Oral history interview with William Brown, 2020

RC: All right. To start, if you could please say and spell your name.

WB: My name is William Brown, spelled W-I-L-L-I-A-M B-R-O-W-N.

RC: Okay. And today is Tuesday, January 14th, 2019 and we are at South End Brewing Company in Greensboro, North Carolina. I'm Richard Cox talking today with William Brown, head brewer, as part of the Well Crafted NC Project. To start, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

WB: So like I said, my name's William Brown. I've been professionally brewing for about six years now. Before that, I did about seven years of home brewing experience. And that's really about it from a professional standpoint on this side. Before brewing, I was in distribution logistics. Alumni of UNCG, here.

RC: Oh. What was your ...

WB: The Bryan School. I was a double major in business admin and economics. Yeah.

RC: Appropriate that you ...

WB: Yeah, exactly. I do nothing with my degree but, you know.

RC: You already touched on home brewing like that.

WB: Yeah.

RC: How did you first become interested in the brewing industry? And you can start with how you got interested in brewing, since you were a home brewer.

WB: I got interested in brewing basically because I was 20 and couldn't buy beer. I just dibbled and dabbled a little bit here and there, made terrible stuff. As I got a little bit older, my wife, currently, now, got me a little home brew kit and got into it from there. I got involved with a local club here, a local home brew club called the Battleground Brewers Guild. Kind of hung out with them for a while and homed a little bit here and there and got the crazy idea I wanted to start a brewery.

WB: At the same time I was thinking about doing that, Gibb's was opening, Gibb's Hundred, and I kind of jumped on ship with them.

RC: Awesome. So you started in Greensboro?

WB: I started in Greensboro, stayed in Greensboro, with one small slip out to Burlington for a minute.

RC: Okay. Burlington Beer Works?

WB: Burlington Beer Works.

RC: Okay. When you moved from home brewing to professional, did you slide any of your recipes over?

WB: I mean, a few here and there.

RC: Yeah.

WB: There's some here actually.

RC: Which ones?

WB: The Intrepid Goat is a home brew recipe of ours. My wife's, actually. Then what else do we have here? I guess that's it that I have on right now.

RC: Yeah.

WB: Yeah, we've done a whole host of different things over the years.

RC: Sure. So you're a family of home brewers, then?

WB: Yeah. Well I mean, you can't do it with ...

RC: You kind of have to be.

WB: You have to be, exactly.

RC: Okay. Let's talk about SouthEnd.

WB: Okay.

RC: Can you tell us a little bit about the history of SouthEnd?

WB: It's a relatively new company. SouthEnd Brewing Company started only a few months ago, November 1st was our first day officially open of last year. It was 00:03:00started by a father/son duo, Eric and Seth Kevorkian. Eric Kevorkian, the father, is a home brewer, has been for a number of years. And decided he wanted to open a brewery. Him and his son batted around the idea for a number of years, they looked at a bunch of different spaces in Greensboro, and finally landed here.

WB: Decided to start brewing. They got my information via some friends, and basically, that's how they ended up here.

RC: Awesome. How did you end up here, back in this familiar space?

WB: When they started asking people around about different questions about how to build out a brewery, how to start a brewery, somehow, down the line, my name came up, and I got a telephone call one day, and they wanted to hire me as a consultant. So they hired me as a consultant, and I spent about six months with them, just kind of, this is what makes sense for that space. Well originally, 00:04:00when they started talking to me, this space wasn't on the table.

RC: Really?

WB: The space came open, and we talked to them about what they could do with the space, they agreed on the space. And then I went into building out a brewery, and what's involved in that. Eventually, they decided to make me an offer, and here I am.

RC: Here you are. You mentioned the space, can you describe the location and space?

WB: So we're at 117 West Lewis. The building was originally built in 1907, I believe. Don't quote me on any of that, but I'm pretty sure, 1907. My understanding was it originally was a horse stable on this side, and a blacksmith shop where the distillery is now. After that, it was an industrial laundromat, and it's been half a dozen other things. But it's been a brewery for about the past six years now.

RC: Yeah. Were there any unique challenges?

