Oral history interview with Brandi Hillman, 2022

Erin Lawrimore: Today is Monday, November 7th, 2022. I'm with Brandi Hillman of Hillman Beer. We are in Old Fort, North Carolina. My name is Erin Lawrimore and we're doing an interview for the Well Crafted NC project. To start, can we have you say and spell your name?

Brandi Hillman: Yep. It's Brandi Hillman, B-R-A-N-D-I H-I-L-L-M-A-N.

Erin Lawrimore: Awesome. Brandy, tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from and what was the road that got you here?

Brandi Hillman: I grew up in Sylva, North Carolina, an hour west of Asheville. Went to college at NC State, majored in business, even though I hung around all the agriculture kids, but graduated there in 2000. And then, during college, my best friend and I drove out west and worked in Yellowstone one summer, and my love of craft beer began because there are so many more options there. And you could build your own six-pack. It was just amazing. That triggered it. 00:01:00Although I was in Asheville, going to Highland, which is the original craft beer in Asheville. I loved their Gaelic Ale. The combination of that summer and Highland triggered my love of craft beer. And, years later, through meeting my husband, and then his brother being a home brewer, having multiple businesses with my husband and my family, we said, "Brad, move from Brooklyn, come down here to Asheville, let's start a brewery." And then that was about seven years ago. It took a little convincing and life changes and one final offer of, "Brad, Let's start a brewery in Asheville," and that's what happened. 2016, corporation got created and construction began on the spot we have in Asheville.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Thinking back to that time at Yellowstone, do you remember some of the first beers you got introduced to? Brandi Hillman: Oh, yeah. Big Sky Brewing Moose Drool, still one of my favorite beers. It's a treat to find it somewhere. I have friends ship it to me sometimes. But, yeah, Headstrong Pale Ale, but Moose Drool from Big Sky Brewing was my first love really, the second Love after Highland, but that's really what changed it for me, and stuck with that style of beer as being my favorite for a long time until recently, which we were talking about, but, yeah, for sure.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Well, and I'm guessing, when you were in college in North Carolina, Raleigh didn't have much in the way of a craft beer scene.

Brandi Hillman: No, not really any breweries. But there was a Food Lion near campus that had a pretty good craft beer selection. And, actually, they had a brewery called McKenzie River Brewing, I believe was the name of it, it was in Bozeman, and I could get their beer there. It was so rare and random. Who knew? But it was actually one of the few places that you could go and really see a selection or a variety of beers. But, yeah, the brewery scene, the Flying Saucer was downtown and they had a variety of taps and that was cool, but it was still pretty early on in that scene.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. I know y'all ran some businesses before the brewery. Can you talk a little bit about those and what led you to shift over and start looking at a brewery too?

Brandi Hillman: Sure. Well, after college, I was in sales, working with small businesses, and fell in love with the idea and the process and the challenges and the interactions with all these small business owners. And my sister and I had an opportunity where I grew up, my mom bought some land and we built this building and built a feed store. It's like Tractor Supply meets Mast General. And my mom was the GC. She built the building. Nikki and I started the business together. She had landscaping degree, landscape architecture, horticulture degree from NC State, I had the business background, but took poultry science and animal science, so that love of all the things combined in one space. And it's 17 years old now, but that was a long-running, fun thing to do, for sure.

Erin Lawrimore: Is it still up and running?

Brandi Hillman: It is still there. I gave her my half a couple years ago. It's just too much. It's too far away. It's a lot because, in that time of having the feed store, I met my husband, we got married, we moved to Germany, we lived there two and a half years, expanded my love of beer and hefeweizens and Belgian beers. But, when we came back, we built three Subways over a four-year period. If you want to know anything about plants, chicken feed, making a sandwich, beer, I gotcha.

Erin Lawrimore: That's not a bad set of skills.

Brandi Hillman: It's just funny. It's a variety of useless knowledge I have. But I was also a business banker for Citizens for a while there too, where I got to even dig deeper into working with other businesses and seeing what their challenges were and what they loved and what they didn't love, and so I knew what I was getting into from that perspective. But all the business I've ever been involved in has been family, which is interesting. Yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: Do you remember if there was a magic moment where you finally were like, "We're going to open a brewery?"

Brandi Hillman: When Brad committed to move to Asheville, and it's funny, that was six years ago, six and a half, seven years ago, we thought we were at the cusp, the bubble, then in Asheville, and there's still three breweries in planning now, and who knew? But, when he committed to move up and we found the property and started to envision the property and signed that lease, then we knew it was going to happen.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. And you said his background was the brewing?

Brandi Hillman: He home brewed, learned through podcasts from one of the founders of White Labs, listening to podcasts from him, and just home brewing. And in his brownstone in Brooklyn, where you have very limited space in the first place, but he still found a way to brew beer and then have a chest freezer with four beers on draft in that space. And Greg and I would go up for the Halloween parties, and that's just where we would taste the beers, and we're like, "Brad, you really make good beer, because not every home brewer ... and I'm not an expert by any means, but we just knew he loved it and it was solid and it was different. It wasn't just a traditional IPA. He was making quads and things that other places weren't making at the time. Yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: Here at Hillman today, can you talk a little bit about your role here and who else we have involved in the business?

Brandi Hillman: Yeah. I would say Brad's responsibilities are on the brewing side. He now has a team of three that helps him, which is awesome. Greg's role really is operations. He's looking a little bit farther out, growth or what that looks like, or does that make sense, or, if there's big projects like redoing a door or installing a new walk-in refrigerator ... his background is electrical and engineering. That's just his mindset and he can task those kinds of things. But really, in the beginning, he also handled all the staffing, thank goodness. He wore the most hats of all of us, for sure, in the beginning, but we've finally been able to create an awesome structure of management now that we didn't used to have. It was the three of us doing everything for a while, and then the restaurant, which is a whole other animal. 00:08:00And then my role has really been the accounting, the accounts payable, accounts receivable. I was the wholesale rep for the first four years, so schlepping kegs around town in my truck. Finally, hired an awesome wholesale person that's been with us for over a year doing that. But the marketing and the PR, so when you reach out to do an interview, the boys are going to make me do it because I am not afraid to talk to people. They're probably a little more bashful. Putting together all of our community service things, I'm really proud of. Every month, we have at least one Power in Pint, and it's a dollar for every beer sold that day goes to that nonprofit, and it's a different nonprofit every month. What's cool is April is for Our VOICE, which is a local nonprofit that helps with sexual assault and victim counseling, that sort of thing, and April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, right? We tie that in, make it a story, and, every April, it's Our VOICE that receives that Power in Pints funds. We support a local shelter. McDowell County is our Old Fort location. There's a local rescue called Rusty's Legacy. We do a monthly adoption day with them the first Sunday of the month. Asheville, it's Charlie's Angels Animal Rescue first Sunday of the month. That's my fun space. That's not the paying the excise tax and doing the reports, that's the stuff I have to do, but it's not the fun stuff. My creative outlet is through the community outreach. 00:09:00We do a mobile mammography bus every fall. We just had ours in October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but we have a bus come and park at each location for the day. Women can sign up and get a mammogram on the bus. And then Hillman Beer pays for four uninsured women at both locations. We have a beer that raises money that goes towards that specifically. It's called Strawboobies. It's a strawberry saison. We are 12-year-olds inside, just to make people laugh, but it does eventually tie into a story, I promise. And we do the Blood Connection drives every month at both locations. It's just really important that we stay involved and support a variety of things, not just rescue animals, but it's veterans, it's Asheville Greenworks, the creeks, it's sexual assault awareness. We cover all of our bases and everybody in the community.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. When you were first planning the brewery, it seems obvious how you landed on the name Hillman, but why did you land on the name Hillman?

