Oral history interview with Brett Taubman, 2022

Erin Lawrimore: Today is Monday, July 25, 2022. I'm Erin Lawrimore, and I am conducting an interview for the Well Crafted NC project. To start, can you say and spell your name?

Brett Taubman: Sure. I am Brett Taubman. BRETT TAUBMAN.

Erin Lawrimore: Awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? How did you get here?

Brett Taubman: Ooh! It's a-

Erin Lawrimore: The long and winding road.

Brett Taubman: ... long and tortuous journey. Originally, when I was 17 years old, we'll start there, I suppose. I had always been a math and science geek. I had no idea what I wanted to do in college though, and I come from a family of 00:01:00business people and attorneys. When I told my father that I wanted to be a marine biologist, that's what I thought I wanted to do then. I was the type of kid who had five fish tanks in his room, I had a dwarf caiman, electric eels, I had all kinds of interesting critters growing up. But when I told my father I wanted to go into marine biology, his response was, "Where do you want to work? At SeaWorld?" I was like, "It doesn't sound so bad." Anyway, I capitulated to what I thought he wanted me to do, which was go into a more business-oriented major, so I chose finance, which I had absolutely zero interest in, but it sounded somewhat quantitative. Of course, I was bored stiff with finance, but as I was finishing up, again, I had no desire to go work on Wall Street, which is 00:02:00what every finance major does, so I decided to go to law school and follow in the footsteps of my father and my older brother. At that point, I think he finally realized, "Dude, maybe this isn't the right career for you," so he was like, "Are you sure this is what you want to do?" "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely." Ended up going to George Washington law school, which is a great law school, but also happen to be the most expensive law school in the country at the time. The good news is I met my future wife there. The bad news, I guess, is we ended up dropping out after a year. I convinced her to drop out with me and I think my mother-in-law has just started to forgive me for that after 27 years of marriage. She's just starting to warm up to me. Wonderful woman. We 00:03:00dropped out of law school, traveled around the world for a year, came back, lived with my parents for a few months, got married. Traveled again for another few months, and then we knew at that point that we both wanted to go back to school. She was also at law school. She had a political science undergraduate degree, not a lot you can do with that other than law school. We knew we wanted to go back to school, weren't sure for exactly what. I wanted to ski also, so we settled on Bozeman, Montana and went back to Montana state. It took me a few years to settle on what I wanted to do. I was still thinking biology and I took biology courses at that point and I was like, "God, this is so boring. All you do is memorize stuff." Then I took chemistry and I was like, "Oh yeah. This is 00:04:00the field for me," because it's very black and white. It's very quantitative. You have a problem, there's a solution, so I realized very quickly that that was the field for me. I went into chemistry, still thought that I wanted to do more of the biological side, so I thought, "Oh, I'll do biochemistry," and so that was the option that I chose. It's the different tracks that they had at Montana state. Chose the biochem option, but I took biochem classes too and I was like, "God, these are just as bad as the biology courses that I love so much." Even though I did the biochem option, I ended up taking the four-year physical chemistry, instrumental analysis, so the more analytical and physical side, which I really enjoyed a lot more because that's the more quantitative side of 00:05:00things. After that, and my wife went back and got a Master's Degree in Computer Science. We had our first child in Montana. At this point, as I was finishing up and she was finishing up, I was finishing up with a second Bachelor's Degree in Chemistry, she was finishing up with a Master's Degree in Computer Science. We had a two year old at this time, so it's like, "Okay. Well, I wanted to go on and get my PhD," and she was looking for a job. Our family was all back on the East Coast, in the Maryland area, Maryland, DC area. She ended up getting a job at NIH. We were like, "Okay. That settles it." We've got family there. She had a really great job. There were really two options, University of Maryland and College Park or Johns Hopkins. I got accepted into both programs and the Hopkins. She was working in Rockville. There's the main campus for NIH and 00:06:00Bethesda. She was actually working at one of the offices in Rockville, which is a lot closer to College Park, where Maryland is. Hopkins is down in Baltimore and not the greatest neighborhood in the world. It's also a schlep depending on where we wanted to be located. It was going to be a schlep for one of us if I was going to do Hopkins. I was accepted actually into two programs at Hopkins, Geography and Environmental Sciences, Environmental Engineering program they had there and Chemistry. I kid you not, I went and at Hopkins, you had to do an interview process before they fully admit you there. I kid you not, the first person I sat down with had the pink sweater over the shoulders, had the penny loafers on with the pennies in them no less and I was like, "Okay, this is not a 00:07:00good fit for me." Plus, there was one person doing research in the chemistry department that I was interested in. He was pre-tenured, which is always a gamble. Everybody else was either doing computational chemistry, which I had zero interest in or biomedical chemistry because it's Hopkins. In geography and environmental engineering, not one person was doing field work, which is what I was more interested in doing. Maryland, a much bigger university, research university and there were several faculty doing what I was interested in, which was more environmental research at that point. I ended up going to Maryland, they offered me more money anyway to go there, so it made sense. I went to Maryland and ended up doing atmospheric chemistry there. I had always had an 00:08:00interest in foods and flavors, and that's why I was leaning more toward the biochem side of things, but I was just so bored by the options that I found that I ended up doing environmental research, because at least it seemed interesting to me. Finished up there and, at that point, my wife was so stressed out and 9/11 happened on our son's, I guess that would've been what? His third birthday, right? It was 2001, that was his second birthday, so it was right after we moved to Maryland. It was a full lab day for me, so that was my double TA day, so I had two labs back to back that I had to TA. Half the students at Maryland are from New York anyway. Half the students weren't there, the other half were on 00:09:00their phones, nobody knew what was going on at that time. The internet was not like it is today with the phone. Everybody, if you had a phone, it was a flip phone type of thing. Nobody really knew what was going on for the entire day. Our son was in the health and human services, the giant government building in Rockville. He was at that daycare facility because my wife worked in that same government facility. She had to argue with the security guard to get him, because they were locked down and it was just a mess. After that, my wife was already stressed about her job. Then we ended up having our second child a couple of years later and we were like, "All right. We need to get out of this area," because he then, we had to put him in daycare at seven weeks old. Then he 00:10:00got horrible, infections as a result, so he was on the breathing apparatus and it was not fun. She's like, "You're going to finish up and you're going to find a position somewhere else and we're going to get out of here." I ended up getting a post-doctoral position at Penn state with a woman who, she was the Ozone queen. She had worked at NASA, her entire career and was a big wig. Literally, when I say Ozone queen, she was like the person doing Ozone sound measurements. Penn state had finally, I guess, offered her a package. It was good enough for her to move to Penn state. I went there and she actually stayed at NASA for the first six months that I was doing my postdoc there, so I was responsible for setting up the lab, overseeing the grad students that joined her 00:11:00lab and also designing and installing all of the instrumentation in a mobile laboratory that we were going to use for ground truthing satellite measurements that were being done by NASA and Noah. It was a lot. She was a challenging postdoctoral advisor to work for. I hope she never watches this video, which I'm sure she will not. That's when I'm like, "All right, I need to think about other career options because this is just not fun." I was like, "I am going to go back to what I'm interested in and get more into food and flavor chemistry, where I really had the greatest desire." That's when I was like, "I love craft beer, I 00:12:00want to start brewing, this will be a good outlet for me to actually produce something tangible and artistic." That's when I got into brewing is, in my postdoc around 2004. After a three-year postdoc, I managed to survive and I was like, "All right. It is time for me to move on now and look for a tenure track position." I wanted to meld my chemistry background with my desire for doing something more in foods and flavors, and the brewing seemed an obvious choice at that point. When I was looking for tenure track positions, this position at Appalachian came up. They actually had the beginning of what was, it was called at that time, Oenology Viticulture and Natural Products program. I was like, "This sounds great." Interview here, it went great, it was my first choice, it's 00:13:00a beautiful area, I was somewhat familiar with Boone already. It was great because we had family at that point in Florida, Maryland, New York, so it was a great in-between spot for everything. We knew we needed to stay on the east coast at that point with two young children. When I interviewed here, I even presented my research that I was doing. I presented in a way that I could incorporate into that program, the oenology viticulture and natural products, imagining making environmental measurements to support vineyards and that type of thing and wine production. I also told them in the interview, I want to use brewing as a vehicle for teaching chemistry to young students, because chemistry 00:14:00is the type of thing when you tell someone you're a chemist, there's one of two reactions. One is, "Oh my God, that's amazing. That's so cool. What do you do?" The other and more common one is, "Oh my God, I hated chemistry. I barely survived it. I got a D and now, I can't believe you do that with your life." I thought that brewing would be a really good conduit for teaching that science. It's a really good combination of a lot of different disciplines too. Chemistry, biochemistry, physics, engineering, so many things wrapped up into one interesting bundle that is so much more approachable and tangible than the normal way that we teach chemistry. Sure enough, after I came here, well, I quickly realized that the person who had started the oenology viticulture natural products program, who was another chemistry faculty, how to put this? 00:15:00Was doing some interesting things with, he had gotten a ton of grant money to start the program, but then it used a lot of the money for his own personal pursuits, and so was running afoul of the university administration not surprisingly and also was a challenging person to work with in general. I quickly distanced myself from him and fortunately, the university was able to work out a deal with him, so that he would leave the university and go his merry way. I had already begun teaching brewing science courses. I did it as honors courses initially, because that was an interesting way and an easy way to teach a special topics course and teach it as more of a multidisciplinary course as 00:16:00well, so students from other disciplines could also take it. Did that for a few years. After this other faculty member left, the Dean approached me and said, "Hey, let's hire somebody to bring somebody in who you can work with that you can develop a proper program that we can then get state approval, because while he started this oenology viticulture and natural products program, he got university approval, there's the AP&P committee, which I'm sure you're familiar with, where you get university approval first, but then if you're introducing a new degree-granting program, you also have to get state approval, obviously, because we're at a UNC system school. He said, "Let's bring in somebody else, you two can work together and develop the program properly and get state 00:17:00approval for it." This, I want to say, I came here in 2007, I want to say this was around 2010 that we ended up hiring Seth Cohen from Oregon state. He had done a PhD at Oregon state. We brought him in, he and I worked on this program, developed what would become the Fermentation Sciences program, got university approval, brought it to the state, got state approval for it, and by 2012, we had a degree-granting program for fermentation sciences. That happened in 2012 and for the next half a dozen years or so, we were a stand-alone degree granting program, which was, there were a few of them, environmental sciences was another one. There was another interdisciplinary program that they had, these programs that didn't have their own home department. We thought that we were going to be 00:18:00made a department, our own department. That was what we were led to believe and then at the last minute they said, "Oh, by the way, you're not getting your own department, so you have to join another department." I can't remember the timing exactly. That might have been the nail in the coffin for Seth. Seth is a wonderful, brilliant guy, amazing wine researcher and wine maker, but didn't really have the patience and personality in general for academia. You really have to be a special kind of person for academia. Crazy, I don't know what it is, but wasn't really his cup of tea. While he was amazing, getting the program established and getting the curriculum in place, patience was not his strong 00:19:00suit. I can't remember the timing exactly, whether that was the nail in the coffin that did it or he was already fed up and was leaving. Anyway, at that point, they said, "No, you're not getting your own department, by the way. We don't have the resources to do that, so you need to choose another department to join." Well, being chemistry faculty already, I was like, "Well, let's do chemistry." That's when we brought it to the chemistry department and said, "Hey, would you mind if we join the department and made it be chemistry and fermentation sciences department?" Chemists are notoriously stodgy and set in their ways, so there was a little bit of pushback, but I was so pleasantly surprised that the faculty in general were really welcoming and they were all for it. It was great. I like to think that I had something to do with that and that I was liked and respected in the department, but who knows what the real 00:20:00reason was. Anyway, in 2018, we merged departments or merged the program with the department and became the Department of Chemistry and Fermentation Sciences. We had an interim director at that point, and that was right around the time that I was going up for full professor too. Prior to that, I had no desire to direct the fermentation sciences program, because I had enough on my plate trying to get tenure first and then move up the ranks and become full professor. We had an interim director for a year, Stephan Summer, who's another brilliant wine researcher, but not necessarily cut out for academia. There were some interesting issues, difficult issues that he had with the whole tenure process too. Anyway, with that, he ended up leaving and then we merged with the 00:21:00chemistry department, I had just made full professor, so then I went up for the director of the program and that's when I became director of the Fermentation Sciences program too, and so, here we are four years later, we are now part of the chemistry and fermentation sciences department and I've been the director for the last several years of the program.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. It sounds like, maybe there's been a shift, but a fairly recent shift from a focus on wine to a focus on not just broader fermentation.

