Oral history interview with Ethan Hall, 2022

Erin Lawrimore:

Today is Tuesday, October 25th, 2022. And we are here with Ethan Hall of Leland Brewing Company. So to start, can we have you say and spell your name?

Ethan Hall:

Ethan Hall, E-T-H-A-N H-A-L-L.

Erin Lawrimore:

Awesome. Thank you. So can we have you tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, where you're from?

Ethan Hall:

I was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, but I lived in Wilmington pretty much all my life. We moved here whenever I was, I think five. My parents are from Wilmington and the only time I've lived elsewhere is whenever I first got 00:01:00married way back in '90, I lived in Asheville from 1990 to '96.

Erin Lawrimore:

Okay.

Ethan Hall:

So otherwise I've been here.

Erin Lawrimore:

Otherwise Wilmington.

Ethan Hall:

Wilmington and surrounding areas. We currently live at Rocky Point which is one county over so not a big deal.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. So how did you first become interested in craft beer and the brewing industry?

Ethan Hall:

A few mistake. I worked for the Wilmington Fire Department. I was a firefighter for the city and I'd been a home brewer for quite a few years. You still keep the camera.

Erin Lawrimore:

I did keep the camera.

Ethan Hall:

But anyway, I had been a home brewer for quite a few years and there wasn't a good home brew shop in town anymore so I just kind of gotten out of it. But then 00:02:00I have an uncle who was also in the home brewing and he popped up one day and like, "Hey, there's a new home brew store on Market Street and y'all go check him out."

So finally after a couple weeks I found time to go by and I got there and it had a sign on the one that said, "Going out of business, business for sale." Which is like, "You just opened?" So I asked the guy, I said, "Well, what do you want for the business?" And he sold me a business by the name of Just Brew It for $5000, including everything that was in the store. And I was like, "Okay." So I bought the business.

Erin Lawrimore:

What year was that?

Ethan Hall:

This was in, I guess 2001, 2002 timeframe. We were roping on Thursday, Friday, 00:03:00and Saturday and my wife at the time, she worked which... As a firefighter, you work 24 and you're off 24. So if I worked on a Thursday, there's a good chance I was going to work on a Saturday, but I was off on Friday.

And if I worked on a Friday, I was off the Thursday and Saturday. So we could cover those three days without any problem. Well, I made beer from home brew kit, made home brew beer and had it in the shop for people to drink if they wanted to drink beer. Here's a sample of what this kit will do for you, that sort of thing. It helps sales.

So had a guy come in one day and he's like, "I really like you beer. Have you ever thought of getting into doing it professionally?" I said, "Yeah. I've thought about it." And I had a whole stack of paperwork because I had been 00:04:00thinking about it. And he threw some money at me, we went out and bought a 10-barrel brew house. And then, a couple other people came in and long story short, we wound up starting Azalea Coast Brewing Company in 2004.

And I ran that for until 2008 whenever my health from scuba diving accident. But the city got the best of me and I had to get out of the business for a while. And I didn't have any... My partners didn't show up and brew while I wasn't there. I did have buddies from the fire department that used to come and hang out with me at the brewery on their days off. They came in and brew three batches of beer while I was sick.

Erin Lawrimore:

Oh wow.

Ethan Hall:

And I was in the hospital actually, and they came in and brew three batches of 00:05:00beer so our distributor would have something to distribute. And two out of the three batches of beer came out good. So I can't really complain whenever your buddy showed up to do something for you.

Erin Lawrimore:

True.

Ethan Hall:

... but-

Erin Lawrimore:

You remember some of the beers y'all were making then?

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. We had one called Fokker Ale, F-O-K-K-E-R. And it was really weird because we were trying to come up with, how to say German ale without saying German ale. And the Fokker was the airplane that the Red Baron flew. So that was one of them.

We did East Coast IPA. We did [inaudible 00:05:46] chocolate stout. What else do... We had a really good Doppelbocks called Navigator Lager. And can't remember what else. We did several. Yeah. We did one called Old Ball. It was a 00:06:00blonde ale and that was a good beer too. But we did several different things. We did some beers that came out really good and some beers that came out really, really bad. And the ones that came out really bad, they just got dumped down the drain. But it was a learning experience.

Erin Lawrimore:

Where were y'all located at?

Ethan Hall:

We were in North Chase Industrial Park. And we tried to run the home brew business along with the brewery for a while. And then, it just got to a point where you get, especially about this time of year, September, October timeframe, you get the old guy that's making his homemade wine and he'd come in and want to talk to you for an hour and he'd buy 99 cent package of yeast. And you've trying 00:07:00to brew beer in the brewery area and you can't get him to leave you alone long enough for you to make sure that you're doing what you're supposed to do over in the other section. So it just kind of got to a point where it was like, "Forget it. I'm not going to do home brew or home business anymore."

And it's interesting because Wilmington Brewing, they started off as home brewers, home brew business, and they don't have a home brew anymore either. So it finally gets to a point where you just can't do it all. So that's kind of how we wound up in the brewing industry.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit more about, before we get to the next step, what the craft beer scene in Wilmington was like when you first got started. There couldn't have been a bunch of people here at the time.

Ethan Hall:

No. Let's see. In '94, Dergy's started, which was also Wilmington Brewing. On 00:08:00'95, Front Street Brewery opened up and they ran and Dergy's moved to Williamsville, Virginia some time in all that, shortly after that. Whenever we opened, Front Street had actually shut down for a while.

Pete McKenzie, Not Pete McKenzie, Pete Murphy, excuse me. Wrong Murphy or wrong Pete. Anyway, Pete Murphy had actually put up the money to buy all the brewing equipment with John [inaudible 00:08:43] from what I understand had put up the money to buy the brewing equipment and start Front Street Brewery. They also have one down in Myrtle Beach, Mad Boars, something to do with a pig. I don't remember what it was exactly.

And it is kind of interesting. That brewing equipment is actually what started 00:09:00Lonerider in Raleigh. So that's another story though. But anyway, so Front Street hit was kind of closed down somewhat, but they were starting to reopen in 2004 whenever Azalea Coast was starting as well as there was another brewery here called White Wolf that was a contract brewery. He was just doing contract brews out of, I think Old Dominion out of Virginia was brewing his beer for him, but he was local guy.