Brandi Hillman: Because everything else was taken. Hillman was actually the last resort. You start that process and you're like, "There's no way that's taken," and you Google it and you're like, "Yep, that brewery's in Colorado. Yep, that brewery's in Wisconsin." And it's same with beer names. It's impossible. We don't distribute a lot. For us, it's smaller batches. It's one and done. We aren't necessarily trademarking anything. Of course, if we step on anyone's toes, we'll pull it. We get silly because you have to. Everything's taken. That's what happened with the name. We had maybe 10 logos and brewery names and, finally, the attorneys were like, "You're just have to use your name." We're like, "Okay."

Erin Lawrimore: Did you have favorites that you couldn't use?

Brandi Hillman: No. I'm sure in our notes somewhere, and I've started a few boxes of things to look back on in 10 and 20 years just to save, but I don't know off the top of my head. That's funny. Yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: When y'all were initially looking for spots, did you initially start looking in Asheville or were there other areas you were looking for first?

Brandi Hillman: Initially in Asheville, for sure, and we always thought there'd be a second or third one day, but no idea at that time that Old Fort would be that. But, yeah, definitely Asheville, and the place that we're in, I bought a house there and I was 24. I knew that neighborhood and I knew it had been a lot of interesting things prior, sketchy things, but I just knew that there was going to be continued growth from Biltmore Village and it was just a missed opportunity or an up-and-coming area. And we were able to get that lease and get in there and start working. And it's amazing, even over the last five years, how it's changed in that community. Yeah, a lot more traffic, but ... yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: No. Let's talk a little bit about that space though. We're in Old Fort, but your original spot's on Sweeten Creek Road, right?

Brandi Hillman: Sweeten Creek, Yep. Road, and it's on Sweeten Creek too.

Erin Lawrimore: True. But tell me a little bit about that space and the size of the space and what you were going for when you initially planned the space.

Brandi Hillman: We thought, "How cool. It's near the railroad. It's a little grungy, but it's still just outside of Biltmore Village where you're going to maybe have some traffic coming in from the highway to the Biltmore Estate." But we really wanted a community pub feel. I knew that Oakley and Shiloh and those communities, they could walk there. It was easy to walk there for the most part. And then you had the creek in the back, which no one really knew how nice it was until we cleaned it up. I have some before and after pictures I can show you. And then the building, originally, I think it was automotive, but it was a lot of bars at one point, but we busted out those doors, so making it feel open air-like, but it almost looked like an airplane hangar. It's a really cool structure, lots of brick, but this dark dome. 00:14:00Again, when the doors are open, you still feel like you're outside, and that's really important to us, that open air feel, and also felt like a beer garden where it's these long community tables and you're forced to sit with other people you don't know, which maybe wasn't as good during COVID, but it was open air, that worked out, a lot of outside seating, which worked out for us. We were only closed for a couple of months during COVID and we feel really fortunate for that. But, yeah, it just had all those things and just the layout. We wanted to have cushioned seats and trying to make it comfortable, and not fancy, but not too dirty, that happy in-between space, because we do have a restaurant at both locations. And so just that open air feel was really important to us and it had the potential for it.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. That spot, were there other spots in Asheville that you looked at first or-

Brandi Hillman: There were a couple other ones, but, even though the interior square footage was smaller than some of the other spaces, it had the creek, it had the railroad, it had those other unique things about it, so it just went over. And we were able to make a lot of seating outside. Weather pending, we can have a pretty good crowd with everything open. And we're lucky, the weather's pretty good year-round now. We don't have the winters we used to in Western North Carolina, so it allows for those doors to be open a little bit longer for the year than it used to.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Well, and you mentioned changes to that area since y'all first opened. Can you talk a little bit about that, what it was like when you first opened?

Brandi Hillman: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Breweries are cool because we all love each other and we support each other, and they're usually grouped in little clusters. Catawba Brewing had their taproom there just out on the outskirts of the village as well, and then French Broad River Brewing had been there for many years just across the railroad track. There was already that couple set up. And then Hi-Wire opened there on the other side of the village, but still similar space, and then Burial Forestry Camp happened. Those things happened, and then, on down the road, a Sherwin-Williams and paint stores, newer businesses started to open. We now have another brewery that's opened within the last three months called 7 Clans. You need to check them out. They're awesome.

Erin Lawrimore: Actually, I did an interview. Is it the same, the Cherokee?

Brandi Hillman: Oh, good. Chris, yeah. Yes, yes.

Erin Lawrimore: Five years ago, probably, did an interview with her.

Brandi Hillman: Yeah, a little bit different ownership now, but same concept and same-

Erin Lawrimore: I didn't realize they had a spot in Asheville.

Brandi Hillman: ... history. They purchased Frog Level in Waynesville and they started brewing there, and then I think it's been three months now. I need to get over there and say hey to them. But they are just down the road from us, which is exciting. And then there's a cool yoga studio where you can bring your dog and do yoga and it has a bar with beer in it. Dogs, yoga, and beer, it's-

Erin Lawrimore: It's the most Asheville thing ever.

Brandi Hillman: It's so Asheville, right? But they're doing awesome and they have an awesome space. The Village is what the Village is. It'll always be there, they have awesome shops, but just seeing that growth creep out and doing cool things with it is nice.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Well, and I think even just thinking outside of that one space, Asheville as a whole, the beer scene, in the last five years, has-

Brandi Hillman: Yeah. Yeah, who knew?

Erin Lawrimore: ... gone crazy.

Brandi Hillman: Yeah, and I wish I had statistics off the top of my head. I was the president of Asheville Brewers Alliance for a couple years and I could rattle them off, but its even changed in the last year since I was doing that and keeping an eye on that. But it's exciting. It's really cool. And there's not many that didn't make it. Breweries are the next community centers and I don't think that's going to change for a really long time. That's a testament to that.

