from plow to pint , a durham brewmaster connects with his

FULLSTEAM
AHEAD
from plow to pint , a durham brewmaster connects
with his community to build a southern beer economy
by sean lilly wilson
photos by andy kornylak
THIS PAGE: THE AUTHOR
AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OPTIMIST
(AND OWNER/FOUNDER) OF
FULLSTEAM, SEAN LILLY WILSON
IN HIS DURHAM-BASED BREWERY
OPPOSITE: FULLSTEAM'S
CARVER SWEET POTATO
LAGER IS POURED
IN
THIS PAGE: CELLAR MANAGER CODY WELCH
GIVES SEAN LILLY WILSON A TASTE OF A
NEW BREW IN PROGRESS
OPPOSITE (TOP TO BOTTOM): GUAGES
FROM A DURHAM TOBACCO DRYING FACILITY (NON-FUNCTIONAL), CELLAR MANAGER
CODY WELCH CHECKS THE HOUSE-SMOKED
NORTH CAROLINA WHEAT USED TO MAKE
THEIR LOW 'N SLOW, A GRÄTZER
my path to launching a brewery is as rambling as kudzu in august.
the summer of 1991, I fell for the South pretty hard. As a
twenty-year-old whose only previous trip south of the border
was to the highway pit stop called South of the Border, Oxford,
Mississippi, was quite an introduction. I ate my first MoonPie. Devoured fried catfish at Taylor Grocery. Caught a movie and ate
cheesecake at the legendary Hoka. I gathered up my confidence to sing
songs I didn’t know with people I had just met on the porch of a shotgun
shack, our voices drowned by a relentless summer storm—a squall unlike
any of my suburban Philadelphia youth. I was in
love. Not only with my future wife, but with the
South itself.
So it was no surprise to anyone that I soon
followed Carolyn to Durham, North Carolina,
while she pursued her graduate studies…and I
figured out what I was going to do with my life.
I took a job at a nearby restaurant. Not just any
restaurant. I landed a prime gig as a server at the
legendary Magnolia Grill. Chefs Ben and Karen
Barker’s passion for local, seasonal cooking introduced me to a dizzying array of native flavors:
shad roe, honeysuckle, collards, figs, hominy.
Chef Ben drilled the staff on how to properly pair
Southern food with world-class wine. The farmer
was supplier and often the customer, benefactors
of trade. The Barkers didn’t call it farm to table.
They didn’t have to.
My formative Southern experiences—the warm welcomes of both
Oxford and Durham—will soon be a quarter of a century old. Yet
they will forever shape who I am. My own identity. What I am most
passionate about. And even though I haven’t yet typed the word “beer,”
those early years in the South have had an indelible influence on Fullsteam,
our Durham-based brewery and tavern.
My path to launching a brewery is as rambling as kudzu in August. For
far too long, I sold myself short, content with working for other startups
and certain I would never run one myself. Why?
Because I’m not a technology person. I’m a people
person. It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that I realized
my idea is people, not technology. And that my
passion is beer.
Why beer? The long version is probably best
told over a couple of drinks and involves state
politics and Prohibition-era blue laws. The short
answer? I love beer. It’s delicious, it pairs wonderfully with food, and it’s the drink of true community and democracy.
Between changing laws and shifting attitudes,
I sensed a business opportunity. With the endless
support of my amazing wife (and the generosity of twenty investors who made this adventure
possible), I said goodbye to working for others and
began my journey as Chief Executive Optimist of
Fullsteam Brewery.
From the beginning, I knew we needed to do
more than release the obvious pale ale, porter, IPA,
and stout. Sure, we’d offer some classic styles—
but we wanted to zig where others zagged. Given
my passion for the farm and food traditions of
the South, it didn’t take long to hone in on our
“plow to pint” vision. We’d focus on beers with
local, seasonal ingredients—not because local
ingredients were trendy, but because we earnestly
wanted to explore what it meant to craft distinctly Southern beer. Other regions of the United
States lay claim to unique and indigenous beer
styles, so why not the South?
I thought back to the farmer/chef relationships and Magnolia Grill’s economic cycle of
farmer-chef-patron. I wanted to do that for beer.
chasing barley, wheat, sweet potatoes, basil, hops,
and chestnuts—crafting nuanced beer that pairs
particularly well with Southern food. We have a
ton of native persimmons in our freezer. That’s
not hyperbole. We literally have 2,000 pounds
of wild persimmons.
Here’s what’s really curious: no food distributor sells foraged wild persimmons. Through
our forager initiative, we crowdsource persimmons and other hand-harvested ingredients
directly from tavern patrons, friends, and
neighbors. Last year’s one-ton persimmon
harvest generated $6,000, money that went
from us directly to our network of foragers. By
announcing our harvest needs through our
online network, we’ve sourced a wide range of
we’re crafting nuanced beer that pairs particularly well
with southern food . we have a ton of native persimmons
in our freezer. that’s not hyperbole. we literally have
2,000 pounds of wild persimmons.