But whenever we started in '04, it was just the three of us. It was White Wolf, Azalea Coast and Front Street. That was it.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. Did people here in Wilmington like was there... I don't want to say an 00:10:00appreciation, but that's kind of what I'm getting at. Did they understand what you were doing?

Ethan Hall:

I don't think so. I think the reason that Front Street's always done so well is because they're a restaurant and that's what got people in the door. Craft beer had not really taken off at that point in time in Wilmington. It was kind of a novelty type thing. It's not like it is today.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. I think people today at least kind of have, some sort of concept going in as to what they're going to find.

Ethan Hall:

I think so too. Yeah.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah.

Ethan Hall:

I mean people started, the Asheville Brew scene, heck, whenever I lived in Asheville, the only one that was really going at that point in time was Highland Brewing Company. And they were in the [inaudible 00:10:56] basement at that point in time. And I lived there for five and a half years and didn't even know they were there. So the beer scene it... I mean it's not that old really in 00:11:00North Carolina at this point in time. It's grown by leaps and bounds in the last decade.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. No. That makes total sounds. You talked about having the home brew shop in addition to the brewery, were there other kind of local, or even kind of across the state resources that you leaned on?

Ethan Hall:

Not really so much in the state. My resource was Thomas Creek Brewery, Tom Davis out of Greenville, South Carolina. And I met... I did know him from Adam, but whenever we bought our brew house, our brewing equipment, it came out of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, or not Myrtle Beach. It came out of Charleston, South Carolina.

And it was in a nightclub of all things on King Street. I think it had 00:12:00originally been a brew pub or something like low country brewing, I think is what it originally was. But then it was a nightclub. And it was like three floors and there was brewing equipment scattered throughout the three floors.

And he was making beer for somebody in Georgetown, South Carolina and he made a deal with them that he got one of the bright tanks if he helped whoever bought the stuff to get it out of the building. And that was the first day I ever met the man was whenever we went down there to get the brewing equipment out, but it created a really good friendship, a very lasting friendship.

And it was kind of one of those things where if I was brewing and had a question, I could pick up my cell phone and call Tom and he'd answer the phone and answer my questions right there on the spot. And he's a wealth of knowledge 00:13:00and he's still my go-to-guy even now after being in this business for 20 plus years, I guess now. He's still my go-to, if I need something, I just call Tom.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. Is he still actively working there?

Ethan Hall:

He is.

Erin Lawrimore:

I thought so. So you talked about Azalea Coast having to come to an end. Can you talk about that and what you did? What you moved on to next?

Ethan Hall:

What did I do after Azalea Coast? I went to work for Millennium Beverage for a while. Millennium Beverage is boutique wines, craft beer, a lot of Belgium stuff, Golden [inaudible 00:13:59] that sort of thing. And they distribute 00:14:00Thomas Creek beer. They used to, they don't distribute Thomas Creek beer anymore. But they were doing Thomas Creek Beer at that point in time.

And I went on to work for them and I started off, I was just going to rep Tom's beer in this area for him through Millennium. And Cam Marshall, who owns it, he's based out of Charlotte. Cam had two salespeople here. And I think they were doing a couple of thousand dollars a month in sales. I mean neither one of them wanted to really and truly do anything.

And got to talking to Cam. I'm like, "Man, I'm selling more beer than your two salespeople are together." And he's like, "You want the job?" And I'm like, "Sure. What is the pay?" So it went on. So I started selling for him and the 00:15:00other two people quit. So now I'm selling by myself. And I'm like, "Man, this is too much." It was like-

Erin Lawrimore:

What was your area? Was it all of Wilmington, or the whole kind of Cape Fear area?

Ethan Hall:

I started, let's see. I sold, whenever we were going really big, I sold basically from the South Carolina border all the way to Greenville, North Carolina and out to Goldsboro. And it wasn't just me though. I started adding sales people. Cam was like, "Well, you can add more salespeople under you if you want to."

So I started adding folks. And I had him get me a warehouse to put beer in. I had him get me a van to deliver the stuff in. And we got to the point where I had seven salespeople covering this area, and I really did... I pick and choose, 00:16:00and I got to pick and choose the accounts I wanted to keep and I kept some really good ones, but I was making money off everybody else.

So we went from him making about $2000 a month here. So that'd be what? $12,000 or $24,000 a year or so. So year two of me doing it, he grossed about $450,000 in this area.

Erin Lawrimore:

Wow.

Ethan Hall:

So we grew his business quite a bit. And then-

Erin Lawrimore:

And y'all were doing domestics and-

Ethan Hall:

Domestics, boutique wines, Belgium, the Global Beer Network is the thing. But we did all of that. But I got to learn a lot about the sales side of the business as well. And then, Tom Davis, back to Tom again. He had a sign up or had a ad 00:17:00out on ProBrewer. He was looking for a head brewer. And I was like, "I want to try... I'm going to beer again."

So I went down there and I was like, "Tom, tell me about this job." He was like, "You can have it if you want it." I was like, "Okay. Fine." So I bought-

Erin Lawrimore:

That's a good interview.

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. It was good. He was like, "If you want it, it's yours. No problem." And I only stayed down there for about six months. It was just too far. It was too far away from home. My son was five, six years old. It was too far. But I went and bought a travel trailer and hooked it behind my truck and drove it down there and parked it in front of a brewery. And that's where I stayed, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And then, I'd come home on the weekend.

Erin Lawrimore:

What year was that close to?

Ethan Hall:

I don't remember. I don't remember.

Erin Lawrimore:

Okay.

Ethan Hall:

Dear Lord I... Like 2012 timeframe.

Erin Lawrimore:

Now it seems like forever ago, doesn't it?

Ethan Hall:

Yeah, it does. 2012 does seem like a long time ago. But anyway, I stayed down there for a few months. And then, I was like, "This is just too much. I got to come home." And I went back to work for Millennium Beverage at that point in time, which led me into doing beers for Good Vibes Brewing Company. Paige Snow was one of the salesmen that Cam had had from the Greensboro area. He was a bartender at some place. I can't remember the name of it, but, excuse me.