Brett Taubman: There has. We always, when we went in, we wanted this to be about fermentation. We became, in 2012, we were the first standalone fermentation sciences program in the country. There were well-established programs and 00:22:00amazing programs at Oregon state, Washington state, UC Davis, Cornell, you name them. There were a number of programs around the country, but they were food sciences programs. They were all food science departments and within them, they would do, they would have wine programs, brewing programs and so forth, but the focus was always on food science not fermentation specifically, so that's what we wanted to be our focus was fermentation, and really focus on that. That not only included wine and beer and yes, those were the two more popular ones from the beginning, the wine and the beer, and I think they were equally popular from the beginning. When I oversaw the brewing portion of it, that's when I shifted to, as I came here and got more involved in the fermentation program and especially after I made tenure, I made that switch in my research from environmental research to fermentation research and more of a brewing science 00:23:00focus. I like to say now that I'm a vice chemist, because my research is focused on brewing and cannabinoids primarily, so I've got beer and weed covered. I like to say I do vice chemistry, but that's when I made the shift. That was the beauty also of coming to a school like App and not an R1. First of all, I wanted to teach more. I really enjoy teaching. I like to think I'm pretty good at it, and I like to think that's where I can make my greatest contribution to the next generation is through my teaching and mentorship of students not necessarily in my research. I like to think that I'm a good researcher too, but the research that I'm ... the atmospheric research and environmental research that I was 00:24:00doing, it-