To generate economic opportunity for farmers
and agricultural entrepreneurs in a post-tobacco
North Carolina.
Over the years, we have anchored on this mission. Fullsteam’s ten-year goal is to purchase at
least 50 percent of our raw ingredients within
300 miles of Durham. We’re getting there fast,
reaching nearly 30 percent this past year, purTHELOCALPALATE.COM / JUNE.JULY 2015
Southern ingredients: honeysuckle, figs, and
pears.
The rewards have been great. Fullsteam
received a Good Food Award for our persimmon beer, handed to me by Chez Panisse’s Alice
Waters. I’ll never forget that moment.
But awards are ephemeral. Far more lasting is
a tavern patron telling me, “I didn’t know what a
persimmon was until I had First Frost. Now we
have four persimmon trees planted in our yard.”
Far more rewarding is writing a big check to
buy up hundreds of paw paws—supporting my
neighbor Wynn Dinnsen, who, like me, is crazy
passionate about North America’s largest native
tree fruit—pressing this elusive, strange fruit and
brewing a tasty Belgian ale.
Or speaking to a room full of experienced
and aspiring hops farmers—as passionate as we
are about truly local beer—in an effort to share
insights and help build a sustainable Southern
hops industry.
Southern beer knows when to defer to dinner,
to conversation, to the shared table. We love layered complexity, but we aim to brew beers with
quiet confidence. Our vision of distinctly Southern beer is not for everyone. We’re okay with
that. If everyone liked every beer, all beer would
taste the same. The beer industry would have no
need to innovate.
The American palate craves variety, innovation, and regional differences in beer just as it
does in food. That’s why Carver, our sweet
potato lager, doesn’t have any pumpkin pie spices
in it. The world probably doesn’t need another
pumpkin pie beer. But there’s room for a curiously understated, slightly earthy, spice-free lager
brewed with hundreds of pounds of North Carolina sweet potatoes.
It takes time, energy, and patience to be different. We want to be Southern, but we don’t want
to inch toward Cracker Barrel. It’s a fine line
between innovation and gimmickry. The mission
always starts the same: make it delicious. But if
we defy expectations too much, we run the risk
of alienating customers. That’s why our tavern
is such a critical component to our business:
we get to test recipes, gauge reactions, and hope
that our customers will tell others about our curious vision.
Seasonality can be a challenge. Beer drinkers
love to anticipate seasons—months before they
actually occur. Most customers don’t want a beer
called First Frost in March or a pumpkin beer in
December. We’ve invested in a large freezer to
align our brewing cycle with the season—though
I firmly believe that the industry’s “season creep”
(pumpkin beers in July?) makes it very challenging to communicate to the public that beer
is agriculture.
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WE’VE EXPERIMENTED WITH THE BIZARRE
(KUDZU, HONEY LOCUST, PAW PAW) AND
THE TRADITIONAL (BARLEY, CORN, HOPS). IT
HASN’T ALWAYS WORKED OUT, BUT THAT’S
THE PRICE YOU PAY FOR TAKING
THE CURIOUS PATH.
We couldn’t do this on our own. Back in 2008—two full years before
we launched—I gathered my courage and reached out to John T. Edge,
director of the Southern Foodways Alliance in Oxford, Mississippi. I
asked him if he’d consider allowing us to serve our beer at the annual
SFA symposium. He graciously said yes, and we’ve been beneficiaries
(and supporters) of this amazing institution ever since. It’s hard to put
into words just how helpful the SFA has been for our fledgling brewery.
Then in August 2010—the very week we launched—Chef Ashley
Christensen (Poole’s Diner and much more) asked if we’d consider serving our beer at a lamb festival at a farm in Virginia. If there’s one thing I’ve
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learned about Ashley, it’s this: you say yes when she presents you with
an opportunity. I filled “the Mullet” (our crazy-looking 1967 Dodge
A100 pickup truck) with our Southern-inspired beer and headed west to
Border Springs Farm in rural Virginia. I still can’t believe I got to attend the inaugural Lambstock, led by shepherd Craig Rogers. We’ve
attended every Lambstock since, serving our beer to the South’s most
innovative chefs and restauranteurs.
Most of all, we couldn’t do this without the community we’re a part
of here in Durham. We brew beer in a gritty, urban, eclectic, and inclusive post-tobacco factory town. Though we don’t have the bucolic
hills of a farmhouse brewery, we certainly have its funk. At our tavern,
we embrace what I call the “beautiful/stupid”—my theory that the best
things in life are equal parts beautiful and stupid. We show bad movies
and run 0.262 marathons. Our mascot is me dressed up in a cheap red
gorilla suit. We fuse Southern with food trucks and belly dancing. On
a Tuesday. Somehow it works.
