In this blog's description I vowed to write about both the beers and the breweries I discovered, but I have so far only written about the beers I tried. Well, the time has come for me to write about a brewery.
The brewery that will have the glorious honor of being the first to appear here is curiously only a few days older than this blog itself, but it has already made a pretty big splash in the Charlotte, North Carolina craft beer scene.
I am talking about the Heist Brewery.
I met with founder and owner Kurt the other day for a tour and he told me about how the Brewery came to be.
Kurt is a bioscientist who, after brewing his first batch of beer for himself and his friends, decided to change the focus of the MBA he was about to start from creating a biotechnology oriented business, to opening his own microbrewery.
His focus was originally to concentrate on brewing his own beer and distributing it. He was, of course, thinking of having a small taproom as well in the brewery so that people could try the beers, and serving a couple of flatbread pizzas to go with that. However, as time went by and his studies continued, events unfolded quite differently.
Kurt's MBA afforded him plenty of networking opportunities and he got the chance to meet people that changed his perspective of the business he was planning on opening.
Firstly, he met who is now his chef, who came from the catering world, and who through his talent and originality persuaded him to extend the food menu.
Then, he met his barman who, as it turned out, is regarded as one of the top 40 mixologists in the US. Evidently, that kind of makes it hard to serve only beer.
He then set out to open more of a brewpub with beer, cocktails and some food, than just a simple microbrewery, and also distribute his beer. Nevertheless, the circumstances had a few more changes in store.
To start with, after building his brewpub, he had gone through almost all of his financing. That meant that he did not have the cash to have a distribution and bottling facility.
To top it off, when he went to get his licence to operate, he was told that he could not brew, bottle, distribute and serve food all at the same time and in one location.
He decided to leave the bottling and distributing for the future and, after long discussions with the relevant public authorities, he was granted a licence to operate as a restaurant. This meant that what had started off as an ancillary activity, serving food, had now become the main focus of his business in the eyes of the State of North Carolina.
Kurt ran with it and his chef created a fantastic and original menu which he changes pretty often, adding daily specialties, and which includes a bunch of sharing plates, dips, flatbread pizzas, salads, burgers, sandwiches, and desserts.
Out of the things my girlfriend and I shared I would definitely recommend the steak and papaya martini, three little martini glasses filled with little cubes of steak, cucumber infused broccoli slaw and papaya salsa, and the bruschetta flatbread pizza, both of them heavenly.
The menu also includes delicious home made sodas and, of course, cocktails. We only had the chance to try one of their craft beer based cocktails, made with their cream soda, their I2PA and Malibu, which was perfectly meshed and where the flavor of all three ingredients was very noticeable.
The fact that the State of North Carolina considers food the primordial activity of Heist, does not mean Kurt has renounced the idea of bottling and distributing his beer. He plans to do so in the near future, now that the debts from opening the brewery are almost paid off. This has the added perk of having been offering his beers for more than a year and therefore knowing what his customers preferences are, giving him valuable data for when the time comes to bottle.
Their flavorful I2PA is a sure bet when time comes to bottle, but I was also quite impressed by the Belgian Tripel, which will be the subject of a future post, and the blueberry wheat beer my girlfriend ordered, sweet in its smell and balanced in its taste.
I will definitely have to come back to visit Heist Brewery next time I am in Charlotte and see the new and exciting things the team there comes up with because they have really impressed me.
The brewery that will have the glorious honor of being the first to appear here is curiously only a few days older than this blog itself, but it has already made a pretty big splash in the Charlotte, North Carolina craft beer scene.
I am talking about the Heist Brewery.
I met with founder and owner Kurt the other day for a tour and he told me about how the Brewery came to be.
Kurt is a bioscientist who, after brewing his first batch of beer for himself and his friends, decided to change the focus of the MBA he was about to start from creating a biotechnology oriented business, to opening his own microbrewery.
His focus was originally to concentrate on brewing his own beer and distributing it. He was, of course, thinking of having a small taproom as well in the brewery so that people could try the beers, and serving a couple of flatbread pizzas to go with that. However, as time went by and his studies continued, events unfolded quite differently.
Kurt's MBA afforded him plenty of networking opportunities and he got the chance to meet people that changed his perspective of the business he was planning on opening.
Firstly, he met who is now his chef, who came from the catering world, and who through his talent and originality persuaded him to extend the food menu.
Then, he met his barman who, as it turned out, is regarded as one of the top 40 mixologists in the US. Evidently, that kind of makes it hard to serve only beer.
He then set out to open more of a brewpub with beer, cocktails and some food, than just a simple microbrewery, and also distribute his beer. Nevertheless, the circumstances had a few more changes in store.
To start with, after building his brewpub, he had gone through almost all of his financing. That meant that he did not have the cash to have a distribution and bottling facility.
To top it off, when he went to get his licence to operate, he was told that he could not brew, bottle, distribute and serve food all at the same time and in one location.
He decided to leave the bottling and distributing for the future and, after long discussions with the relevant public authorities, he was granted a licence to operate as a restaurant. This meant that what had started off as an ancillary activity, serving food, had now become the main focus of his business in the eyes of the State of North Carolina.
Kurt ran with it and his chef created a fantastic and original menu which he changes pretty often, adding daily specialties, and which includes a bunch of sharing plates, dips, flatbread pizzas, salads, burgers, sandwiches, and desserts.
Out of the things my girlfriend and I shared I would definitely recommend the steak and papaya martini, three little martini glasses filled with little cubes of steak, cucumber infused broccoli slaw and papaya salsa, and the bruschetta flatbread pizza, both of them heavenly.
The menu also includes delicious home made sodas and, of course, cocktails. We only had the chance to try one of their craft beer based cocktails, made with their cream soda, their I2PA and Malibu, which was perfectly meshed and where the flavor of all three ingredients was very noticeable.
The fact that the State of North Carolina considers food the primordial activity of Heist, does not mean Kurt has renounced the idea of bottling and distributing his beer. He plans to do so in the near future, now that the debts from opening the brewery are almost paid off. This has the added perk of having been offering his beers for more than a year and therefore knowing what his customers preferences are, giving him valuable data for when the time comes to bottle.
Their flavorful I2PA is a sure bet when time comes to bottle, but I was also quite impressed by the Belgian Tripel, which will be the subject of a future post, and the blueberry wheat beer my girlfriend ordered, sweet in its smell and balanced in its taste.
I will definitely have to come back to visit Heist Brewery next time I am in Charlotte and see the new and exciting things the team there comes up with because they have really impressed me.
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