Erin Lawrimore: If somebody came up to you and said, "I don't know anything about Hillman," how would you describe Hillman beer to them?

Brandi Hillman: I would say family-owned brewery taproom that has a limited menu. I shouldn't say limited, it's actually a pretty good menu. It's a-

Erin Lawrimore: I was going to say it's a pretty extensive menu.

Brandi Hillman: Well, I think, more than anything, it's a nice variety. It's not bar-bar food, but it's not a full-blown, high-end restaurant. You still order at the bar, you go pour your own water, because it's hard to have full service anyway, especially after COVID. But we have vegan and vegetarian options, so that's nice. We want to cater to everyone. And you have a salad, but you can cheat and have a burger and fries if you want. Sorry I went off on a tangent. I know your question was-

Erin Lawrimore: No, no, no.

Brandi Hillman: But just a family-owned, community-focused space that offers a quality beer and food product, and it's for families, for couples, and just to hang out and be comfortable in and feel safe in. That's really important to us. .

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Well, when you're thinking back to when you first opened, are there any issues or challenges that stand out in your mind, things that you faced in those early years?

Brandi Hillman: Yeah, I think, well, the food piece. We partnered with someone early on. They rented the kitchen, they handled the food part, and that was challenging just because you have two owners and you may have different visions. And so after COVID, they decided it was just too much for them, and so we took that over. There's pros and cons either way. That's why a lot of breweries don't have food. It's a lot. It's different food costs, it's different labor ... it's just a whole other thing. But we just feel so strongly that either, one, you'll stay and you'll have one more beer because you got pretzels and a burger, you had something substantial and you don't have to leave to go to another restaurant. We also felt it was really important that it's one tab. You're not going to the food truck to give a card here and you have to leave it with them and then you got to go in and give your card to ... we're just trying to make it simple. It's seamless for the customer. But flooding is a challenge there, but that's once a year, and we knew that. That was not a surprise. We didn't really know how it would affect us. And it's really more of losing mulch and some of the landscaping and just getting the employees out or getting it closed up. It could be way worse. Again, we're grateful and we knew that going into it. That's what you pay to have the environment you're in is to have the creek running, and it's just so nice. Yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. When you first moved into the building, you mentioned it had been a lot of things beforehand. What was the state of the building when you first moved into it?

Brandi Hillman: It was gross. It was really gross. Greg, Brad and I fought over who was carrying out this toilet and who's doing ... it was gross. It's amazing what a coat of paint and Clorox can do to a space. And it's funny ... now, when you go back in there you're going to see these things, but we kept three things in the space because I think it was an unofficial strip club, actually, right before us, because there was a catwalk and a VIP ... anyway, was a stripper pole, there was a disco ball, and there was this big skull head, and so we kept those three things because we just thought it paid homage to the space. Above the bathrooms, you can see the stripper pole, we have a skeleton on it, and then the disco ball's over the bar, if they could talk, and then the skull's in the brewhouse. 00:21:00And so we just joke about ... here, we were like, "Well, we got to have a skull. We don't have a stripper pole, but we have a skeleton."

Erin Lawrimore: And I know you have a disco ball.

Brandi Hillman: And the disco ball. Yeah, there's some running themes here. We have lots of brick, a creek, and train track, so, yeah, we have a theme.

Erin Lawrimore: That's hilarious.

Brandi Hillman: But, yeah, the before and after is incredible really. When I look back at it, I'm like, "Wow." And Greg and Brad and I did most of it, because we had to because we didn't have any money, right? You do what you got to do. But we're pretty handy kids. I don't ever want to paint slats again. I have tennis elbow just thinking about it, but, yeah, you're even more proud of it when you really have a part in it, and you have to do those things, you have to figure it out.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. When you were first getting started, were there resources or particular people, groups, that were helpful to you in building and growing the business?

Brandi Hillman: For sure, and this is an opportunity to say, the Pyatts, Billy, Jetta, and Scott, that started Catawba Brewing, they were so good to us and so nice and shared whatever they had, and just no secrets. And it's funny. It's two brothers and a wife, it's like us, I won't say how many years later, but we're all so much alike, it's really funny. But joining the ABA and becoming a board member, and we've tried to pay it forward. We've had several breweries reach out to us since we've opened to go, "How do you do this? And excise reports," and I'm like, "Let me help you, because, you know what, Billy Pyatt sat down with me and he helped me and showed me how to do this." I would say to them ... 00:23:00And Leah Ashburn at Highland, I knew her before then. I even went to her to tell her that we're doing it just because I felt like I was cheating on them, so dumb. I know. But we're in a similar neighborhood. I respected her and Oscar and what they've done in their space. Other breweries, yes, they would be people that really, really helped us, and then our banks. But I had a banking background, those resources are there, but a lot of people don't know they're there unfortunately. It's like, "No, hey, go check out Small Business Development," and, "Hey, there's a thing called SBA loan if you can't get traditional," so just being involved in the community and sharing those resources that we could take advantage of.

Erin Lawrimore: And you mentioned the Asheville Brewers Alliance a couple times already. Can you talk a little bit more about that group and your work with them, but also what they do for the breweries in general?

Brandi Hillman: Yeah. I can't even tell you how long it's been around, maybe nine years now. It really started as more of just a social event because it allowed the brewery owners and brewers to get together and go, "Hey, what hops did you use?" or, "what'd you do when this crashed?" or, "What'd you do with this yeast when it didn't whatever?" And it was just a way for us to, one, hang out and drink beer and then, two, actually get some answers from each other, help each other out. And then it grew into staffing an executive director and growing that beyond social to educational, inviting the local hops manufacturer in to talk about hops or going to Riverbend Malt and doing a tour at their property and what their process is and what they offer, having the local insurance folks do a panel and Q&A for not just startups but existing breweries. 00:25:00And in the last year and COVID certainly halted some of that. We're getting back into it and getting a new executive director in place where we can start doing some of those things, but just being a resource. There's dues involved. The ABA does more local educational and social. The North Carolina Craft Brewers Guild, being in Raleigh, having staff there, they can handle a lot of the legislator interaction, correspondence, support for the breweries in the state. You really should be a member of both. It's so beneficial because, being up here, I can't be in Raleigh to go speak to my representative about why craft beer needs to stay open during COVID or whatever it may be. Yeah, so just two organizations that are just really important, and it's just nice to know you've got some folks to lean on. But people reach out and they're not a member, we all help each other. We're really lucky to be in this industry because it's not like that in all industries.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. And I think that's one of the themes through a lot of these interviews I've done is just how unique this industry is with that cooperation.