Anyway, he was like, "I want to brew beer." I'm like, "We don't have facility to brew beer." And we started doing... I started doing recipes and we got Thomas 00:19:00Street Brewery brew the beer for us called The Experience. And it was a double IPA. It was 9-1/2% alcohol, but it drank like a 6% alcohol beer. And it was an interesting beer with the hops that we chose and everything. It was real dry when we finished.

Erin Lawrimore:

Do you remember which hops you used in it?

Ethan Hall:

I do.

Erin Lawrimore:

Okay. You're not going to tell me?

Ethan Hall:

No, ma'am.

Erin Lawrimore:

You have to kill me?

Ethan Hall:

No.

Erin Lawrimore:

Okay.

Ethan Hall:

Actually, it had magnum and nugget and something else in it. Probably some... What was it? [inaudible 00:19:48]

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah.

Ethan Hall:

But anyway, we brewed that down there for a while. And then, we had Naty Green's 00:20:00brewing beer for us. Just whoever had space, we brew a beer and Good Vibes morphed into Ironclad Brewery.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. Do you remember some of the ways that that business changed or grew as it kind of morphed over and changed?

Ethan Hall:

Good Vibes?

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah.

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. Paige Snow was a nice fella. He was very charismatic, that sort of thing but he was not a businessman. And ultimately, that led him out of the business. And Ted Coughlin, who was the owner of Ironclad, that led him into having complete control of the business, unfortunate for Paige. Paige had good ideas. 00:21:00Paige just was not a business guy and he wouldn't take direction from Ted.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. No. That makes sense.

Ethan Hall:

He was more of a music guy. The original idea for the space that Ironclad occupies now, Paige and I found the space, and the original idea was that it would be a music event space that could exceed 700 people-

Erin Lawrimore:

Oh wow.

Ethan Hall:

... with a brewery in it, which was a great idea. And had it been built that way, it would've been the premier music space in downtown, in this part of the state, really. There wouldn't have been another place in this area that could 00:22:00have that many people indoors. So that was the original idea. I liked that idea. I really did because I could revere all day long and not be bothered, because all your concerts were going to be at night so it would've been great. Unfortunately, that's not the way it happened.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. So the original Good Vibes space, what was it like?

Ethan Hall:

Well, it never got built unfortunately. That was the plan for it to be music or the whole upstairs area of it, it would always have that hole in the floor. But the whole upstairs area was going to be seating and standing room. And the plan was to make it where you could look. The band would be, I guess in that center 00:23:00section where you could look over the sides. You could also be around the band on the floor, on the downstairs area. The brewery space is always going to be in that corner. And it still got built that way, it's just not the way it got utilized.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. That makes sense. So after that time at Ironclad, what came next after that?

Ethan Hall:

Well, with Ironclad doing more events and these events weren't just in the evenings. These events were all freaking day long, and after being told several times, you've got to stop brewing beer midstream, because we're having an event, I decided that this wasn't really what I signed up for.

So got talking with a fellow by the name of John Horton who owned Cape Fear Brewing. He bought that from, originally it was owned by a fellow out of Charlotte and he bought the rights to the [inaudible 00:24:32] beer label. And then, he changed it to Cape Fear Brewing. But anyway, they were a contract crew by Thomas Creek.

Erin Lawrimore:

It all goes back to Thomas Creek.

Ethan Hall:

It does. It really does. I know this is North Carolina's beer history, but if you want it... But he's played a big part in North Carolina's beer history. I mean he really has, being in Greenville, South Carolina, he's not that far over the border from the mountains, but he's played a big part in our beer history in 00:25:00recent years. But anyways, so got talking to John Horton and we got together and my wife, Lydia. She wasn't my wife at the time. She was still just my girlfriend then, but she's hung around for a long time.

But anyway, so John and I and Lydia, we got the idea that we would start our own brewery. And we came up with the Tidewater name and I know a lot of people think of Tidewater being Virginia, Maryland, that area. But if you look at state maps now, we actually have a Tidewater region in North Carolina. It used to be coastal, and then planes, and then mountains. Now we actually have four regions and we are in the Tidewater Region. So I was like, "Tidewater, that's a good name."

Erin Lawrimore:

Was that the first name you landed on or did you try others that didn't work as well first?

Ethan Hall:

I think that's the first one that was like, "Yes. This is it." We did try other names that were just like, "Eh, don't like that one. Eh, don't like that one." We did, but the building that we wound up finding was an old Coca-Cola building over in the, they call it the Soda Pop District now, corner of 10th and Princess.

Erin Lawrimore:

Okay.

Ethan Hall:

Coca-Cola owned all four corners and it's where the Coca-Cola bottling plant was. The building we were in was Coca-Cola used it as their garage. They worked on the trucks and stuff like that in there, about a 10,000 square foot building. But on that particular space was the original, it was the original home of the 00:27:00Tidewater Electric Company, which operated the trolley that ran between Wilmington and [inaudible 00:27:15] Beach.

Erin Lawrimore:

Oh that's cool.

Ethan Hall:

And they also were the ones that built the original [inaudible 00:27:19] down at [inaudible 00:27:20] Beach. So it was kind of a neat little coincidence more so than anything. So we started building Tidewater Brewing Company.

Erin Lawrimore:

How did you find that space? Did you spend a lot of time looking for the space or is that just one that was open?

Ethan Hall:

We looked for other spaces, and then Jim McFarland, we actually, there was a space on Front Street where Front and Third come together in front of PPD. There was a big building there. And we liked that space the best, but he was working a deal with the city to sell that building to the city. So he wouldn't lease us 00:28:00that building. But he's like, "But I got these buildings over here."

So we went over there and it's like, "Okay. Yeah. We can work this out." So that's how we wound up in that building. And we started working on that building, there was a lot of remediation that had to be done to that building prior to us even starting construction from where Coca-Cola had been in there and it had been the garage and diesel fuel being spilled on the floor, and all that sort of thing. They had to have a big industrial remediation company coming in.