Brett Taubman: Environmental research that I was doing, it's somewhat depressing because I feel like it's all bad news. I mean, you're reporting on, oh, look how horrible the air quality is, and oh, the climate is getting worse and worse. I mean, it's not the most... It's satisfying in one respect, you're doing good research and working with amazing researchers from around the world, but it's somewhat depressing information. I also really, I am a very creative person too, and I like to have something tangible that I can really hang my hat on. Scientific papers only go so far in satisfying that creative side. I mean, when 40 whole people from around the world are reading your research, you're like, 00:25:00"Ooh, this is great." But it doesn't necessarily really satisfy that side of things. So getting more into the fermentation side of things and using my analytical chemistry background to really get into that part of the research, it was so much more satisfying. I mean, yes, I'm not solving the world's problems. Not that you're really doing that when you work in environmental research either. I mean, you're making such small steps in the grand scheme of things that it's hard to really see where you're contributing half the time anyway. So being able to do good research at the same time as making really cool products that you can taste and smell. I mean, it just makes it so much more satisfying for someone like me at least. I mean, not everybody is the same, but it made it a lot more satisfying for me, so that transition really, it started to happen 00:26:00back in my postdoc days. And then when I came here, especially, and then I really kicked it in after I made tenure and then I could be like, "Well, I can really do whatever I want now." And still stay active. I mean, I'm that Type A type of personality as most of us are. And so can't stop doing things, but could really shift the focus of my research. I did the diploma modules, the diploma and brewing through the IBD. And so really beefed up my background in that area. And so I headed the brewing science portion of the program, but we also, I mean, we have bioprocessing as part of our curriculum, wine production, distillation, 00:27:00brewing, and now we're starting to incorporate a lot more food fermentations as well. That's where I see a lot of the future of this program going. I mean, wine and beer is somewhat saturated in this country at this point, the wine, especially in North Carolina. I mean, we're in North Carolina, right? We're a top 10 state for wine production, but barely, and don't think we're really moving up those ranks either. Well yeah, you can certainly make decent wine in North Carolina. It's not France, it's not Northern California. I mean, you're limited in what you can do in North Carolina because of the climate and the soil and other conditions. Brewing is great. I love it. I will continue to... That will continue to be the major portion of my career in research and will always 00:28:00support the industry. But we are seeing, I think, that saturation at this point where we're not going to see a lot more growth in the industry, especially the craft side, especially as we continue to compete with seltzers and other types of alcoholic beverages, non-malt alcoholic beverages. The bioprocessing, I think, is really interesting and a really interesting part of fermentation, which includes bioremediation, pharmaceuticals. We do have students that do end up going into that as their careers. I mean, they're very good career options for our students, but the students aren't very interested in that side of things either. They definitely like the more hands-on and what they deem as the more creative side of things. So they love the wine, they love the beer, they love 00:29:00the food fermentation side of things too. So I think that's what we've really started to beef up in this program, will continue to grow, I think, in the next several years is maybe you can see behind me, our meat cabinets behind us are for fermentation cabinets back there.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. So let's talk about the program, like where it stands now. About how many students do you have?

Brett Taubman: We have about 60 majors right now. I'd like to see that grow to about 100 majors where I think would be a sweet spot for us. 60 is not a bad place to be, but I think we do have room for growth in this program. Part of the area for growth, I think, is with more traditional students. So we get a lot of non-traditional students, a lot of military veterans, a lot of people who in their first careers are not very satisfied and would like to do something that 00:30:00they enjoy more for their careers. So they have a lot of time to think about what they would like to do and decide that they want to go into more of these fermentation industries. That's who we get now because fermentation sciences is not on the radar of your typical high school student, right? That's not where they... They're thinking if they want to go STEM option, they're thinking math or chemistry or physics, not fermentation because they don't even necessarily know that it exists. I would like to grow that awareness of our program throughout the state, throughout the region and even nationally. I mean, we're a nationally recognized program for people in the know. But for your typical high school student, we're not really on their radar yet. That's where I'd like to be because not only for growing the program, but also growing the diversity of the 00:31:00program, because our program is reflective of the industry as a whole right now, which is very white male-dominated. And that's something that I've been working on for several years to try and change, as I know, many industry members are. The industry, I think, has finally woken up to that issue recently. So I work together with industry folks to try and make changes. We have a couple of scholarships that we offer already in the program, diversity scholarships, women in fermentation sciences to try and increase those numbers because it will start here. It will start in programs like ours and then translate into the industry as a whole or all of the fermentation industries and hope to continue to increase that diversity. And by bringing in the more typical high school 00:32:00student, I mean, that's where we see the diversity is in high school. Most colleges now are about 60% women in general, which is great on the one hand, but we need more young men going to college as well in the future. But that's where I think we can really grow is more women and more people of color in this program.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. How about the faculty? What does the faculty... How many folks do you have?

Brett Taubman: We have six faculty right now and our faculty is wonderfully diverse. I mean, we don't have that many faculty, but just in this program, I mean, we have me sort of, I don't know, brownish. We have a Nigerian faculty member, we have a Brazilian woman faculty member. So we have good div... and that's where it starts also. If you want to increase diversity among your 00:33:00students, you better show them people that look like them on the faculty. I mean, that's the easy part for us because there's not a lot of fermentation programs in this country. Most of the programs, PhD granting programs are abroad in Europe, and Asia, and Latin America, so that's where most of the applicants are coming from for these faculty positions in the first place. So I mean, that part is good and we're currently searching. The wine person in this position I liken to the drummer, and this is Spinal Tap where their drummer would always spontaneously combust. And so they constantly had to replace the drummer. That's what I feel like with the wine position here. I think a lot of that has to do with there's a need for a lot of winemakers out there and they make good 00:34:00salaries. And again, it's you have to be a special breed to want to go into academia. You're in Boone, North Carolina here, so it's not exactly the wine Mecca of the world. So attracting good wine people here with PhDs is always a challenge and getting them to stay here is challenging as well. Beer can be made anywhere. Fermented foods can be made anywhere. Bioprocessing is done anywhere. Distillation can be done anywhere. Wine, on the other hand, is much more regionally specific. That's the ongoing problem that we always have, so we're currently searching for another wine person right now. So hopefully-

Erin Lawrimore: With all challenges that come with any kind of search right now.