Brandi Hillman: Absolutely. It was so cool, a couple years ago, New Belgium, the head brewer's on the ABA board, he sends a text out to this crew and he is like, "We're brewing today and we need 30 pounds of whatever this hop is." I'm like, "I'll ask Brad, but I doubt it." We had it, so little old Hillman Beer, about three years, ago was able to help New Belgium make sure a brew happened that day. It was so cool. Who knew?

Erin Lawrimore: That's awesome.

Brandi Hillman: And they were so nice about it and they brought us some beers and they replenished what we gave them and it's just where would that happen, and that we even had it. It was pretty cool.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah, that is really cool. Let's talk about how the business has grown since you first opened. You talked about the kitchen-food service side of things a little bit already and taking over that. Talk a little bit more about the process of taking over the food service and it being a second business on top of the brewery business.

Brandi Hillman: It really it is. It's just managing the food costs is so much more important. There's just not the margin there like there is in beer, right, and the overhead, the staffing, the labor is so much more, right, because it's not tip-based, but just managing that, creating checklists, creating order guides. But Greg and I had that from Subway a little bit, not comparing the two kitchens, but it is still a product, what's your cost, what do you have to sell it for, what's your profit ... But still that same science is happening there, math's happening there. Yeah. When the opportunity happened to open here in Old Fort, we just knew right away we were going to ... and, especially here, there's not many places to eat, right, so we felt we just had to, to be a service to the community. 00:28:00And, certainly, a challenge here, staffing's a little bit different for McDowell County. The Asheville ... there's certainly a pool to pull from, but that doesn't all necessarily mean one thing or another. It's just we just weren't sure what to expect. But, yes, it's really important. The front of the house, we manage, or we don't manage, but we really monitor their tip averages. It's really important to us that they stay in that 25 or higher range. We add the things that help their tip. The food helps the tip, the nice ports with the ... they can still sit out there during the winter, adding the heat. It's a big picture that drills down that benefits everyone else in the long run. But, yeah, it's just that we knew right away, when this happened, that we're going to have to have a kitchen and, when location number three happens, it'll have to have a kitchen. We realize the importance of it.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Well, let's talk about this space, and you mentioned that, from the start, you already were thinking a second location, but weren't thinking Old Fort. That's not a surprise. But what led you here to Old Fort and were you looking at other places in addition to this?

Brandi Hillman: At about two years in, we could see the potential for the business plan, that it could be picked up and duplicated somewhere else, and, honestly we would get courted from other towns to come and duplicate what we're doing. But Greg and I built a Subway in Old Fort, it was our third and last location, about seven years ago. And the manufacturing had lost a lot of jobs, so closed down in town, but we could see the potential, right? It's only 25 minutes from Asheville. It was cheaper at the time. Real estate was catching up with Buncombe County. Sorry. You're only an hour and a half from Charlotte. It has the potential for the outskirts to grow into, and we could make beer here at that time. 00:30:00Actually, let me back up. The Parkers, who really are part of the resurgence of Old Fort, they worked very hard, recruited us to build the Subway, redid this whole building. It was Parker Hosiery. They made socks for the war, three generations. But they were recruiting these other businesses to come to town, putting a gallery in here and putting a sock factory, because that's what they had. But the Parkers were like, "Hey, start a brewery." We're like, "Well, North Carolina won't allow us to sell it here. We could brew here, but that's dumb. If we're going to have a brewhouse, we need to be able to sell it from the taproom." And then some work with our local representatives in the state, we're able to make the law change or encourage this change where we're, actually, we're in par with wineries. Wineries, forever, if they manufacture it, they can sell it. It was tied in that way. That bill passed and we signed the lease the next day. 00:31:00The Parkers were like, "Okay, let's do this thing." With their help, they helped us do a lot of work in the space, but this was a lot of work. It's 10,000 square feet versus 4,000 square feet in Asheville, so a much bigger project, but just could see that the town needed it, and just the potential that was there and is still there. There's really cool things happening in town with G5 Trail Collective. It's a nonprofit, they're building trails, making them accessible for all people, still a lot of cool things. The Fonta Flora trail is coming through here. Eventually, that'll all connect Buncombe, McDowell, and Burke County, just a lot of cool things, Kitsbow. We have two clothing manufacturer, gear manufacturers, here in town, sewing on-site in this building, which is super cool. Triple Aught Design is the other one. And it's funny, Kitsbow says, "Yeah, when we heard the brewery was coming, we signed our lease." They moved from California, because they know that's usually the kicker of a small town to get things going. 00:32:00And now we have a second brewery, Whaley Farm Brewery. They're awesome, a husband and wife team. They opened about four months ago maybe, and they're doing great, and they're a different concept, like farm ... Jessica's a farmer. She brings in cucumbers and greens, things that she's growing. You can grab stuff out of the cooler while you sit there and have a beer or two with them.

Erin Lawrimore: Interesting.

Brandi Hillman: There are a lot of cask ales, and no IPAs. You'll not find IPA over there. But,, yeah, no they're awesome. It's just really exciting to see this change because it was a challenge getting open here. I had to do a lot of PR, just trying to educate everybody that people are not going to be passed out every day on the sidewalk. They're not stripping til 2:00 in the morning. There's no liquor. We don't do liquor at either place. 00:33:00Just had to really prove ourselves. And we actually paid for police, extra police coverage, for the first six months we were open because the town didn't have cops on Saturday and Sunday. We didn't know that, but we were happy to do that. If that's what we needed to do to make sure we are secure, because our homes are on the line, so for the town alderman to threaten to take that away after you've made this commitment is really scary. You just do what you have to do. Yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: And when was it that y'all opened this space here?

Brandi Hillman: July of 2020 in the middle of COVID.

Erin Lawrimore: We'll get back to that in a minute because that's a-

Brandi Hillman: It was like, "Why did you do that?" We're like, "We had to. We had bills to pay."

Erin Lawrimore: I was going to say because you were already planning it.

Brandi Hillman: It happened a year prior. We were committed to those loans a year ahead of that, so you have to do it.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Oh, goodness. You mentioned that the space, there's a big difference in terms of the size, but what production is done here versus done in Asheville and the sizes, what's the difference between the two?