Speaker 3:

[inaudible 00:28:45].

Ethan Hall:

Huh?

Speaker 3:

[inaudible 00:28:47].

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. So it was a big deal. They had to take up most of the floor inside the building, dig down like four feet down and then bring the dirt back up, 00:29:00compacting it and making sure. And all that dirt had to be hauled to Sampson County to a special landfill. There was a big area outside that same thing done to it. But once that was all, they didn't cost us anything, all on Coca-Cola. And so, once all that was done, we were able to go in and take out the rest of the floor inside, excuse me, that needed to go.

And we took out the rest of the floor. We were able to pour back a brand new floor for the brewery, all that sort of thing. We were going along pretty well and we had some partners in the business, some money people in the business. And everything was going great until Hurricane Florence rolled through. And we were about two weeks out of having a CO on the building and being able to start 00:30:00operations and Hurricane Florence took roof off the building and consequently, everything on the inside of the building was completely destroyed, except the brewing equipment was okay. I had part, brewing equipment was in place. It was all fine. I had parked my 1966 Mustang convertible in there to have it out of the storm. It was intact.

And one of our employees, Nash Frederick, he and his girlfriend, they were going to stay there, but then they could just park their car in there. And I think it broke the windshield. I think something hit the windshield and broke the windshield and that was the only damage to anything, cars or brewing equipment wise.

Now walls and floors and everything else and the whole roof being gone, walk-in 00:31:00coolers were shot, that sort of thing. All of that was just trash at that point in time. So the other people involved didn't... I don't know how to put that. They didn't like the fact it was my fault that the hurricane came. So they wanted to take over and be in charge of everything. And it's like, "Fine. Y'all can be in charge, but I'm out. I'm not going to have a bunch of people that know nothing about the brewing industry tell me how to build a brewery."

So we ultimately just kind of walked away from being involved with them. What they did with it after that, I don't know. I have no clue.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah.

Ethan Hall:

So I just kind, whatever.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. Well, when that happened, did you go directly from there to looking at 00:32:00Leland or-

Ethan Hall:

No.

Erin Lawrimore:

... was there more in between?

Ethan Hall:

No. Actually, I got into roofing for a while. There was a lot of people that needed roofs up after hurricane.

Erin Lawrimore:

That's true.

Ethan Hall:

Did some roofing. Opened up a handyman business. Still run the handyman business, but just various things that I knew how to do construction wise. I did that sort of stuff. And then-

Erin Lawrimore:

During that break, were you still doing any home brewing or did you just kind of stop brewing [inaudible 00:32:34]?

Ethan Hall:

No. No home brewing. It's a lot of work.

Erin Lawrimore:

It is.

Ethan Hall:

It's a lot of work for what you get. So I was-

Erin Lawrimore:

And a lot of space. It takes up a lot of room.

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. I do, and I've done some stuff with one of my old fire captains. He owns a couple of fires trucks and we make rain for the movies. We do, basically, we work for special effects and pump water to their rain bars and make it rain for 00:33:00the movies. So anytime you see it raining in a movie, it's not real rain, it's special effects.

Erin Lawrimore:

It's a fire truck.

Ethan Hall:

It's a fire truck, basically. Yeah. So I do that and I still do that some. A matter of fact, I did that. I worked on-

Speaker 3:

[inaudible 00:33:27] you can't talk about it.

Ethan Hall:

I can't [inaudible 00:33:32]

Erin Lawrimore:

Secret things.

Speaker 3:

[inaudible 00:33:34]

Ethan Hall:

Whatever. I worked on the show on Thursday night or last Friday and I worked on the same one again Thursday and Friday this coming week. So of this week. But anyway, so I do that. But Nick, a fellow by the name of Nick Floyd, he used to be a salesperson for Coastal Beverage. He approached me in 2019, so about a year 00:34:00after Florence. And he's like, "Hey, you know anybody who might be interested in a brewing job?" And I was like, "Sure. I'll talk to you, see what you got, see what you got going on." And-

Erin Lawrimore:

Did you know him before then?

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. I've known Nick for a lot of years. Nick spent 22 years working for Coastal Beverages and he was their top craft beer salesman. And he had left Coastal Beverage to pursue this other thing. So I met with him, a fellow by the name of Chris Laco who was the... He used to be a master franchisee for Andy's Highway 55. And then, another fellow by the name of Mark Said. Mark owns his own pharmaceutical representation company. He used to work for PPD and that sort of thing.

But anyway, so the four of us met and I was like, "Sure. I'm interested." And it 00:35:00started off, I was looking for just a paycheck more so of anything. And my wife, she actually brews with me now and she's got... She's a biologist, so she takes care of our yeast and all that sort of thing. But I was looking for a paycheck for her and a paycheck for me. And I told them, I said, "I'll take 1% of the brewer."

So I figured if everybody did their jobs correctly and somewhere now 10, 15 years down the road and sold for a big amount of money, I'd take my 1% and be real happy. And that's now morphed into, we own, I guess about 6% of the brewery at this point. But we started down the road of planning and all that sort of 00:36:00thing. We bought a five acre tract of land over in Leland. And so [inaudible 00:36:10] Road right across from Leland town hall, there's also Freedom Park, which is there, which they're building an amphitheater in right now and all kinds of stuff is going on.

Erin Lawrimore:

Nice.

Speaker 3:

Founders Park.

Ethan Hall:

Founders Park, whatever it's called. Freedom Park, the same difference.

Speaker 3:

Close enough.

Ethan Hall:

Close enough. It doesn't matter. Maybe they should name it Freedom Park. Just because I said so. Anyway, so we started doing all the planning and everything and we're an SBA loan. So we got all the paperwork in for the SBA loan and COVID hit. And they stopped lending money. SBA stopped lending money because it all went to the whole paycheck protection and all the other stuff. That's where all 00:37:00that money was going at that point in time.

So our stuff just got put on the back burner. And then, right after the CARES Act passed, and I don't remember the date of that, but right as soon as the CARES Act passed, it's right around Christmas time. We got, a couple of years ago, we got a phone call from the broker and he said, "Hey, the CARES Act passed. We can start working on your SBA loan again." It's like, "Okay."