Our heroes are the Southern brewers,
distillers, wineries, and cider makers who
truly drive the local agricultural economy.
Leading the way in my book: Diane and
Chuck Flynt of Foggy Ridge Cider (of Dugspur, Virginia) and Scott Blackwell and
Ann Marshall of High Wire Distilling (of
Charleston, South Carolina). They inspire
me to double down on our mission.
Equally inspiring are my fellow North
Carolina brewers who also believe in the
Southern Beer Economy: Haw River, Fonta
Flora, Free Range, Lookout Brewing, and
many more. The key word for me is “economy.” If it were just Fullsteam chasing this
vision, it’d be a Southern Beer Business. With
a critical mass of breweries purchasing local
grains, hops, and seasonal harvests, we have
the potential to generate significant economic
opportunity for farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs in a post-tobacco North Carolina.
But most of all it’s the farmers. Five years
into the adventure, I’ve come away with
profound respect for those who farm for a
living. If a beer doesn’t work out to our liking, we can brew a new batch and have it
ready within two to four weeks. A career farmer has thirty or so chances
to get it right in his or her lifetime. Thirty chances to understand the
crop’s soil, sunlight, and water needs—assuming the weather cooperates
in the first place. All of this makes me even more impressed by farmers
who venture into the unknown, planting rows of heirloom grains, building trellises for local hops.
We get calls now. “I heard y’all are buying peaches!” If it’s the late summer, we probably are. Bring ’em.
Cardinal Pine Farm in Wilson, North Carolina, drove up to our
brewery after last year’s hop harvest with buckets of fragrant, super-fresh
THELOCALPALATE.COM / JUNE.JULY 2015
TOP TO BOTTOM: THE EXTERIOR OF
FULLSTEAM OFFERS BOTH FRONT AND
SIDE OUTDOOR PATIOS; ON DISPLAY AT
THE BAR ARE SOME OF THE LOCAL
INGREDIENTS USED IN THE BREWING
PROCESS; (LEFT) A CHALKBOARD MENU IN
FULLSTEAM'S TAVERN; (RIGHT) PATRONS
ENJOY THE GAME ROOM, WHERE GARAGE
DOORS OPEN ONTO THE FRONT PATIO
OPPOSITE:
FULLSTEAM'S SIGNATURE 1967 DODGE
A100 PICKUP TRUCK, AKA "THE MULLET"
Cascade hops. We bought bins of them on the
spot and added them to a pale ale the next day.
During persimmon season, Mary Beth
Brandt, our general manager, balances bill
paying with persimmon weighing, trading
fresh-picked fruit for cash. For some foragers,
THELOCALPALATE.COM / JUNE.JULY 2015
it’s a hobby. For others, it’s Christmas spending money.
We’ve experimented with the bizarre (kudzu, honey locust, paw paw) and the traditional
(barley, corn, hops). It hasn’t always worked
out, but that’s the price you pay for taking the
curious path. We never ended up making a beer
with kudzu, but I absolutely loved the day I volunteered to haul bales of the dried invasive vine.
I got to meet Henry and Edith Edwards—the
spry, eighty-something kudzu farmers of Rutherfordton, North Carolina—as I worked my tail
off and tried to keep up with their work ethic.
My reward? A shared supper with my family
and the Edwards family. No kudzu beer. A lifetime of memories for me and my family. That’s a
resounding success in my book.
Five years in, and I feel like we’re just
beginning. As our brewery matures, I hope to
be able to return to the land. I have dreams of
a true farmhouse brewery, a rural counterpoint
to our urban tavern. Under the leadership of
head brewer Brian Mandeville, we’re shifting
our product mix to push ourselves to rely even
more on local. We’re tweaking our hops to use
more varietals that have promise and potential
in North Carolina, even though the first viable commercial harvest might be a decade or
so out.
Similarly, yeast plays a major role in the
quest to express a taste of place, and we’re very
excited with the initial results of our native
yeast cultivation. Rachel Simpson, our yeast
wrangler, has worked for over a year to isolate
yeast from a Chinese Purple Lilac growing in
Duke Gardens. We’re just getting started with
local yeast strains, full of esters and compounds
truly unique to the South.
We’re also exploring the idea of bringing
breweries together to conceive of a true “Carolina Common.” Like the Kentucky Common
and the California Common—beers shaped
by history and invention in their respective
states—perhaps it’s time for North Carolina
to explore a common lager, buying grains and
hops that grow well in the Old North State.
Will Southern beer ever have a distinct and
definitive character? Five years in, and I’m still
not sure. But I’m good with that. My reward is
the question, not the answer.
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