Brett Taubman: It's true. It's true. It's difficult finding any people in academia right now. Especially when you're faced with the housing markets and lower salaries in academia, it's always a challenge finding good people.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah, and I would think Boone would be even harder than other places when it comes to housing market versus-

Brett Taubman: It's so limited in general. And then you tack on the exorbitantly priced homes here because of all the vacation homes. Yeah, it's not fun. So we're seeing that in all disciplines, and then you throw in something like, "Oh, come make wine in Boone, North Carolina." Okay. So it's a challenge, but we're looking for somebody right now. And so hopefully we get that person in by January. That's the goal for that position.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. So with the students, you're focusing solely, it's an undergrad degree program, correct?

Brett Taubman: Correct, yep.

Erin Lawrimore: Are you looking at any point in adding a master's option?

Brett Taubman: Oh yeah. We've had the application for a master's program on the books for many years. We know it's a natural fit because again a lot of people 00:36:00who already have another degree, they were in another career, I'd love to come back and do this, but I don't really want to do another undergrad degree. So we already have the interest there. It's just a matter of having the timing right at the university and the resources. Now that we're a combined department, it's a matter of working that out with our five-year strategic planning committee and so forth, because we'd also like to start a master's program in chemistry again too. We had one many years ago before even I was here that traditionally a master's degree in chemistry was not very popular. Back when I did my PhD, it was like you did an undergrad in chemistry and then you go on to get your PhD, right? If you didn't cut the PhD or felt like, "Oh, this isn't right for me," they'd give you a master's degree and don't let the door hit you on the backside on the way out. Those were traditionally the only people with master's degrees 00:37:00in chemistry. Whereas a lot of other disciplines, you do your bachelor's, then you get a master's degree, then you do your PhD. Chemistry wasn't like that. So the chemistry master's degree here was never that popular and eventually they just let it die. So we technically still have one on the books here, and we're talking about reviving that, but there's naturally pushback among other faculty. We'll see if and when that happens, but that's tied into the whole if and when we start a master's program in fermentation as well. But I think we will, and I think that will be the first one that we do in the department because it is probably a more natural fit for the program. I'd also like to start some certificate programs for folks in industry that can take four or five courses and earn a certificate. I think that's a very natural fit for our program, too. 00:38:00I think it's something that with the advent of more online capabilities that we have now as a result of the pandemic, I think that's something that we can incorporate in the certificate program as well where you do a bunch of it online and then you come for some intensive week-long program type of things to finish out those courses.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. You mentioned, I think before we started recording some, I don't know if continuing ed was the word you used, but some additional classes that y'all are doing here. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Brett Taubman: Sure. We have offered for several years now, six, eight years, a week-long brewing science short course, which is designed for folks in industry or the advanced home brewer who wants to take it to the next level and open their own brewery. So we've been doing that for a number of years. Typically, we 00:39:00offer one per summer. Sometimes we offer as many as two or three a summer, although it's a lot of work. It's an intensive week-long 8:00 to 5:00 program so it's pretty exhausting. Usually, we keep it at one per week.

Erin Lawrimore: How many students do you usually have?

Brett Taubman: We cap it at 12. Normally, we have between eight and 12 students in every session. I think this year we have 10 right now signed up and that's going to be offered in a couple of weeks. We are wanting to start a similar program in wine. There would be more focused, less on the production, more on the analytical side because that's where most winemakers in this state run into problems. They don't have the capabilities to do the analyses. Or even if they do, they don't really have the know-how to interpret those results that they're 00:40:00getting and how to, okay, well, I got this number. What does it mean? What do I have to do going forward? That would be more of the focus of the wine program. But again, as our winemakers continue to spontaneously combust, that's been the problem with starting that week-long wine course. I think next summer, we're going to offer a meat fermentation intensive course too, probably not a week-long, but maybe two or three days where we do that is we also offer, incorporate a meat fermentation and a dairy fermentation or regular course offering. We offer those, I mean, we do a lot of food fermentations in a couple lower level courses that we offer now, but I'd like to incorporate regular upper level courses that are focused on meat fermentations and dairy fermentations.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. And that leads me perfectly into the next question I wanted to ask, which is about basically the curriculum for the students who are 00:41:00here. Can you talk a little bit about the curriculum, the courses that are offered in the program itself?

Brett Taubman: Sure. Yeah. It's a rigorous science degree is what students are getting in the fermentation sciences program. So you get a bachelor of science degree. You have to do two and a half years of chemistry, a year and a half of biology, a year of math and statistics really before you even get into the meat of your fermentation courses. So again, there are several lower level fermentation courses that students are required to take. But once they finish up with the background science information to give them that foundation, so then they can apply that to these more fermentation specific scenarios, that's when they can choose to focus in either wine production and analysis, brewing production and analysis, distillation technology, or bioprocessing. Now, we're 00:42:00also going to incorporate that food fermentation as another option for those students. And then the capstones, so every major has to do a capstone course, which is a synthesis course. It's supposed to synthesize all of the knowledge that they have obtained at that point into that course-

Erin Lawrimore: Is that a unique course for... Does each student craft their own or-

Brett Taubman: No, no. Typically, it's just a course that every student, every major in a particular discipline has to take. And this is true of every major at this university and pretty much every university out there, almost every major always has a capstone course that you would take in your senior year. Historically, it has been our sensory analysis course, which is a great statistically-based sensory science course. If a student wants to go into quality management, which is a lot of the training that they receive in this program, so a lot of students do go more into the laboratory side of things 00:43:00because they're trained as analytical scientists in this degree. It's great for that. If they want to go more specifically into sensory science and even production, because you always need sensory science, a sensory science background for production, or at least you should have some sensory science background for production. Not everyone does. But we also wanted to because we know that students going into bioprocessing or they're really going more into the production side of things, we wanted to give students another option for their capstone course, and especially students who wanted to get more hands-on experience. I mean, this is a very hands-on program in general, but you can always use more hands-on experience, especially if it's something that you're focused on on a daily basis for hours every day. So we made an either/or option 00:44:00for our students a few years ago. They can either do the sensory analysis course, or now they can do the internship. So they can do an internship for credit as their capstone course as well, where they can get paid as part of that in... They could do a regular paid internship and work full-time. And that's usually what they do. Either they've finished up all their other coursework and their last semester, then they're doing this internship. Or the summer after they finish their coursework, they do the internship just to complete their degree requirements. So they can work full-time and get paid. But then they also have to design a specific project, a research project to work on as part of that internship. It's typically easy because most of these businesses have a million questions that they want answered, but they don't have the time or resources to answer. Oh, well, here's Jane intern who can come in and focus on answering a 00:45:00particular question for them. And so they do the research on it, they gather the data, they interpret the data, and then they write a scientific report on that research that they did as part of their internship. That satisfies the internship portion, the internship for credit portion and hopefully they also gained valuable information for that particular business. It can really be a win-win for the student and for the business.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. I know you all do a lot of work with and for and about other local businesses. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Brett Taubman: Sure. Yeah. We have great relationships with industry and... I mean, that's why we're here is to support all of these different fermentation industries, so whether it's working with them on internships. We have a service 00:46:00laboratory as part of our program, so we're one of the only recharge centers on campus where we actually are a revenue generator on campus. Outside of the athletic department and the bookstore, we're one of the only recharge centers on campus. So we offer all of the analytical services that these different fermented beverage industries require. So whether it's sulfur and wine, or alcohol and wine, or volatile acidity, bitterness and beer, alcohol in kombucha, we provide those analytical services for a fee. That helps to support the program. It provides scholarships for students to work in the laboratory. It helps the industry folks out by giving them that information they need. That, we 00:47:00provide advice in general to industry folks and can provide potentially other analytical services that may not be part of the regular analyses that we provide, providing interns for these businesses. Obviously, future employees. I just sent out a detailed email for we are just starting an industry advisory board for fermentation sciences. Again, we want to make this mutually beneficial for the industry and our program. What do you all need? What do you want to see out of our graduates? Where are they lacking? What information should we be giving them so that they can really hit the ground running and help your businesses? At the same time, then they can provide employment for our graduates, internships, scholarships, and so forth.