So they picked it back up and started going through the motion. It took a year to get finish with all of that. They finally, were right at $4 million SBA loan, which is a big SBA loan, but we're being built. I mean they're actively doing construction on our building right now. It's moving slower than what I want it 00:38:00to. This is the first one that I have not been actively involved in the construction process on a daily basis, which is-

Speaker 3:

You are.

Ethan Hall:

I am, but I'm not. There's a lot of things that happen that I'm like, "If I was in charge, this would not be going this way. We'd be a lot further along if I was in charge of this stuff." Because I'm a bit of a, I'm going to push everybody to get it done as quick as possible. Do it right, but get it done quickly. And we've got a general contracting company that's doing it. They're good. They're doing a good job just not as fast as what I'd like for them to do it. That's all.

Erin Lawrimore:

Are y'all the first brewery that's going to be opening in that main part of Leland?

Ethan Hall:

In the main part of Leland?

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah.

Ethan Hall:

There are two other breweries in the Leland area. There's Brunswick Beer and Cider, or Cider and Beer. I don't know how equipped they are. And they're a shoot off of [inaudible 00:39:16] Brewing.

Erin Lawrimore:

I didn't know that.

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. So it's some of the Camerons that own part of the [inaudible 00:39:22] Brewing. And Jeb, what was Jeb's last name? Can't think of his last name. But anyway, Watkins, his family used to own Watkins Supply here in town. But anyway, they own that one over there. And then, there's another one in Belville, which is a matter of going from one side of 74, 76 to the other side of 74, 76 from Leland. And that's called Meantime Brewing. And he's going in a little strip 00:40:00area. So I think as far as brewing goes and capacity for brewing, we'll probably be the biggest for the capacity of brewing.

Erin Lawrimore:

What's the capacity plan to be?

Ethan Hall:

We're putting in a 15-barrel brew house.

Erin Lawrimore:

Nice.

Ethan Hall:

We have five 15-barrel fermenters, five 10-barrel fermenters, two 30-barrel lagering tanks, a 30-barrel bright tank, putting a canning line in from the beginning. We've got a big cold room. So we'll be doing cans and kegs, but we have space to grow from there too.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. That sounds like a really nice space. Were there any, have you run into any legislative is not the right word, but kind of issues with zoning or anything like that?

Ethan Hall:

No. The town of Leland is really excited to have us there. We're going in there 00:41:00in an area called the Gateway District, and it's kind of the old area of Leland. They're trying to revitalize at this point in time and we're directly across the street from their great being pretty town hall building. The police department's located right across the street from us. They're excited to have us there and we got a lot of plans for it.

One of our investors in the brewery has bought the five acre track right next door to us. He's in a group with some other investors that are looking at buying another nine or 10 acres that kind of wrap up beside his and in behind our property.

Erin Lawrimore:

Oh wow.

Ethan Hall:

We're developing two and a half acres right now. The goal is to develop the rest 00:42:00of that will be offices and housing and park and all that sort of thing. There's a big area underneath the power transmission lines that you can't build under, but you can build a nice park underneath of it. So our goal is to make a big community there with our brewery being there, we're hoping to build a distillery next door to us. It's sometime in the near future. Shortly after we open, we're hoping to build another building over there for a distillery.

We're not doing food that we do, but we're building an 800 square foot walkup kitchen behind us that Sweet and Savory that will actually be doing our food.

Erin Lawrimore:

Oh wow. Yeah.

Ethan Hall:

It'd be something a little bit different. Everybody's got food trucks and things 00:43:00like that, but we were looking for something... Oh yeah. But we were looking for something that would be permanent, always there. My biggest complaint about the food truck industry and breweries is that they say they're going to be there from seven to nine or seven to 10 and if you don't have a big crowd right at the beginning, they leave before their time is up.

And I may have, especially like a Friday night or something, you get home from work, you get a shower, everything, you get ready to go out and you've planned to go this brewery, because that food truck that you wanted to eat off, they're supposed to be there and you get there and they're gone. And it's like, "What the heck? I've planned my whole evening around this and they're not there now." So yeah. I like the idea of having a permanent food situation there. And then, 00:44:00beyond that, we do have space for food trucks as well.

Erin Lawrimore:

Oh. So both could be an option?

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. So we'd have both. And I asked, I said, "Well, how Sweet and Savory are going to feel about us bring it in a food truck?" And they're happy to have a food truck. They're hoping that it's so busy that we have to have two food trucks and them and which means everybody's making money.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. That makes sense. Have you thought already about what some of the stuff you want to brew when you get open?

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. While Lydia and I were brewing at Ironclad, we won a gold medal for her [inaudible 00:44:46] lager. And that was at the Carolina Championship of Beers in Hickory. We won that. We won second place best of show for that same beer at the same time. And so, that's our beer recipe. It didn't stay with Ironclad. 00:45:00Matter of fact, I don't think Ironclad's brewing anything that we brewed whenever we were there. So that will be one of our beers.

Erin Lawrimore:

Can you describe what that one tastes like?

Ethan Hall:

Probably not.

Erin Lawrimore:

You don't write the menus?

Ethan Hall:

I'm not good at descriptors.

Erin Lawrimore:

Really?

Ethan Hall:

I'm really bad at that part. I can brew the beer and I'm really, really bad at writing the descriptor for the beer menu that makes you want to drink the beer.

Erin Lawrimore:

You're like, "Just trust me. It's good."

Ethan Hall:

I just can't. I can't do it. I've tried and I've tried and I've tried. I'm just not good at it. But I mean it's got a malt [inaudible 00:45:58] beer, so it's going to be a little more malty than a lot of people are brewing lagers. I feel 00:46:00like a lot of lagers that are being brewed right now are still just a pale ale that they put lager yeast in, and you're too hoppy for the style of beer. I feel like I'm a malt [inaudible 00:46:21] kind of guy. I like an IPA, but I got to be in the mood for IPA.

