart Barnhart: It's a lot of fun.

Richard Cox: Is it?

Stuart Barnhart: Yeah, the people are so nice and welcoming and open to sharing ideas that it's

just really fun to work in. Really because of the people.

Richard Cox: Yeah. And are there any particular trends in the industry today that you either

really like or really dislike? That could be beer trends or trends you see in the

business world or both?

Stuart Barnhart: I mean, like I said with the beer styles and the sours, I don't particularly like

those beers. But it is fun on the other hand to play around with them and

develop those beers. I'd say I like and dislike that aspect of the beer trend.

Stuart Barnhart: And then as far as the brewing community as a whole, I think we've got room

for more growth in breweries. There's still a lot of the big beer market share

that is available. I'm not too concerned about, I guess that growth affecting us

too much.

Richard Cox: Great, awesome. And what role do you feel breweries such as Fiddlin' Fish have

played in changes in Winston-Salem and the larger triad?

Stuart Barnhart: We've got Wise Man Brewing just right across the street from us. There's a third

one going in pretty much directly next to them. And so I think we've really

helped open up this side of town for more development since we moved in, and

Wise Man was just before us. I think they opened about six months before we

did. And so it's really close to the same time as far as overall development goes.

But since then we've seen more expansion and development on this side of

town as opposed to other parts of town. And I think we definitely have

something to do with that.

Richard Cox: I would think so, yeah. Where do you see the brewing industry going 00:28:00in the next

five years, if you had a crystal ball?

Stuart Barnhart: I see it continuing on the same trend, a lot more breweries opening, but not

necessarily trying to have a giant distribution footprint. More focusing on the

small neighborhood community component of the tap room. I think that's been

a trend for a little bit and I don't see that changing.

Richard Cox: Awesome. Is there anything that you see as unique or different about the triad

brewing scene as compared to maybe other places in North Carolina?

Stuart Barnhart: I mean, I think based on what I've seen, going to Asheville, going to Raleigh,

going to Charlotte, you have these pockets of brewing communities within

overall North Carolina that all seem to be really similar actually. I think you have

probably different trends going on in each market.

Richard Cox: Really?

Stuart Barnhart: As far as beer styles, Asheville is a little bit [crosstalk 00:29:12], I guess you'd call

it more experimental with a lot of their beers. Charlotte has a lot of the bigger

distribution breweries just because of the population. I'd say Raleigh is a mix of

those two things. And then Winston, I think you have a lot more, I guess smaller

microbreweries-

Richard Cox: The neighborhood bar type situation.

Stuart Barnhart: Right. And I think that's mostly to do just with population densities of the

different places. But overall I'd say they're all very similar in how the brewing

communities come together in each region.

Richard Cox: Great. Is there anything that you see as unique about North Carolina beer?

Stuart Barnhart: I'd say just the overall number and quality of breweries. I 00:30:00think North Carolina is

one of the top states as far as breweries per capita. And I think our beer is just

as good as anyone else's, Colorado, California, Oregon.

Richard Cox: Absolutely.

Stuart Barnhart: We've got a bunch of great breweries and there's a lot of them.

Richard Cox: Awesome. Now the hard questions. What's your favorite beer from a North

Carolina brewery other than Fiddlin' Fish? Exactly.

Stuart Barnhart: Yeah.

Richard Cox: Or recent beer that you've had.

Stuart Barnhart: There's so many of them.

Richard Cox: There are, like I say, this is a hard question.

Stuart Barnhart: That is a hard one... I don't know. I might have to think about 00:31:00that one for a

minute. We'll have to come back to that one.

Richard Cox: We can come back or we can expand it. We can work it out in another way.

What would you say, and I think you just mentioned this earlier, what would

you say is Fiddlin' Fish's flagship or signature beer?

Stuart Barnhart: I'd say our flagship is definitely That Fish Cray, our new England IPA that I've

been talking about. It's the trend right now anyway across the country and

that's the craze. That's definitely our best seller in one of our staples.

Richard Cox: Would you say to take a twist to my question, it's your best seller? Would you

also say it also exemplifies who you are as a brewery? Is it a beer you would also

put forth as this is us?

Stuart Barnhart: I really wouldn't put one beer forward as that just because we are constantly

changing our menu and our offerings. So I'd put the whole menu forth as a show

of the variety that we like to keep.

Richard Cox: Awesome. And what would you say is your favorite Fiddlin' Fish beer?

Stuart Barnhart: My favorite ... I do like our lagers. Simple beer flavored beer.

Richard Cox: There it is, exactly. Do you have that favorite beer from another brewery? No is

a perfectly fine answer.

Stuart Barnhart: I think that's such a hard question because I'm constantly looking for new ideas,

I rarely actually drink the same beer twice from a North Carolina brewery. If I'm

going to a brewery, I'm trying a lot of their different offerings instead of just

picking one beer and going back to that one and again and again.

Richard Cox: Well is there something then, this isn't even a mention of beer. Because you're

talking about looking for new things. Is there something you've seen recently, a

broad thing that's really interesting to you while...? If that makes sense as a

question.

Stuart Barnhart: It does. Also really bad with names.

Richard Cox: That's fine. Well, we don't have to mention it. Just the idea of what it is.

Stuart Barnhart: I think any time somebody uses a unique ingredient or unique combination. I

saw one that has strawberry and peppercorns recently. It's not something I

would have thought of, putting those two things together, but it turned out

being really good and unexpectedly good as how I wouldn't put those two

ingredients together in my mind. Once you taste it you're like, "Oh, that does

work."

Richard Cox: It makes sense. Yeah, awesome. That's all I have. Is there anything else you'd

like to add?

Stuart Barnhart: I don't think so.

Richard Cox: Awesome. Thank you for your time.