Brett Taubman: Graduates, internships, scholarships and so forth. So we really try and work closely with industry. I mean, I always tell prospective students and their parents and the enrollment folks here, because they ask me, "Why should my student, or why should I, or what can we tell prospective students that would interest them in your program? Why should they join your program?" And I tell them, "Look, if you're interested in STEM, you like math and science, and you like working with your hands and you want a job once you graduate, this is a great program for you." Because our problem is we have more employers seeking our graduates than we have graduates to fill those positions. So it's just a matter of them selecting what industry they want to work for and where they want to work as far as what job they're going to take. So I think by 00:49:00working closely with industry and understanding what their needs are, we can best train our students. And we know that these are very hands on industries. And especially the smaller businesses, it's not like their role is going to be so specifically designated. They're going to be wearing a different hat every day of the week, probably, and probably multiple hats every single day. So giving them that experience and by giving them as much hands on experience and showing them how to troubleshoot, oh, well, this tastes weird. Well, what does it taste like? Can you identify what that flavor is? Okay. What's the compound that causes that flavor? Where does it come from? How do we fix that? Oh my 00:50:00gosh, our pump just went down. Well, how do we fix the pump? So all of these hands on troubleshooting types of issues that will inevitably come up on a regular basis in any job, we try and give them that experience so they really can be a benefit to these industry folks. And I like to think that we're doing a pretty good job. I mean, we hear great feedback from industry folks and from our students as well, who have graduated saying, I really thought that you were ... I didn't understand why you went into such gory detail on that one issue. Now, I get it. Things like that. So that makes me feel good. We're giving them the right training for them to be successful. And for them to help these industries really grow and be successful as well.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. And do most of your graduates stay here in North Carolina?

Brett Taubman: A lot of them do. A lot of them move on to other states, other countries even. Just depends. It's kind of weird because I feel like, first of 00:51:00all, the UNC system, which you're familiar with, we have to accept 86%, I think it is of our students from in state. It's an incredibly high number, which is good and bad. So most of our students come from North Carolina. Although in the beginning of our program, we saw a lot more students from around the country because again, being the first fermentation program, there weren't any other options. We're still one of the only standalone fermentation programs that are out there, but there are some more program options that are out there. So it's interesting because I feel like we had more students from around the country in the beginning of the program than we do now. And so a lot of those students were then leaving North Carolina. Whereas now, we have more students from North Carolina, and a lot of the North Carolina students, I think really like North 00:52:00Carolina and want to stay in state for the most part or at least regional. So we do have a number of students. And I say the majority of our students certainly stay in state, but a lot are willing to explore other options that are out there in other states and even other countries.

Erin Lawrimore: Can you give some examples or would you like to brag on some of the graduates and some of the roles that they've taken on?

Brett Taubman: Yeah. I mean, we have one student. She is the master distiller now at, and I'm blanking on ... I want to say it's Rose something Distillery in Australia.

Erin Lawrimore: Four Roses?

Brett Taubman: No, not for rose. No, I would be so excited then.

Erin Lawrimore: Me too.

Brett Taubman: Yeah. That's like my favorite bourbon. But no, in Australia. So yeah, she went over there for an internship and effectively never came back and 00:53:00moved up with this distillery and is now their head distiller. We've got another student. She was out in Napa during an internship at a huge winery, but ended up after the internship, I thought, and I'm sure she was offered a position with them, but ended up taking a position with, I think the largest kombucha producer in California and she's in San Diego now, I think really enjoying San Diego. But yeah, I mean, we have students all over the country, certainly from West Coast to East and North to South. Michigan, Boston and all over the Southeast, obviously. I'm trying to think if there's anybody else abroad right now. We had another student in New Zealand for a while, but he has since come back. So the only one that I'm aware of currently or that I'm thinking of, I may be blanking 00:54:00on somebody else who's abroad currently. We've had a number who have gone abroad and come back, but I think she might be the only one who is still abroad at this point.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Well, you mentioned a few minutes ago, the service lab. Can you talk a little bit more about the facilities, both the instructional facilities and the broader lab.

Brett Taubman: Sure.

Erin Lawrimore: Which I guess do fall under instructional facilities too.