So I'm hoping that the name of this one will be like Liberty Ship Lager or something like that. Back in the '60s and '70s, whenever they mothballed the whole entire Liberty ship fleet, most of them were sitting in the Brunswick River for a long time before they were cut up for scrap. So there's some historical pictures in the library downtown that show these boats sitting in the Brunswick River and since the Brunswick River is in Leland, and they also built them here too.

So I like trying to get names for our beers that kind of the history of the 00:47:00area, that sort of thing. So that'll probably be, that definitely be one of our beers. We did a-

Speaker 3:

[inaudible 00:47:17].

Ethan Hall:

Huh?

Speaker 3:

[inaudible 00:47:18].

Ethan Hall:

No.

Speaker 3:

[inaudible 00:47:20].

Ethan Hall:

No. But anyway, so we did a white chocolate brown ale down there. It was really good. It had [inaudible 00:47:38] white chocolate in it. That was a good beer. We'll probably bring that back. Had a good red ale that we brewed. Our old malty beer is basically the same malt bill and hop bill as our lager, except we brew it as a ale. So it's a little bit crisp or a little bit more crisp.

So people that aren't looking for a hoppy beer and want something like Bud 00:48:00Light, we can typically turn then on to craft beer with either our lager or the old malty, one of those, kind of get going down the craft aisle as opposed to stopping at Bud Light. Nothing wrong with Bud Light and Miller Light, they all have their place, but you got to try to cross them over.

Erin Lawrimore:

And I think the idea of kind of blending in names that are local history kind of helps people to understand the difference between the big beers and the craft ones too. Like local versus-

Ethan Hall:

I mean the old malty for [inaudible 00:48:48] Island Lighthouse, which is in Brunswick County.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. Exactly. So have you thought yet about whether, and I'm thinking it might 00:49:00be the house lager that you mentioned, but have you thought yet about whether you're going to have a flagship or-

Ethan Hall:

That'd probably be the lager.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah?

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. I'm thinking with lager is the way we're going go, especially with the two lager plants we're putting in and being able to do 60 barrels or whatever. So that'll be improve, and that'll go into a can right away and get out on shelves and stuff like that.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. That makes sense. I want to shift around talking specifically about where you work to kind of the industry as a whole. And you mentioned earlier you've been working in this industry for 20 something years.

Ethan Hall:

22 years, I guess.

Erin Lawrimore:

You win the prize for over half the time it's even been legal to do in North Carolina. But can you talk about just changes to the industry in general since you started? I mean that's a big question to cover a big period of time.

Ethan Hall:

Changes. Well, pop the cap happened, which was a great thing for North Carolina. 00:50:00I see that cities are more receptive to people wanting to open breweries in it, small breweries. These little three-barrel old brew houses, they're going in little strip mall or whatever, which, hey, that's great. More power to them.

I feel like it is easier to get into the business now. It used to be really difficult to get into the business. You and I were talking about TTB before we ever started the interview and TTB seems to have sped things up a little bit. They still have their problems, but they definitely have sped up the process as 00:51:00far as applying for a brewers notice.

It used to be you started construction and you're planning on opening nine months down road, you better apply for that there brewers notice now because it was going to take six months to get the doggone thing. And it's not like that anymore. It's about 45 days now, which is good. I mean that's a big improvement compared to what it used to be.

But yeah. I think the biggest thing is that the local governments are more inviting. I mean they see the fact that craft beer brings people to town. They're people that travel all over the state just to drink craft beer at various expenses. And I think the municipalities are starting to capitalize on that.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. No. That makes sense. One other thing I wanted to ask you about is the shirt you've got sitting there in front of you. What have you got sitting there?

Ethan Hall:

This is the t-shirt from the North Carolina Brewers Guild. And it's the 2009 inaugural members. And it's very faded at this point in time. I used to wear it all-

Erin Lawrimore:

It's very loved.

Ethan Hall:

I used to wear it all the time. And then, my wife told me, I needed to stop wearing it because the thing's wearing off on the back a bit. So of the names that I can read on here, I can see Ashley Brewing Company, Azalea Coast Brewing, which was mine. I can't read the third one, but it was in Raleigh. Then, there's the three Carolina breweries, there's Catawba. I can't read the next three. Front Street, Hands restaurant, Highland Brewing, Husk Hardware, Liberty.

I can't read that one. Naty Greens, Old Hickory, Old Mecklenburg, Pisca. Don't know what that one says. Rock Bottom, Top of the Hill. I don't know, Triangle. I know that Muzzle... Is it Muzzle Hyman or something like that?

Erin Lawrimore:

Oh, the one in the mountains?

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. The one in the Sylva. It's on here somewhere. Foothills is on here somewhere.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah.

Ethan Hall:

But yeah, there's one [inaudible 00:53:45], that's the name of it, [inaudible 00:53:46]. They're in Sylva. I don't know if they're still there or not.

Erin Lawrimore:

They're not.

Ethan Hall:

They were tiny little plays, but they brewed really good lager. But Lonerider was on there too. I know Lonerider is on here. But those are the original, or 00:54:00how many of them are there?

Erin Lawrimore:

Not a ton-

Ethan Hall:

There's 1, 2, 3-

Erin Lawrimore:

... compared [inaudible 00:54:09]

Ethan Hall:

... 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 original breweries in North Carolina.

Erin Lawrimore:

23. And that's 2009?

Ethan Hall:

2009.

Erin Lawrimore:

That's what I thought.

Ethan Hall:

And well, original breweries for-

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. The Guild.

Ethan Hall:

... the Guild, which probably means that somewhere on here is Weeping Radishes on here somehow and others too. I'm pretty sure it's on here too.

Erin Lawrimore:

When it first got started, how did the Guild first get started? Why did Azalea Coast want to be part of it?

Ethan Hall:

Well, whenever it first got started, we were looking at various laws that needed 00:55:00to be revamped. The whole self-distributing stuff that Old Mecklenburg and Red Oak had really been involved in, just various things. It was mainly a political type thing. Sebastian Warfarin was the original president of the Brewers Guild, but it wasn't what it is today. I tell you that. I mean nowadays the Brewers Guild host a brewer conference. Matter of fact, we're going next week to the Brewery Conference.