Brandi Hillman: The brewhouse in Asheville is a five-barrel with seven 10-barrel fermenters. And then Old Fort is a 10-barrel system, but we've got now three twenties and a couple of thirties, so much more capacity here, and we're brewing our top five beers here, so the ones that are turning, the ones we're selling the most of. And Asheville is brewing the one-offs, the small batches, the seasonal ones. It works out great to be able to split that up and be able to still accommodate both taprooms, but keep those beers in those spaces for that reason. Yeah. But we have way more capacity, cooler capacity, here too, storage space.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Well, and thinking about, I guess, is there a difference between the customer base in the two? I'm going to guess there probably is just-

Brandi Hillman: There is. We sell more IPA in Asheville. That wasn't a surprise. We sell more food here. This is probably a 60/40 food/beer here and then flip-flopped to Asheville because, again, there's more options. There's places to go to eat there. Here, it's just limited. We sell probably more of the lagers and the Kolsch, the lighter beers here, but it's really fun to convert someone or to have them try something that they would say, "No way. I'll never drink that," and, "Oh," because it's really important that our staff, one, can educate, tell the story, but give them a taste. We are fine with giving people a taste because I don't want you to buy a whole beer if you aren't going to like it, and, two, you may thought you didn't like it, but you're like, "That is delicious." It's fun to watch that happen.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Yeah. No. And we see that with a lot of breweries that are in smaller towns, I think. Thinking about the future, if you had your way, where would you see Hillman in five or 10 years?

Brandi Hillman: Yeah, a third location is certainly doable soon, now that we've really built our base of management and there are some levels and people in charge of the ... there's not so much responsibility on the three of us. But I think of a similar concept, somewhere that maybe needs a restaurant, and I love the idea of helping a smaller town that's maybe lost some jobs, or being able to partner with a supportive city would be awesome. The next place is going to be a supportive town, city. And it's just crazy, I have to fight one, but others are like, "Please, please, please come here," and so it's like it's got to make sense for us. Greg and I moved here a year ago, so we are residents of Old Fort, just down the river, to really show that we're here and committed to be part of this community. We know what's happening. We're close by. We care. 00:37:00Yeah, it would be a similar situation, I think. It wouldn't be a second one in Asheville probably. I don't see us in Charlotte or Raleigh, even though I'd love to be closer to Raleigh just to go to more ball games. You want it to make sense to transport beer and your staffing and being able for us to be able to get to ... because we're still so hands-on, it can't be a challenge for the owners to get from one place to the other either, and just be accessible is really important. Yeah, that's just what it would just geographically make sense. What's the need of that town? Does that make sense? Do they want us there? Is there a need for us?

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. One of the things that you touched on already are community programs and events, and you mentioned a few of them, but can you talk about some of the ones you're most proud of or some of the ones that you feel you're just most excited about?

Brandi Hillman: Yeah, I think the Blood Connection is awesome because I just know there's a need for blood. And what's so cool is that the Blood Connection gives a $20 Hillman Beer gift card for each donor. How cool is that? You get four pints for a pint a blood on a special day. But, yeah, I just know that the need is there, so that is really cool, to be able to make that cool and make it accessible. And then, for someone who maybe just doesn't care what they're doing, but they got a gift card, they still got their blood, that's just a win-win for everybody. And then the mobile mammogram, that's through a company called Envision Diagnostics and we did that first year. My aunt's a breast cancer survivor of 30-plus years. That's our crane, our heron, it's so cool. But to offer, one, to make it accessible because some people are scared to go to the doctor's office, right, if I can have a beer while I'm having a mammogram, it's a no-brainer.

Erin Lawrimore: More people should do that.

Brandi Hillman: Yes. But to be able to pay for ... and, every time, we have women who are uninsured, and I try to stress it and getting it out there to say, "Just come on." You have to have a doctor because we've got to send the results to someone, right? But we've paid for a lot of uninsured women to have a mammogram and, hopefully, have prevented or caught something early on. It's just really important for me. And then our veterans, today, actually, Friday's Veteran's Day, but, here, our Power in Pints is for a local American Legion Post, and the funds go to the van that takes veterans to their doctors' appointments. Funds today will go to that for every beer we sell, we pour, not retail, there's not any margin there, but every Hillman beer draft that's poured today, a dollar goes to that program. And then, in Asheville, it's a North Carolina Outward Bound school program, but it's their veterans program. They have a retreat program for veterans to come and do the courses to help through PTSD, whatever it may be. In November, because it's Veterans Day in November, those are the two that we support. My husband's a veteran, a lot of veterans in my family, Greg's father's a ... brother's a veteran, yeah, so it's really important to us. Those are the ones, I guess, are near and dear, but we like having a variety, which is important.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Well, and I know y'all also do a number of community collaboration beers and stuff like that too.

Brandi Hillman: Sure. Well, Pink Boots, every year, well, since we've been open, there was a festival that got started in, oh, where's Newgrass Brewing-

Erin Lawrimore: Shelby.

Brandi Hillman: ... Shelby, called Biere de Femme, and it's a beer festival where it's all women-brewed beer served at this beer festival, super cool. I got invited and I was just there for that one. And then, from there on, COVID messed it up, but we'd brew a beer for that festival and, every year, the style's called a Kottbusser. It's a German-style ale and we make it with honey and it's called Honig Gottin, which is German for honey goddess, and we add a little something to the honey every year. We've done plum, we've done chamomile, I can't think of the other ones right now. It's a little bit different every year, but it gets better and better. And so we do a portion of the proceeds from that beer that then gets donated, through the Biere de Femme festival, to Pink Boots, which helps women for scholarships in beer. It helps them go to a class to do this or go to A-B Tech to do that, or go to Germany and learn for a week to brew. How cool is that?

Erin Lawrimore: That's super cool.

Brandi Hillman: Super cool. My friend Katie got to do that one. Yeah. That one's a-

Erin Lawrimore: And I've done an interview with Katie where she talked about that.

Brandi Hillman: Oh, good. Smith? Yes, yeah. Oh, I saw her last night. She's a good friend of mine. That's just super cool. We've done the collaboration with Sierra Nevada, when the California fires happened, we brewed that beer. Yeah, it's not just the Power in Pints. We've done some collaboration beers where a portion of those sales go to the ... the Strawboobies, that goes to pay for the mammograms. And, actually, we have one right now called Can You See Uranus, the planet, but it's made with Galaxy hops. That's how it got started. Again, we are kids, we like to make ourselves laugh, but that beer will pay for men to have pre-screenings for prostate cancer. Again, stupid name, funny story, but it ties into a very serious, important subject, anyway ...

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you've mentioned it a few times and we can't not talk about it, but we'll talk about COVID now. Flash back to 2020, March 2020.

Brandi Hillman: It was a nightmare.

Erin Lawrimore: This space wasn't open yet, right?

Brandi Hillman: We opened mid-July 2020. We closed for two months, March, April, in Asheville. Greg and Brad and I got to come down here and be here all day because we couldn't be around anyone else and we were closed. We got a lot done, and it took us, yeah, about eight months I guess, to get open here, but we really were able to focus right before we opened here. And you had to close one door and someone manning the other door for counting people, because we just didn't ... we were opening, so we didn't know what was going to happen capacity-wise and were we going to be busy, and managing the mask wearing in McDowell County was harder than in Buncombe County. Our poor staff, it was different challenges.

Erin Lawrimore: You want to go under the cover?