Brett Taubman: Yeah. Yeah. We're all, I guess, instructional facilities. But yeah, that service lab is where we have most of our instrumentation, chemistry instrumentation, microbiology, wine specific, beer specific instrumentation too, where we can effectively do all of the analytical services for the fermented beverage industries. We dabbled in doing cannabinoid testing for the hemp industry as well, but we realized because the analytical standards for 00:55:00cannabinoids are so darn expensive. Understandably, I suppose. We realized that it really wasn't cost effective to do those analyses on a regular basis unless we did 100 samples a month type of thing. So we're only doing that for research purposes, but we use that. That's kind of our main lab area where we do the analytical services for industry. We do research in there. And we also do coursework in there too for the lab portions of a lot of the courses that we do, a lot of the analyses that students have to do. Then we have sort of a large open production area. It's kind of our general prep area that we also do lower level lab work in, food prep out there. We're working on getting our acidified vegetable permit so that we can actually sell some of the fermented vegetables 00:56:00that we make. So we have to probably change a few things around before we can get that permit and do some training and so forth, but that's coming soon. So that's the kind of a large area, open area. We have our still room. So we have a 300 liter combination pot column still from Deutsche Beverage in Charlotte, and then nice classic Italian alembic still, 55 liter alembic still that we can use for finishing or for smaller batches. We have our pilot plant. So we have a three barrel brew house, a one barrel brew house, and then fermentors ranging from half barrel size up to three barrels. Most of them are jacketed and insulated, but we also have some variable capacity fermentors that we use for wine production as well. We have a two head filler, so not like a large 00:57:00automated filling line, but we do have a two head filler that we can do cans and bottles on as well as a can seamer. So we can package products too and give students experience at least some experience on that. We have our classroom facilities. So we're in a classroom right now. We have another classroom about the same size next to us. And we can also open up this temporary wall between us, if we're doing larger classes or larger seminars, that type of thing. And then we have more research space back there too, which is more specifically micro research. So for our fermentation microbiologist, we've got a bio safety level two lab back there. So he can work with BSL2 critters, like E. coli and things like that. I mean, he's a fermentation microbiologist. So most of the 00:58:00critters that he works with are grass, generally regarded as safe for food production, but occasionally you work with other bugs too. So there's the BSL lab in there, which is a smaller space. There's kind of a larger microbiology setting and then of a prep area back there too. And then we have storage space too for some of our larger equipment, like our large fruit press, our stemmer, and peeler, and our plate and frame filter and things like that we only use occasionally. And so can't just leave that out in the way. So we store that. So yeah, that's pretty much most of our space right now. Hopefully, we're moving in a few years. I mean, this is wonderful space, but the campus is currently putting in an innovation campus, which is all the new rage on university 00:59:00campuses because they're all public private partnerships, PPPs, because as state legislatures fund public universities less and less as part of the state budgets universities, public universities, especially have had to look for alternative means of funding growth and maintenance, new buildings, especially because brick and mortar facilities are quite expensive. And if you don't have $100 million lying around as part of your budget, it's kind of hard to build a new science building, for example. So this innovation district campus is part of a new PPP. So the first phase of it, which is currently underway, which did get some state funding. So thank you state. Appreciate it. That is the biological conservatory 01:00:00is going to be up there. They've been working on this for years. They finally got their space to do it and the funding to do it, as well as faculty and staff housing, that will be up there and available for faculty and staff to live in. Because as we were talking about finding housing in this area has become very challenging. So it'll be, I think, a great option for faculty to at least have some housing, even if it's just temporary, until they can get a little nest egg and find some housing, affordable housing in the area hopefully. But we are supposedly going to be part of phase two. Fermentation sciences is supposed to move up there. So we'll see, but that would be a new facility for us. And I think that would accommodate our growth, especially in certain areas with food 01:01:00prep and food fermentations having the proper facilities for doing that, that'll make, getting the proper licensing easier for things like that. And just maintaining different environments for the different types of fermentations makes it easier, better sanitation practices, easier for getting permits and things like that.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. I would think anything you would be able to build with a voice at the beginning versus ... The building you're in right now isn't built to be a chemistry building.

Brett Taubman: I mean, we did have a voice. So this was an old hotel. I think it was a Sheraton originally and then a Quality Inn or something. And then the university bought it and made it student housing. And then the commercial kitchen area was used by food services, dining services on campus and catering 01:02:00mostly as a staging area for them. Originally fermentation sciences was up at the old Broyhill Inn and Conference Center at the top of Bodenheimer Drive, it's a beautiful part of campus, it's the highest point on campus, amazing views up there. And it was a really special inn and conference center where conferences could be hosted, and alumni would always have their weddings up there. It was beautiful. So we were initially in the ground floor there, which was big space for us, not the nicest space and it wasn't designed specifically for us. So we kind of jerry-rigged our way in there. So it was good and bad and it was right on campus, which was really nice too. Well then they decided that they were going to tear that building down because it was getting old and it wasn't built 01:03:00to modern code. And that's a problem, especially for a university buildings. So when they were deciding to turn it down, then we started looking at options for us, where to move us. There were not a lot of good options because it needed to be done rather quickly. So finally we settled on this space, and at least they had the commercial kitchen space and adjoining conference room space that could be adapted. So we did have a say in renovating this space, so it was renovated to our needs, but there were some issues with the HVAC for example, ventilation in general.

Erin Lawrimore: When was this by the way?

Brett Taubman: This was, I want to say it was 2015, 16-ish, somewhere around there. I can't remember exactly, but sometime around then. So it's been great 01:04:00space for us, but I mean it's off campus. It is just off campus. So it's a 20 minute walk from the heart of campus. It's not bad, or there's bus service here so that part's not bad. It's somewhat ironic being in a building that also houses students. That is challenging at times, especially for permitting issues and so forth. But it would be nice to have our own space that is designed from the ground up for us because not only are we a science program, but we're a very unique, very specific type of science program that does a lot of hands on work and has very specific needs for sanitation and food safety and things like that. So being able to design a space from the ground up, I think will be really, really nice for this program. I mean, if we can do this the way that I am 01:05:00hoping, and that I've been in talks about doing it, I mean, I'm not holding my breath. The fingers are crossed. We'll see. You never know when it comes to academia. But I am hopeful, and if we can do this, and do it the right way, it will be really, really special. And I mean, this will be such an amazing program and facility that this university will really be able to hang its hat on, and hopefully, really have that national recognition as a shining star for this university, the university system and the state.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Speaking of unique aspects of the program, can you talk a little bit about Ivory Tower?

Brett Taubman: Yeah. So Ivory Tower is the result of .... And I mean, that all started back, and I should probably mention the High Country Beer Fest as well. 01:06:00So when I came here in 2007, I had come from state college, Penn State. I was doing a postdoc there and they had an amazing little beer fest there. And when I came down here, I was like, we need to start a beer fest. And I don't know if it was unfortunate or fortunate. As soon as I came here, I immediately met the home brewing community. I mean, that's all we had here. We didn't have any breweries here at the time. I met Kenny at that time, Kenny Baughman and Andy Mason, I met who went on to start Lost Province. So that was the first, besides folks at the university, it was the brewing community who I got in with here. And they 01:07:00unfortunately encouraged me to go ahead with my crazy plan to start the beer fest. So we started one that fall. My first year here in 2007 was our first High Country Beer Fest. So we did it. We ended up doing it on a football weekend at the Broyhill. We thought, oh great. We could combine this with football. It'll be wonderful. Well, we realized quickly, first of all, since it was in November, you can't really plan to do anything outside in November in Boone. So we had it inside at the Broyhill. It turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous day, of course, and it was a football weekend. And so we ended up competing with the football crowd. We tried to time it so they can do this and go to the football game, and didn't work that way. So, I mean, we had a few hundred people, which 01:08:00was fine for our first beer fest. But we quickly realized, okay, we can't do this on a football weekend and we need to do this outside. Boone is too beautiful to do anything inside, this type of event. So by the second year we moved it to the weekend before Labor Day weekend, before football season really starts so that we wouldn't have to compete with a football game here. So the first few years, several years of the Beer Fest, it was kind of a back and forth with the university. Is this a university affiliated event? Is it not? It was touch and go. Generally, I had approval to do it as a university affiliated event, like up through the Dean's office level, but then once we started to get 01:09:00higher, the concern level grew, I think. So we realized that we also needed to remove this from the university and make it a private event. Well, to do so, we needed to keep it a non-profit event. So we needed a nonprofit. Also doing things like making alcohol on a university campus and collaborating with industry folks to make products that they could sell and then generate revenue for the program, things like that. We realized that we needed a nonprofit. So that's when we started our private nonprofit, a 501(c)(3). And what else do you call a private nonprofit that does a lot of academically related work? Of course, Ivory Tower seemed like a natural fit. So we started the nonprofit. I 01:10:00think that was in 2012 is when we started Ivory Tower and then got our tax exemption from the IRS a few years after that. So Ivory Tower became not only the host for the beer fest, but also we collaborate with industry folks as Ivory Tower. So any revenue that we generate through the beer fest, through these collaborations, making beer, wine, cider, alcoholic beverages in general, we do that as Ivory Tower. So then the university doesn't need to be involved in that matter, they can keep their hands clean of any alcohol production and things like that. And then we just set up a fund in the program, the Ivory Tower Fund, where that revenue that we generate as Ivory Tower is donated into that fund. 01:11:00And so we have physically donated over $500,000 into the university fund as Ivory Tower. And we've also purchased equipment and other things as Ivory Tower directly. Because even when you are providing your own funding, which is great for things like university travel, research related travel, things like that, student travel, student research stipends, things like that have to go through a university fund. Because you need to do all the paperwork through the university. But larger purchases of equipment, things like that, there's so many obstacles depending on how much that equipment costs, you have to get these approvals and yada, yada. A lot of that has been bought directly by Ivory Tower as the business. So we have probably donated to the university either directly 01:12:00through that fund or ...