Erin Lawrimore:

I'll be there too.

Ethan Hall:

Well, we'll see you there. But we're doing that next week. And this is an interesting thing. In all the years I've been in the brewing industry, this is my first brewers conference.

Erin Lawrimore:

Ever?

Ethan Hall:

Ever.

Erin Lawrimore:

Oh wow.

Ethan Hall:

It's the first one I've ever gotten to go to.

Erin Lawrimore:

Oh wow.

Ethan Hall:

Well, my wife says that we went to one in Asheville, but it really wasn't... We didn't plan on going to this thing. Asheville has some little beauty conference thing that they had and we went, because it was a thing to go drink beer at one afternoon. And it has some interesting talks and stuff like that.

There was one that was really interesting with Oscar Long from Highland, and the Cold Mountain Beer that they do, I remember it was the second year that they put it out and it had a very butterscotchy flavor to it. So it had a lot of EMS in it, but it worked really well in the beer. And I actually asked Oscar. I went up after the talk was over with. I said, "I have a question for you." He's like, "What?" And I said, "I think it was about a year or two that y'all did the Cold 00:57:00Mountain." He's like, he looked at me kind of funny, and I said, "It had a lot of EMS in it."

And I said, "Did you mean for it to or did you just get lucky and it worked in that particular beer?" He looked at me and he said, "You're probably the only person that will remember that." I said, "Well, I really liked it." I said, "Could you brew it again?" He's like, "Probably not." But anyway-

Erin Lawrimore:

It's one of those magic accidents?

Ethan Hall:

It was one of those magic... Every once in a while you get a, "Oh crap, that wasn't supposed to do that. But oh, it's not too bad. Let's go ahead and go with it."

Erin Lawrimore:

And then, it's near hard impossible to reproduce?

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. And then, you can't make it again. You'll never make it again. But yeah, so that was one of the talks that we went to. I'm looking forward to actually going to the Brewers Conference and having it be more like going to the Great American Beer Festival and the vendors and all the various things that you do at 00:58:00it. They've got a sensory thing that they're doing that we're real interested in going to.

Erin Lawrimore:

It'll be a good opportunity to talk to people about Leland too.

Ethan Hall:

Oh yeah. Well, and two of our other owners are going, Mark and Chris are both going too as well.

Erin Lawrimore:

Good. Yeah.

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. We're looking forward to going.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. So when you're thinking about kind of the industry as a whole, either kind of locally or nationally, little picture or bigger picture, what are some of the industry trends you see today that you... Are there particular things you like or particular things that you just kind of are like, "I'm not going to touch that with a 10-foot pole?"

Ethan Hall:

Hazy beer.

Erin Lawrimore:

That is a very common answer for brewers.

Ethan Hall:

That is my biggest pet peeve. To me, I'm too lazy to filter my beer. That's how 00:59:00it comes off for me. I mean now granted, I'll drink a hazy beer, but it's like I'm just too lazy to brew clean beer. It takes more time to particularly have a clean beer. And I feel like it's a cop-out. You went almost all the way there, but then just stopped. Why? So that's my biggest pet peeve of the new trends right now. Sours, it's not me.

Erin Lawrimore:

Well, and there's so many people around here who do good sours already too.

Ethan Hall:

And if you want talk to somebody about sours, come talk to Barry here at [inaudible 00:59:49]. Come talk to Barry. He knocked sours out in the ballpark. He's really good at it. I'm just not a sour kind of guy.

Erin Lawrimore:

Me neither.

Ethan Hall:

And my experience with sours is you're introducing bacteria into the beer. The 01:00:00one thing that we're trying to keep out of the beer. It scares me to let it loose in my brewery. So I don't want everything to be sour. But I'll drink a sour every now and then, but it needs to be a... Well, it's not my style of beer. I'm not going to drink it all the time.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. No. I'm with you on that one. That's me too. So thinking about the industry as a whole, if you had a crystal ball, where do you think you'll see this industry around here or kind of bigger picture in the next 5, 10 years?

Ethan Hall:

I think the trend is we're going to go back to more traditional beer styles. I think that the public is going to demand that we go back to, that we get away 01:01:00from all of the really weird stuff and we go back to more traditional beers. I think, and I feel like the breweries that refuse to do that are going to fail. I really do.

I really think that the public is looking for more traditional stuff. They're looking for, you have your hop heads, you have your people that won't do really hoppy beers, but you got the people that don't want the hop beers. Unfortunately, I foresee seltzers continuing to be a big thing. I really do. I foresee them continuing to be a big market. And most breweries are going to have to come up with some kind of a seltzer.

I've never brewed a seltzer in my life, but it can't be that hard. It's 01:02:00basically a sugar order and you affirm it. It gives some alcohol and add a flavor to it. It can't be that difficult. I mean we'll probably we'll do some sour, some seltzers, but I foresee that being a big part of our industry, especially folks who are looking for less calories and all that sort of thing.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. I think most people like when they go in they expect to see at least one now. It's kind of one of those expected things.

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. And they're typically a gluten free thing. My sister is gluten intolerant so I'm going to brew something that she can drink. I think that's kind of where we're headed though. But I do think that we're going to head more towards more traditional beers again. I'm hoping that we start, the BJCP style guidelines. 01:03:00There's a style guideline for every style of beer out there. And I'm really hoping that we start, that brewers start brewing more to the style guidelines and stop bastardizing all of these style guidelines. They're there for a purpose. I really hope that we go back to that.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. Well, thinking back across your career, do you have, you may not have just one, but I'll ask if you have one beer that stands out as like, "That is my favorite thing I've ever made?"

Ethan Hall:

Probably the Navigator lager. I mean 10-1/2% alcohol, Doppelbock. It's just so easy to drink. I remember it had mix of chocolate and raisins and all kinds of different... You could taste all this in the beer and it was... I mean a true 01:04:00eight-week long lager. So it was a good, smooth, easy to drink beer, but high alcohol but still just easy to drink.