Brandi Hillman: Yeah. [inaudible 00:43:59] I'm sorry.

Erin Lawrimore: We're going to pause because of the rain. 00:44:00We were talking about COVID. Tell me a little bit more about how COVID impacted the operations.

Brandi Hillman: Yeah. For Asheville, it was hard because we were not canning and we couldn't get crowler cans, which is a 32-ounce that you fill on-site, because they were all backordered. That was scary. We really didn't have beer we could serve, we didn't have a vessel, because we don't do the glass growlers. And then the kitchen was closed, so we were closed for about two months there. And then that allowed us to come down here and focus, me, Greg, and Brad, focus our time here. We were able to keep a couple of employees and they helped us during construction and put them to work during that time period. And then, here, we opened mid-July of 2020. It's crazy. It was closing for a little bit in Asheville, reopening kitchen, full taproom, and then opening here, kitchen, full taproom. 00:45:00And there are two different worlds between managing the customers with the mask-wearing in McDowell County versus Buncombe County. Buncombe, we had some city requirements, and most people were just like, "Okay. It is what it is, and that's what we do." Got a little more pushback here, but we're just very clear, we're following the state's guidelines. If they say do it, we do it. They say don't do it, we don't do it. We're just going to do whatever needs to be done. And we closed a few times here for staffing and somehow managed for ... we got away a long time without having to in Asheville because we had a lot of part-time staff there, so, the timing, we always missed it miraculously, but certainly had shutdowns at both places from it, and just managing ... you having to shut off one entrance here because the space here in Old Fort was just so big, we couldn't keep an account of the customers that were coming in. And, plus, it was really busy at first because it was new. And so it's just all that, managing all that, was very interesting, but awesome staff and just plugging through it and we all had to figure it out as we went along. It was not anything we'd ever dealt with before.

Erin Lawrimore: Well, and you mentioned that y'all canning beforehand. Did you switch to canning along the way?

Brandi Hillman: We started canning here once we got open, pretty quickly, for two reasons. One is that you can't buy beer anywhere else in Old Fort, so we really wanted people to be able to take it to go. Crowlers fill that need for a while, but a four-pack or a six-pack, at least our hazy, our New England IPA, and then our Old Fort Original Lager. A lager and a hazy, those are our number two beers, it's easy for people to take, so we immediately started can canning using a mobile canner. And we have the space here for them to come into the brewhouse and do it easily. And then we changed our pars on our crowler can, so now we keep two pallets at a time. There's never that lag or we aren't getting in an emergency situation. We learned some lessons and changed how we order things and when we order and that sort of thing. Yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. And so have y'all continued the canning on-

Brandi Hillman: We have, we have, and we always have at least three beers, the two year-round, and then we just alternate seasonally what the third one is. We might have our anniversary sour, we do a porter during the winter, or my mom's beer, which is called Family Tradition, it's a Belgian blonde, we've canned it, so just kind of keeping it interesting so people can keep an eye out for something that's rotating that they can take to go.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. And what are y'all doing in terms of distribution and wholesale?

Brandi Hillman: One wholesale rep who does sales and the delivery, which is a lot of work. I did it the first four years, but she's been doing it for over a year now. It's really a 60-mile radius of Asheville. We have some contacts in Raleigh that they used to come and get our beer, but now it's like, "Oh, hey, we're making a run." It makes it worth the drive, or she's going to a festival anyway maybe and just gets a bunch of orders ahead of time, but it's all self-distribution and managing that. 00:48:00But it's not really a moneymaker for us. We look at it as marketing because we'll never be in the grocery store. We never started with that intention. It's not a desire to fight for shell space. That's just not who we are. We want someone to have a draft at Bad Craft or the Trailhead or Black Mountain Ale House and go, "Oh, man, that's a really good beer," and then they go to the taproom. That's the goal, really, for us, for the wholesale. That may change down the road, but I don't think it'll ever be that we're in the grocery store. It's just maybe have two reps and covering the whole state or something like that, that would change, but-

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. You've talked a little bit about some of the beers, but do you have a beer that you consider to be the flagship offering here, or beers plural?

Brandi Hillman: Well, the Hazy Half-Back, our New England IPA, is our number one seller. And it's funny because New England IPA was not recognized as a beer style for a long time, and my brother-in-law did not want to brew it, but people were asking for it. And we were going to call it Twist My Arm first, because that's really what it ... but now we're glad he made it because it's our number one beer and everybody wants it. It's such a smooth, easy-drinking beer. It's so juicy and so good. But I would say the other beers that people want are our ESB, because it won silver and gold at GABF in two different years, and then our quad, our Four Fat Baby, it actually won our very first year being open. It got bronze at GABF. We got a bronze the first year, got a silver the second year with the ESB, and, the third year, we got a gold with the ESB. People, when they read that, they're like, "I need to try that." But ESB's year-round, but the quad is not so, if they see it coming, they're like, "Oh, my gosh, I got to go try it." That's cool just for that reason. Those are popular.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. And do you see that the same beers are still your bestsellers at both of the locations?

Brandi Hillman: Yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: It's pretty even?

Brandi Hillman: Yeah. Yeah. The Old Fort Original Lager and the Kolsch, which are the two lightest, and Kolsch is a style that not a lot of people know about or have heard of, but it's the closest thing to a Bud Light, right? It's just super easy drinking. That remains to be in the top three at both places for sure.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Thinking about the industry as a whole, what do you see as some of the biggest challenges or even changes to the industry since you first started?

Brandi Hillman: I would say some of the fighting that's happening with the distributors versus the self-distributors. There's some laws that might be changing on capping what you're able to self-distribute legally. There's a cap, and I'm not sure of the terminology right now, but how many taprooms you can have per location. Let's say I only brew at one, I can only open three more, unless I'm brewing at each one. Anyway, there are some challenges there that we just need to work with our legislative folks to work through that and make sure it's not hindering the small guy. But I guess, if you have multiple taprooms, you're not so much the small guy anymore. Those are some of the bigger things. 00:51:00Dealing with each town, the water, just working with water and sewer and proper disposal and yeast. In Asheville, it's a big deal. It's on their radar. Some of the bigger guys, like New Belgium, Sierra Nevada, they have their own systems that they're cleaning and implemented, but these are million dollar ... not all of us have that, so just working with our local MSD to go, "All right, you just need to file these rules or best practices to make sure the water quality remains the same and things like that." 00:52:00I think, coming soon, brewers are going to have to buy some extra equipment they maybe hadn't had in the past and seeing what those yeast levels are in the water because it bogs down ... anyway, it's certainly a problem, especially maybe more for the smaller towns. The infrastructure's not there, right? They've not had to think about it or they've not dealt with it before and what does it mean to their system? We're always kind of working through that. We get monthly tests here, checking the levels and our waste water and how we're disposing of whatever it may be. Yeah.