Brett Taubman: Probably donated to the university either directly through that fund or directly as ivory tower close to a million dollars at this point in the last 10 years or so.

Erin Lawrimore: You talked about the festival starting off rather small competing against football.

Brett Taubman: Yeah. Not a good idea.

Erin Lawrimore: And I know the next one is coming up in a few weeks.

Brett Taubman: Yeah. August 27.

Erin Lawrimore: What scale are we looking at these days?

Brett Taubman: So that's an interesting question too, because that first year we probably had 300 people and it doubled in size almost every year after that until we got to about 3000 attendees in 2019. And we moved it from we were doing it up at the Broyhill, because they have that beautiful lawn there. Again, with beautiful views. But it's kind of small. And so once we got up to about a thousand people up there, we quickly outgrew that space. And so we moved it to 01:13:00the High Country Fairgrounds which is just a couple miles outside of town at a beautiful setting. Beautiful little valley with the New River. I don't want to get this wrong for my biology friends. I think that's the New there, might be the Watauga. I'm sorry. But no, it's the New. That's the New. New River flows right alongside there. Beautiful little valley surrounded by mountains. So it's another gorgeous setting and a lot bigger space. But still by 2019 it had grown to about 3000 attendees. And it was pretty crazy at that point. We had like 65 breweries and it was just packed on that field. So the only complaints we were getting then was it's too crowded. We have to wait in line for our samples. But 01:14:00then the pandemic hit. So we were kind of forced into making changes of that. We were going to anyway, but we were forced at that point. So 2020, everything shut down. We did an online beer fest just to kind of maintain the continuity. We had done it for so long that we couldn't just not do one for that year. So it was what it was.

Erin Lawrimore: What did an online beer fest look like?

Brett Taubman: We had different programs. We had tours of different breweries. And Kenny and I did a little back and forth for some things. We had auctions and things like that. So we tried to make it as fun as possible and as interesting. But I think people were already fatigued by online things that they didn't have to do. And so we were just doing it to kind of maintain that presence. Anyway, 01:15:002021, we could do it again, but it was touch and go up until that summer. And it was looking good at first, so then it was looking bad, and we're like, oh no, we're going to have to... We thought about doing like two very small sessions. Like two, 300 person sessions. And then things just started to look better. So we're like, all right, well, we'll do a thousand people and keep it smallish. And it turned out to be such a wonderful event. People loved it. We still had probably 35 or so breweries for a thousand people. It was awesome. People had space to spread out in the field. It was just great. It was a great experience. Excuse me. So we realized after that, okay, I think we found our sweet spot. So 01:16:00this year we're doing 1500 tickets and that's it. I think we're going to keep it at that size. We have 44 breweries registered. So we've got a ton of breweries for 1500 people. We've got a dozen food trucks, we've got three bands. It'll be amazing.

Erin Lawrimore: And Kenny.

Brett Taubman: And Kenny as bubble man. And he's like our mascot at this point for the beer fest. So he's on all our artwork now. Yeah. Kenny is amazing.

Erin Lawrimore: That's awesome. So COVID obviously impacted the festival, but I'm sure it had a massive impact on the program itself here too, and how you could teach. You've talked about this being such a product driven field.

Brett Taubman: Yeah. So that spring I was teaching, because we did a two semester sequence of our brewing courses. And so the first semester in the fall 01:17:00is principles of brewing science. Because we alternate with wine, so the production course for wine obviously is in the fall, because that's when the harvest is. So we do the theory course for brewing in the fall and then we do the production and analysis course in the spring. So that's the course that I was leading spring 2020. And students had done everything up to that point and everything got shut down at the end of spring break. And they said, don't come back for a week. We'll figure things out. And then they just put everything online. So they kind of did a trial run of their final projects before spring break and had done all of the analysis initially on that. And all they had left was to do their final project and do the analysis on that. And at that point, for a class like that... So I was teaching quantitative analysis, analytical chemistry, and that course. Analytical chemistry, I'm like, fine. We'll go 01:18:00online. We've got all the lecture material prepared. That's not a big deal. I'll just transition quizzes and homeworks and tests and things online. Fine. It's not ideal, but it works. For that course, I'm like, you're done. There's nothing I can do at that point. So I just said, you're done. You're going to be graded on what you've done already. There's not a lot I can do after that. And then fortunately beyond that, it was still locked down, but they had opened it up already a bit by the fall so you could have limited numbers of students in person on campus. So we broke students up into groups primarily to have them come in in smaller groups to work in our facility. And it worked out okay. Well, we primarily, outside of that spring semester and outside of just our lower 01:19:00level courses, we stayed in person, and one of the only programs to do so. And so it certainly impacted our students and it was interesting because a lot of the students otherwise would've just stayed home. And in other programs they did. They just stayed home and just did all their courses online. But our courses were like, look, we can't do this stuff online, so you have to come in and participate. So our students either they were traveling up from home on their production and analysis days, or they were the ones who were still up here, living up here, for these courses that we offered. So I think they were appreciative. It was challenging all around, but I think in general our students were appreciative that at least they had some in person coursework still.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So I want to kind of shift the focus a 01:20:00little bit to industry at large. The craft brewing industry specifically. What are some of the biggest challenges or issues that you see here in North Carolina looking across the industry?