I remember we brewed it. I brewed it for Azalea Coast. And then, we did it as a seasonal and what's the name of the place in Flying Sauce in Raleigh. Called me up wanting more of it. I said, "I'm out of it." They're like, "Well, why won't you brew some more?" And I said, "Because I brewed it this year." And they're like, "Well, we want more." And I said, "Well, the only way I will brew more is you're going to have to buy the whole 10-barrel batch." And they did. They bought the whole 10-barrel batch.

Erin Lawrimore:

Oh Wow.

Ethan Hall:

So I sold 10 barrels of beers to them and all them case, they took it all at the same time. And it was a good payday.

Erin Lawrimore:

I bet it was.

Ethan Hall:

That was the only way I was going to do it and they bought it because they wanted to continue selling it. So we'll bring it back.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. Well, that's my favorite style so I look forward to when you do that.

Ethan Hall:

I love a good Doppelbock. My wife is really big into the bigger beers.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. So other than the beers you've brewed, do you have other favorite North Carolina beers?

Ethan Hall:

Even though I said something negative about hazy beer, I do like the Sierra Nevada hazy little thing. I like that beer. I said I'd drink them, but I feel like it's a cop-out on going the full route. I like hazy little thing and I've mentioned Barry before and he doesn't brew this one anymore, which really 01:06:00irritates me. But he's got a really, really good blonde ale and not many people can brew a blonde ale. You can't hide behind anything. It's got to be clean, it's got to be crisp, all that sort of thing. His blonde ale is spot on. One of the best beers I've ever had, but he doesn't brew it anymore. So Barry, brew the beer again.

Erin Lawrimore:

So maybe if you get it on camera you can just use that, send it to him.

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. And I was hoping that his [inaudible 01:06:30] manager would see me, but yeah.

Erin Lawrimore:

[inaudible 01:06:32]

Ethan Hall:

So if you get a chance to interview Barry, ask him about the blonde ale that he doesn't brew anymore.

Erin Lawrimore:

I'd tell him I've heard stories far and wide about the blonde ale and-

Ethan Hall:

About this blonde ale.

Erin Lawrimore:

... wondering when it's going to come back.

Ethan Hall:

He'll-

Erin Lawrimore:

He'll know it's you.

Ethan Hall:

Well, he brewed a version of it, but he made it hoppier and it's not the same. I want the original one. And he'll know it's me.

Erin Lawrimore:

That makes sense. Well, that's the end of my list of prepared questions. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you can think of like in thinking about your story and your career?

Ethan Hall:

No. My career's pretty well wrapped up there I think.

Erin Lawrimore:

We covered things far and wide.

Ethan Hall:

I do. I try.

Erin Lawrimore:

And When are y'all on schedule at Leland? When are you hoping to open?

Ethan Hall:

We're saying St. Patrick's Day.

Erin Lawrimore:

Okay.

Ethan Hall:

I'm hoping that the brewery is finished before that and that I have about a month's worth of brewing prior to St. Patrick's Day. I'm hoping to be able to get in the brewery and start brewing beer sometime in February.

Erin Lawrimore:

Good.

Ethan Hall:

If I could get three weeks, that would be enough time to get a couple of ales out ready to go for St. Patrick's Day. I can get a stout. I can get a red ale 01:08:00done in that time frame.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. That makes sense.

Ethan Hall:

And then, work on all the other stuff. But I'm hoping that we can get the brewery part of it finished first, and then be able to... They can work on the tap whatever. And really and surely they can work, if I can get my building finished to where I could get the beer equipment in place and everything piped up, everything ready to go, they can work on the parking lot and every day and everything else without that. Give me a prior turn on, get my brewers notice in place and then start making some beer. It'd be nice to have full tanks whenever we open the doors.

Erin Lawrimore:

Especially for St. Patrick's Day.

Ethan Hall:

Yeah. I mean, and where is it? What's the name of that place? Gordon Biersch Company, they're all over the place. I know that a fellow named Pete [inaudible 01:09:0001:09:04], he used to brew with Kevin Kozak whenever they were up in Virginia, the Old Dominion, and Pete's now... We he was in Ohio. He brewed for me a little bit with Azalea Coast, just helping me out. But anyway, he was the opening brewer for Gordon Beers in Myrtle Beach and they actually shipped him beer from other Gordon Beers locations to backfill in kegs, to backfill into the bright tanks so that they would have beer whenever they open.

Erin Lawrimore:

Well, let's hope you don't have to worry about something like that.

Ethan Hall:

That's a different idea.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. It is. It is. That's relying on a lot of people though-

Ethan Hall:

Well, it is.

Erin Lawrimore:

... which is kind of scary sometimes at the start.

Ethan Hall:

Yes and no, because apparently Gordon Beers, you have to brew it their way and you have to send samples into them to be analyzed like monthly.

Erin Lawrimore:

Wow.

Ethan Hall:

So it has to be brewed exactly the same at all their locations, which is a good idea. It's a great idea that way... I went to this Gordon Beers here and I went to one over three states over, the beer tastes exactly the same.

Erin Lawrimore:

Yeah. Speaking of kind of the analyzing stuff, one thing that brewers and some of the other kind of areas of the state have talked about is kind of making friends with the one place in town that has a proper lab. Is there any place out here that has kind of testing lab in place?

Ethan Hall:

She will.

Erin Lawrimore:

She does. Your wife does?

Ethan Hall:

She will. Our new brewery has a decent size lab in it. And we'll be putting in all the quality control equipment.

Erin Lawrimore:

Awesome.

Ethan Hall:

She'll be able to look at your yeast sample and see whether or not it's viable or not, that sort of thing. And with Mark being from the pharmaceutical industry, he understands the need of that as well. So we may not have all that 01:11:00stuff right at the very beginning, but that lab will have a lot of stuff as we go along.

Erin Lawrimore:

That's awesome.

Ethan Hall:

So looking forward to having more of the quality control in place.

Erin Lawrimore:

Awesome. Well, if you can't think of anything else-

Ethan Hall:

I'm good.

Erin Lawrimore:

Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

Ethan Hall:

Yes, ma'am.

Erin Lawrimore:

I appreciate it.