WB: With this build out, not too much. They did put a kitchen on the backside, where there originally was an office. Any time you involve food, that presents its own set of challenges, as far as health department, and just building a kitchen where there wasn't one. So all the drainage has to be taken care of, grease traps. The city, Guilford County Health Department, is a very thorough department, I'll say that. And has a list of requirements that have to be met, obviously. That was more of a challenge. On the brewery side, not so much, because the infrastructure was there, where a previous tenant had put in quite a bit of work in this building. So that wasn't too big of a challenge.

RC: Great. So if you were to describe SouthEnd to people who were unaware of the brewery, how would you describe the business?

WB: As far as theme or anything like that?

RC: Yeah. Theme, mission.

WB: Okay. So our mission is just to be a good, local resource, a good brewery. And be a community gathering space. As far as theme, we're not an English brewery, we're not a Belgian brewery. In my personal sense, I am very true to style brewer. I'm not a guy who wants to go dig around under a tree and find some root that's never been used before. I kind of think that there's a reason these styles have been made for this long. It's not broke, don't fix it. So we're just a true to style brewery.

RC: Great. Pulling from that, what would you say your role as head brewer is? Other than, you know, making the beer.

WB: So I said originally, with this company, I got started, I got hired as a consultant. Just doing some of the layout and design stuff. Then ultimately, I had a big hand in the actual construction, physically swinging hammers, building 00:07:00things. Which was nice. Now, it's basically anything on that side of this wall is under my forte. Raw material, the actual production, the cellar, packaging. Everything from that to draft line cleaning, we basically do it all.

RC: Yeah. So basically ... How large is your brewhouse?

WB: It's a seven barrel brewhouse. We have an oversize mash tun, so a seven barrel kettle, 10 barrel mash tun. Then we have two 15 barrel fermenters, a 15 barrel bright, three seven barrel fermenters, and a seven barrel bright.

RC: Awesome.

WB: So a decent amount of capacity.

RC: Yeah, yeah. What resources would you say you've drawn on to help you grow as a brewer?

WB: People.

RC: People?

WB: People. The biggest thing I can say is shaking hands and getting to know people that are smarter than me is everything.

RC: Yeah.

WB: That and books. Because unfortunately, in the home brew world, there's tons 00:08:00of information on the internet, there's tons of availability. Some of it's better than others. On the professional side, that doesn't exist, really. So you basically have to do your own research, and have to buy books, and get involved with people who are smarter than you. I mean, I can give you a laundry list of local brewers here that are smarter than me that have helped. I've asked questions, and everything else.

RC: Awesome. Great. Awesome.

WB: Oh and shameless plug.

RC: Please. Please.

WB: The MBAA, Master Brewer's Association of America, has been absolutely huge, too.

RC: Really?

WB: Because it's the best organization to join. I mean, they have a wealth of information going back to the '40s that you can read technicals from.

RC: That must be interesting in itself.

WB: Yeah. It's neat. Yeah.

RC: That's so great. This might be a question, it's a little early, considering you just opened in November. I was just curious if there's any sorts of fundraising or community engagement work that you all have been a part of?

WB: We have multiple groups that meet here, real estate associations meet here, 00:09:00junior achievement is meeting here next week. There's a couple clubs that meet here. Like I said, we're just trying to be a community resource to have an available space for people. It's still early on, but we're certainly willing to be involved with most anything.

RC: Great. How would you see SouthEnd growing in the future?

WB: Being that we are kind of a new kid on the block right now, right now we're doing all of our beer over our own bar. So no distribution whatsoever, we've sold one single keg so far outside of these walls. Hopefully in the near future, that's going to be changing. We're going to do a little bit of distribution, just kind of dip out toe in the water. Greensboro, Winston Salem, maybe. But no further than that.

RC: Right.

WB: Just to get some of our excess capacity out.

RC: Yeah, so stay local.

WB: Very local. Nothing more than probably Winston Salem, Burlington at the most.

RC: Okay, great. That'll present its own challenges and opportunities, I'm sure.

WB: I've been down this road before, and it definitely does.

RC: Yeah. That probably helps, though.

WB: Yeah. No. I've been all three of the tiers, I've been in the self distribution small brewery, I've been self distribution decent size, and been with the distributors, and they each present their own challenges.

RC: Yeah, I was going to say, and in different roles, right?

WB: Yeah.

RC: Speaking of roles, again, if you had an average week, if a week is a perfect amount of time, what would that be like?