Erin Lawrimore: Well, and I'm curious too, just because, even to this day, there's not an equal number of men and women in the industry, but I do think it's changed a lot lately, and I think things like Biere de Femme have helped with that. But can you talk a little bit about that and, honestly, what it's like to be a woman in the industry today?

Brandi Hillman: I've had this question asked a lot and I feel bad when I answer it because I don't think I had quite the same experience most women have had. I'm super lucky and my comfort level around men and speaking what I think and holding some roles that maybe have not been held by a woman before and supportive by my husband and brother-in-law, like, "Whatever she ..." just not being a problem. And I say that, though, I have not been in the brewhouse. That is the one area I ... I didn't go to school for it. I've not worked in the brewhouse, and I know that that's probably more of the area where it's the hardest, right? It's been a good old boys club for a long time, but A-B Tech's program has changed the scene there. Hendersonville, the Blue Ridge Community College has a program. It's more accessible to women now. 00:54:00One of our three brewers is a female, which is pretty cool. Bailey has been with us for a while now. And so I say that in that I really personally cannot say that I've had a hard time, in life, in my world. Sure, the things were there, but I feel like I've been very lucky, and it's not common that I've been able to maneuver and be in some of the places without experiencing some of that. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I've not been in ... I'm telling you, the brewhouse, I think, is where ... production, the brewhouse, that is where maybe that's been the hardest area to tap into. We always try to be aware of that, right, and who shows up on time? I don't care who you are. Do you show up every day? That's what we care about. I don't care what color, what sex, what ... just are you here? You're here to work, great, let's get to work. But, yeah, it's definitely changing. I see it. But I will just say I feel very lucky in that and fortunate I have not had to experience that like some of my coworkers and friends in the industry.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Well, you mentioned A-B Tech and Blue Ridge Community College and some of those brewing education programs. I think, especially this part of the state, it's interesting to think about how they've impacted the industry too. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Brandi Hillman: Sure. We have benefited from one, two, three ... we've had six interns and two have become full-time employees through-

Erin Lawrimore: Oh, wow.

Brandi Hillman: ... A-B Tech's program, so we believe in it. We think it's awesome. Some of the interns probably are like, "I never want to build a brewery," because we had three at one time, when this was being built, and they were painting one day and moving mulch. But I'm like, "You know what? If you want to open ... this is what's going to happen. You get the full picture of what it ..." 00:56:00But I have a friend, a female friend, who went through the program, graduated, and she said, which is interesting, I've never thought of, she goes, "It's not just getting women into the program, but not everyone can take two years off of their life, right?" She's like, "I feel privileged in itself that I was even able to do that," just like any college. But that's a two-year. It's hard to have another job doing that one. You're either really committed, you're really lucky, maybe you set aside the funds, you've been able to do that, but they've certainly opened the doors, I think. It'll be interesting to know how their numbers have changed, their enrollment and graduation rates between men and women. Yeah, three friends that have finished in the program and one is still at least in the beer industry.

Erin Lawrimore: I'd hoping to do an interview with Puff at AB Tech.

Brandi Hillman: Oh, good. That's great. They're awesome. They'll be able to tell you. It'd be interesting to see what their numbers are, how it's changed over the years. But, yeah, no, we're grateful for their partnership and being able to work with their interns and, again, to have rolled into full-time positions with us, which is pretty cool.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. That's nice. Thinking of the industry today, are there any specific industry trends that you love or that you just are like, "We will never do that and I'm going to stay away from it?"

Brandi Hillman: Well, we said that about a New England IPA, but we saw how that happened. We said that about a seltzer and we got one on draft at all times. We may not personally like them, but the people want it, you got to make it. I would say that we're not very trendy people, so we keep it pretty simple and traditional. Even if things are changing, it takes us a while to either jump on board or just let it pass before we talk about it. I would say part of it's that we're lazy. Another part is that we're just traditional and it's like, if it ain't broke, why add more stress to our lives? We don't want to add Fruity Pebbles to the beer. Brad's a purist. We don't do many adjuncts, if at all. Like chamomile, it's all natural. It's all juices or purees, anything that gets added. I don't know. If they are happening, I may not even know about it and we probably wouldn't even do it anyway. But I do joke and say it's probably because we're just a little bit lazy and it's one extra thing we have to think about and do. It's like, "Nah, we're good."

Erin Lawrimore: That's not a bad thing though. One thing you mentioned that I wanted to talk a little bit more about, though, that ties in with that, I think, is you talked about the honey, and did you say it was local?

Brandi Hillman: Yeah, yeah. The first two years were out of Weaverville, the Honey & the Hive. They sell supplies and honey and things like that, and bees. And then, actually, the two years one might have come from Haywood and one might have come from Weaverville up north, but local. And then the last two years have been from Camp Grier, which is a 70-year-old camp here in town that's awesome. They're part of that G5 Trail collective I was telling you about. It's the nonprofit arm of their ... but they have bees up there, and so, yeah, five five-gallon buckets of honey, we purchased for that Honig Gottin beer. It's just cool when you can tie it in. You can't always get that, right, with yeast or hops. They're not grown here, but at least I can do something that's-

Erin Lawrimore: That's what I was going to ask you-

Brandi Hillman: The strawberries are Flying Cloud Farm. Our pumpkins used to be a farm that would roast them for us, but they're focused on ginger now. But we try when we can, but sometimes there's just some simplicity in I know I can get this many gallons of this and I know it's consistent and I know I can get it every year. But the honey certainly can vary depending on the bees and what's happening with them.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. That's really interesting, though, because I think that one of the things we like to ask folks about is is there anything that you think makes North Carolina beer unique?

Brandi Hillman: I don't know for the state necessarily, unless you're talking to Fonta Flora Brewery, right? That is their mission and it's so cool they do that and that they're able to do that. But, otherwise, these styles are from all over the world and they're not secrets. It's not a secret brew. You can give the same recipe to 10 brewers and there'll be 10 different beers, right? There's just so much wiggle room and variety and flex in there that happens. I don't think so. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Of course, North Carolina is awesome and unique in itself, but I just don't think that there's-

Erin Lawrimore: Other than the fact that we're the best.

Brandi Hillman: Yeah, other than that we're the best state in the country. But, yeah, I don't know. I don't think so. Yeah. I think it's a business model that really probably started out west and we've picked it up and it's grown this way and we've adapted the yard and the family atmosphere and the dogs and creating that kind of space is pretty consistent now. It's just a little bit unique between each brewery, not, I don't think, between states.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. If you're thinking about the industry as a whole, if you had a crystal ball, where would you like to see the industry in five or 10 years? You talked about Hillman, but what about the industry as a whole?