Brett Taubman: Yeah. I think one of the biggest challenges that the craft brewing industry is facing right now is competition with alternative alcoholic beverages and even non-alcoholic beverages at this point. These NA beverages are becoming more popular. And then things like hard seltzers and just kind of weird fruit smoothie type of alcoholic beverages. And in my opinion, it all started with the hazy IPA, the New England IPA, because that was definitely geared toward the younger demographic and their palette, which is a sweeter palette. 01:21:00You saw it in this country a few decades ago where our pallets were much sweeter in this country and everything was sweetened. And I see it in other countries as well that are just getting into craft beer scenes where most of the beers that they're pushing are on the sweeter side to begin with before they can start to introduce more bitter options like your typical west coast IPA or something like that. So that hazy IPA was definitely driven by that younger demographic with a sweeter palette. As we get older, we get more bitter too. But it's true. You look at kids, they like sweeter things. They don't like broccoli. They don't like coffee. They don't like things that are more bitter in general. You don't develop that pallet, I think, until you're older and can appreciate that taste 01:22:00more. So it started with that and it just kind of spiraled from there in my opinion. And now we see sweeter and sweeter options that are really non malt beverage and that's where you're losing growth in the craft beer industry. It's not to wine. Wine is losing an even bigger percentage to these beverages than beer is. And it's not to the mass produced lagers either. Some distilled spirits and distilled spirit beverages as well, like the cocktails that are pre-made cocktail beverages too, I think that's where the biggest challenge is. Also just in general getting your brand out there. You go into any retail store and 01:23:00there's a million brands that are there. And there really isn't as much brand loyalty as there used to be because I'll try this and then I'll try that, or I'll try this one next time. And it's like what label catches their eye. So it's difficult for breweries to have a real loyal following except at the location, but trying to get retail space, whether it's on a tap or on a shelf has become very, very challenging. Then you have the issue of distribution. Where in North Carolina you can self-distribute, now you can self-distribute up to a hundred thousand barrels, which is great. But a lot of these businesses don't have the resources to be able to self-distribute. So they have to get in with a distributor. Well, that can be okay or not. It's always a challenging legal 01:24:00situation contracting with a distributor. And I'm not faulting the distributor. They're businesses too and it's just a product of our three tier system that we have, which is a holdover from prohibition which should tell you quite a bit. But distributors, of course, they're going to focus more on the big brands because that's 90% of their portfolio typically. So the craft brands, sure they'll distribute them, but that's not going to be their priority. So if they get in with a distributor, is that distributor really treating their brand properly and getting them on shelves and treating the beers properly, keeping them refrigerated, for example? So it's all of these issues. The competition with other types of beverages, competition among breweries, competition for 01:25:00retail space, competition among distributors. And we're reaching the point of saturation for breweries in the state and even in the country and in most places now where sure, I think you can still open up brewery with a tasting room or brew pub where you have food too. You never say like, oh, restaurants are saturated. You can always have another restaurant, so you can always have another restaurant that makes beer. That's not the issue. It's if you want to expand beyond that footprint and get your beer out there in retail spaces, outside of your brewery, that's where the real challenge is. And I think one of the challenges that breweries are going to face in the near future is with these non-alcoholic products. Beer is safe to drink because the pH is low enough, hops 01:26:00are antimicrobial, but especially because of the alcohol. You typically have at least 4% alcohol by volume in there, which is we can talk about the hops and the pH, but when you have 4% alcohol, there's not a lot that's going to grow that can be harmful to you. You remove the alcohol from that equation and you also can't hop these non-alcoholic products as aggressively, you start to run into safety concerns that nobody's really talking about too much yet. And unfortunately, I think that it's going to come to somebody getting sick from one of these non-alcoholic beverages for then the FDA to jump in and start cracking down on these beverages. And that's going to really shake up that segment of the industry as well.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. One of the interesting things is also seeing these big 01:27:00businesses, the big companies, branching into, and the camera can't see my air quotes, but craft beer labels and ciders or seltzers.

Brett Taubman: I don't want to say a fan, but I'm more okay with the larger. I have nothing against larger brewer. I think it's great. The larger companies, larger businesses, they're going to make better money. They're going to get great experience. They're going to have benefits. They're going to have room for growth and continuing education. I think those are wonderful career options. I have issues with segments of that industry, but that's fine. I have issues with the craft industry as well. Portions of that industry too. And capitalism is 01:28:00good and bad, and you are always going to see consolidation of any type of industry. And so seeing these larger businesses, larger breweries, buy up smaller breweries and calling them craft or crafty whatever, it's not necessarily a bad thing because most of what has happened is the larger AB InBev, Miller Coors, things like that, have brought up these smaller breweries and left them be. They haven't really changed anything. They've just provided better distribution and HR for them. And marketing. So it's not necessarily a bad thing that they're still generally making the same beers but now they can 01:29:00get all of the raw materials they need whenever they need it and get the beer on shelves when they need it. I think it's more of a problem when you have these smaller sort of management groups that come in and try and consolidate several small breweries. That's where I think you see more of an issue because they're not as well funded. And they end up consolidating their HR programs and laying off mostly everybody outside of the production folks. And then they start cutting corners on production and stuff like that. And they don't have the clout with distribution and things like that. So that's where I see more of an issue that we've seen more recently. Because also I think the larger businesses have slowed down on their buying up craft because they see the slow down in craft. 01:30:00Craft is held steady. It's not like it's decreasing necessarily, but it's mixed signs for craft in the coming years. And it's because of these other types of beverages that we're seeing now. And so I think the larger companies are now getting more into those types of beverages as well.

Erin Lawrimore: Oh yeah. So we've come to the part of the interview where I ask the question that's always the trickiest for folks. What is your favorite or one of your favorite beers here in North Carolina?

Brett Taubman: Oh, so that's a tough one for me because I'm as bad as everyone else with brand loyalty, but I am old school. Ask any of my students. As a brewing science professor, I generally like to teach my students how to remove 01:31:00haze from the final product. Whether it's chemical or microbiologic or mechanical haze, don't want to see that in the final product. So I'm old school in that respect. And I just don't appreciate the pallet of hazy IPAs. They're too sweet for me. The mouth feel is not right. And just the appearance of it. I feel like I'm drinking orange juice or something. It's not really attractive to me. I love bitterness. I love coffee. I love bitter taste in general. So I'm an old school west coast IPA sort of person. I also love most Belgian styles. I love funk. So I love brettanomyces. Some sour beers I like them with food more 01:32:00so, but if I'm just going out for like drinks, I'm not like, oh, give me that gose. Because it's like, okay, well now I have heartburn. But if I'm eating like a fatty cheese or something like that, I'm like, sure, a sour beer is wonderful with that. But I love funk. I love Belgian styles and I especially love big boozy west coast IPAs. So in this state, trying to think, one of my favorite new breweries that I am a little biased because we have a few graduates there, but Incendiary in Winston I think is doing great things and I love their IPAs, their west coast IPAs. The local breweries do a great job here. I'm certainly old 01:33:00school in that respect and the bigger, boozier west coast style IPA, the more I like it.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Awesome. Well, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you feel we should add in?

Brett Taubman: I don't think so, really. We covered the program, we covered my background, beer fest, ivory tower. I think we've pretty much covered it.

Erin Lawrimore: Awesome.

Brett Taubman: Yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: Thank you so much.

Brett Taubman: You bet. Yeah, it was my pleasure.