WB: We brew usually two to three times a week here. Two to three days would be set up for brew days, some of those would be double days, it just depends. The rest of the time is honestly, there's a ton of cellar work to do, there's washing kegs, there's inventories, projections. There's a lot of stuff to do 00:11:00that people just don't really see on the ... It's not always fun, it's a lot of scrubbing, it's a lot of cleaning, it's a lot of just trying to make sense of nonsense.

RC: Right. People just see the beer magically appear in front of them.

WB: Exactly, exactly.

RC: They don't understand, yeah. Since, as the head brewer, you also have responsibilities beyond the actual making of the product as well. Yeah. How would you say SouthEnd reflects your brewing approach, your interests, and/or your philosophy?

WB: Once again, as far as our tap list goes, we're very true to style. I tend to stay in that realm of, like I said, if it's not broken, don't fix it.

RC: Right.

WB: We can be a true to style brewery, as I was. I came out of the home brew world, where you're brewing to a style. There's a guideline there, that you have to meet that guideline. So I tend to still subscribe to that philosophy.

RC: Great.

WB: So far, that's kind of what we've been doing.

RC: Great. Is there a beer or a beer recipe that you're the most proud of that you've created?

WB: Not on right now.

RC: Just in general.

WB: Well, the Moon River is pretty good.

RC: Okay.

WB: It's a black lager. I think our best beer that we've had on is we did a Bohemian Pils, so a Czech pils. I was pretty happy with that. That was our best selling beer when it was available. It's coming back here, shortly.

RC: Yeah, you don't want that one to go away.

WB: Yeah, no, I'm a big fan of lager brewing, for the most part.

RC: Yeah.

WB: That tends to be my forte.

RC: Actually, you do ales and lagers?

WB: We do, we do ales and lagers.

RC: That's probably its own challenge.

WB: Well, lagers take double the amount of time. More than that. I can do three ales in the time it takes me to do one lager in the same real estate.

RC: Yeah.

WB: But I love them, that's where my passion is. Yeah. Right now, we can do them 00:13:00because I have the tank space and the real estate. Down the road, we might have to cut back on that a little bit, just from a real estate standpoint.

RC: That makes perfect sense, yeah. Then you'd say as far as when you finish a recipe, that that was one of your ... This is the closest I've gotten?

WB: Yeah. I mean, I was super happy with that. That would be what I would ... If I could say, "Hey, try one beer from SouthEnd," that would be the one I'd push to when it's available.

RC: Okay. Awesome. Let's just talk about the industry a little more broadly for a minute. This will be actually more interesting, since you've been in Greensboro so long. Which is how you see the brewing scene has changed since you first went into the business.

WB: It's just blown up.

RC: Yeah.

WB: I mean honestly, five years ago, six years ago, I mean, there was Natty Greene's. Red Oak had moved out of here, they were out on the highway. But it was just Natty Greene's. That was kind of the only game in town. Then Gibb's came in. Pig Pounder. Well actually, Pig Pounder came in, then Gibb's. But I 00:14:00mean, within a stone's throw of timeline from each other. Now it's just continuing to grow. You've got us opened up, you have Oden, Leveneleven. You've got two or three more that are on the horizons of opening up.

WB: It really has just, what started out as a small growth, I mean, I think Natty Greene's was the lone in this town for 10 years.

RC: Yeah.

WB: Basically. Red Oak was down the highway. Now it's just blown up. There's so many more breweries opening up, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down.

RC: Yeah. What role do you feel these breweries have played, such as yourself, have played in changes in Greensboro and the triad over that timeframe?

WB: I think economic development is huge.

RC: Yeah.

WB: With that. Obviously, you take an area that is challenged economically and you throw a brewery in there, all of a sudden, you get development in that area. You put a brewery there, more people are going to come to that area, restaurants are going to follow. It has a tendency to expand out the economic area of that location.

RC: Yeah. We've seen a trend where towns are actually courting breweries.

WB: Very much so.

RC: Which is interesting.

WB: I know, there's a town, Reidsville, just north of here, that has given a building to a brewery with the idea of developing that.

RC: Interesting. Yeah. What would you say it's like to work in the craft brewing industry today?

WB: It's changed. It's definitely a fun industry. This industry is slightly different than most industries I've been in in the past, in that people here, I don't want to say care about each other. But there's definitely kind of a kinship there. There's definitely a friendship. Even though you're kind of competitors, you still have that ... You're still friendly, you still do collaboration beers, you're still a rising tide rises all ships type of scenario.