Brandi Hillman: Well, more women, more people of color in the industry. It's a missed opportunity. It's just a place where it's not been comfortable or shared or accessible. That would be very cool to see more of that. And I think then that would lend to more variety and some more uniqueness in breweries that are happening. But I think that, yeah, that's the biggest thing that I can think of. Otherwise, I feel like we're pretty lucky in that we were able to stay open during COVID because we had great support in Raleigh, and the state recognizes the importance, the manufacturing side versus the taproom side. And so I can't imagine much changes there because I just feel like we've been very lucky and have been able to do more than some other industries have when there have been restrictions otherwise.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. Thinking about the beers that we have here at Hillman, you have one in front of you. I always like to ask what is your favorite, though, because it may not be the one that's directly in front of you.

Brandi Hillman: Well, the one I can drink all the time these days is our New England IPA, the Hazy Half-Back. Told you earlier, I never thought I would say that because I was Belgian, German beer gal forever, forever. But my favorite would either be our Family Tradition, which is the Belgian blonde, the Biere de Garde, which is not common, it's seasonal, but ours is so good. It's just fun when it's something unique like that.

Erin Lawrimore: Can you describe what that one ...

Brandi Hillman: Oh, it's roasty. It's like a French farmhouse. You've got some of that, that French yeast ... it may still be on. You should try it. We'll look. But, yeah, those two, the seasonal ones that I look forward to, Oh, sorry. There's one more, which I named. It's a hazy IPA with Brett, it's Medusa hops and it's called, I named it, Funky Cold Medusa. It is such a good beer, but what's crazy is that we can't get the hops. They've not grown them for the last year. It's popularity and trends, speaking of trends, and so we've not been able to access them, so we've not had that beer in over a year. Brad swears he might be able to find a replacement, but we're still going to call it Funky Cold Medusa. But it's amazing. It's just that funk. It's got enough funk, but enough hazy, and it is, yeah, it's really good. It's fun. 01:04:0001:03:00Erin Lawrimore:

Well, thinking outside of Hillman, this is always everyone's hardest question, what are some of your favorite other North Carolina beers?

Brandi Hillman: Yeah, I mean Highland's Gaelic Ale is my go-to and, lovely, but also I've been drinking that beer for a really long time and it's just always smooth. I can get it most anywhere. Highland's usually on draft somewhere in then the country, state, so that's awesome. But, gosh, what would be ... I love Innovation, their saisons, they do a great job with saisons, and then Hi-Wire, dig their Lo-Pitch, their hefeweizen that they want a GABF medal for too. Yeah, those are some of my other peeps, yeah, that I'll grab for in the Ingles beer section when I didn't grab some from here, but that's good. We need to expand our horizons and try other things. So

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. That is my list of prepared questions, but is there anything we didn't talk about that we should talk about to get that full story of your role in the industry and Hillman?

Brandi Hillman: I just shared what my roles are and the things I have to do versus the things I'm excited about doing, which are both important. But I think the community piece lends to our story and I don't think we realized how big of a deal it would be in the beginning, but it's like I took it and ran with it and we're consistent with it and just creating that feeling of you came here and you contribute to it and, oh, Hillman's supporting this group, maybe I go to that food bank, but, hey, it's just that we're all connected, right? And so, yeah, just the community piece and just really trying to make a space that's comfortable, approachable, everyone's welcome, and just that Greg and Brad and I try to do the best we can and, every now and then, things happen, there might be a bad review here and there, but people just need to give small businesses a break.

Erin Lawrimore: Well, actually one thing I do want to ask you about is good review. You talked about the GABF wins. I want to talk a little bit about that because I think that's super exciting.

Brandi Hillman: Yeah. It was really cool.

Erin Lawrimore: Can you talk about, when you entered, what the thought was behind that, but also how it felt afterwards?

Brandi Hillman: Well, so we entered it before we even opened Asheville, because you have to ship it, and it's a big deal, one, to enter, it's expensive and it's expensive to ship it, overnight, cold pack, whatever. We didn't have any money, but we decided, for some reason, to spend it on that. We're like, "Why not?" And so we got open and then Greg and Brad and I were pouring at a beer festival in Asheville and, that day, they were announced. It was a Saturday, so they're announcing the awards, and I'm pouring beer and I feel my phone blowing up and I look at it and I see some texts and pictures, and then I see Brad out in the field, because we took turns enjoying the festival and working, and Brad's waving and he comes over and he's crying. We're like, "What is going on? What's going on? I'm look at my phone." They're like, "We won GABF. We won a bronze with the quad." 01:07:00That was cool to have sent it not really knowing. I think we sent ESB all three years too, but we just knew that the quad was unique. The ESB was really good. We probably set the Kolsch because it wasn't very common. You could send up to four, six ... I don't even remember now. The first three years, we sent beers, again, not cheap. Thank goodness, the guild now does this where if you bring it and then they ship it for huge savings. But then, the fourth year, we submitted some stuff and we didn't win anything, so we're like, "Nah, we're good." We've not submitted a beer since. We've only been open five and a half years, but it started before we opened, so we skipped a couple now. We're like, "No, we're good." We-

Erin Lawrimore: Once you win a gold medal.

Brandi Hillman: We don't want to chance our luckiness any longer. We feel pretty lucky. We should go buy the lottery ticket. We're done. Yeah, that's funny. We're not really good at the social media stuff because it's just awful to deal with. Anyway, I don't think we really took advantage of winning that and really putting it on ... we didn't even can it. I finally got them framed. They're inside here. They were hanging on a nail in the office the first three years, finally got them framed by a friend, so now they're up at least. But it's just we're grateful for it, I don't think we took advantage of what happened with it, but it's still really cool, and we're grateful for it, for sure. But we just did not maximize what we ... we probably got back what we put into it money-wise.

Erin Lawrimore: But also, nonetheless, you can still talk about it.

Brandi Hillman: Yeah, it's still really cool. Yeah, the third year, probably everybody's like, "Do they know the judges? What is going on?" I'm sure there was a little bit of a, "What? Hillman?" It's like I don't know, we're just really lucky.

Erin Lawrimore: Or the beer's just really good.

Brandi Hillman: I guess. But, yeah, it's such a roulette deal too. There's so many. Can you imagine judging? I just can't even imagine.

Erin Lawrimore: Yeah. No, I-

Brandi Hillman: And how many entries they have. It's crazy.

Erin Lawrimore: And that they're all going to be somewhat alike.

Brandi Hillman: Yeah, exactly. Can you imagine tasting 20 New England IPAs in a row? It's like they all taste the same. No.

Erin Lawrimore: Awesome. Well, if you can't think of anything else?

Brandi Hillman: I don't think so.

Erin Lawrimore: Awesome. Well, thank you for your time.

Brandi Hillman: Yeah. Thank you, Erin.