RC: Right. If you had a crystal ball of where do you think the brewing industry 00:16:00would be in the next five years?

WB: While I don't think we're at the point of entire saturation, I think saturation is coming. I do think there will be somewhat of a shakeout of the brewing industry. I kind of think your guys that are in the middle are going to have the biggest problem. Your guys that are multi-state, regional type breweries will be fine. They have enough clout, enough contracts, to see them through. Your small breweries, kind of your neighborhood breweries, I think they'll be absolutely fine because they have a neighborhood established.

WB: I think your mid-level breweries that are doing distribution, maybe state-wide distribution, something like that, will have some issues just because they're not big enough to reach everybody but they're no small enough to be in the neighborhood.

RC: Right. That makes sense. Are there any particular trends in the industry that you either really like or really dislike?

WB: Probably going to step on some toes. But I really dislike, I was never a big fan of the hazy.

RC: Yeah.

WB: I mean, in years past, you avoided that, you purposely avoided that. That was a flaw, that was a problem. Then like I said, I'm just kind of a true to style guy, and I'm not one that wants to just throw random things in beer just because I can.

RC: That makes perfect sense, especially considering your style and philosophy.

WB: Yeah.

RC: Yeah. So moving on to a few general questions, is there anything that you see as unique about southern or North Carolina beer?

WB: There's a huge amount of variety here. I mean, you can get a beer for anybody in the state. Everything from crystal clear, great lagers to I don't know where, hazy IPAs. There's something for everybody in this state. I don't 00:18:00care where you are on the spectrum, there really is.

RC: Great. Is there anything you see about the Triad brewing scene as different or unique?

WB: It's definitely growing. I think we have some really, really great breweries here that are producing really, really good beer that somewhat, I think, get looked over. When you look at the whole state of North Carolina. I mean Triad, I don't want to say it's the black eye of North Carolina, but it is in some ways. I think the brewing culture in the Triad is still developing. It doesn't get the credit Charlotte and Asheville and Raleigh and some of the other areas do.

RC: Yeah, fair enough. Do you have a favorite beer, at least recently, from a North Carolina brewery other than SouthEnd?

WB: Wow.

RC: As someone who's already told us that he travels to pretty much all breweries.

WB: Yeah, we've been to most of them. We've been to 200 in the state. I mean, I would say an old standby, I'm a Highland Gaelic Ale fan. I mean, I know it's not probably the most popular one. But it's an old standby. That beer, since I've 00:19:00been 21, that beer has been a beer that made its way.

RC: It's an old friend.

WB: It's an old friend. It's an old friend. Exactly, exactly.

RC: I think you already basically said that your favorite beer from SouthEnd was the black lager.

WB: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

RC: Would you say that SouthEnd ...

WB: Or the pils, one of the two.

RC: The what?

WB: Or the pils, the pilsner. One of the two, yeah.

RC: Or the pils, yeah, okay. Is there one that you would say is SouthEnd's flagship? Which is different than your ...

WB: Yeah. So being new, we're still kind of working out the whole flagship. Right now, I'd say Intrepid Goat is going to be one of our flagships. That's one of our IPAs. Our pilsner, maybe becomes a flagship, if tank space will allow. But probably, I would say the Intrepid Goat, and then the blonde, probably, are our two that will be here to stay.

RC: So as someone who is a beer tourist, I suppose, you've said you've traveled.

WB: Yeah.

RC: Is there, not necessarily specific places you'd recommend, but an approach you would recommend to people who want to do that sort of thing? To see a variety.

WB: As far as just ...

RC: Yeah, to see the variety in this state.

WB: Yeah. Obviously, hit your hubs. You know, sometimes you can go to a town like Asheville and you can hit 10 breweries in a day if you're willing. But don't overlook some of these little out of the way places. Be willing to ride out to Elkin, and Troutman, and these little small towns that happen to have a brewery. Honestly, you can make a great little day of it, you know? Go out to the brewery, sample their fares, find a little restaurant around the corner, or if they have a restaurant, eat there. It makes great day trips, it really does.

RC: Great. That's all I've got. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

WB: No, I think that's pretty well it.

RC: Awesome. Great. Thank you for your time.

WB: I appreciate you guys.