THE ROOTS OF THE BREW

Thomas Creek and The Upstate Brewtopians

By Shawn Drury • Photographs Samantha S. Wallace

People who care about micro-brews tend to care a lot about micro-brews. There is a language to tasting these beers, styles to understand, flavors to interpret. You take a local water source, literally the product of the landscape, and an oldworld recipe for Belgian lambic or German pilsner, tilting the balance with particular hops, grains and malts, and you end up with a beer both linked to a time-honored process and an entirely new thing. Yes, you get to drink it, but for aficionados, micro-brewing is much more than the pleasure of savoring a carefully crafted stout. It is both a culture and a commitment, a means of expression as well as a declaration of individuality.

Anyone who thinks it’s just about the beer need only visit the Thomas Creek Brewery off Piedmont Highway in Greenville, the de facto headquarters for Upstate micro-brewers. Owner and general manager Bill Davis greets visitors to his office flanked by a pair of pooches, Barley and Porter. Davis, a retired architect, opened Thomas Creek in 1998, a year after he bought his first home brewing kit. But in truth, his was only a curiosity. It was his son Tom who was truly passionate about micro-brewing. “He wanted to become a professional brewer,” Bill says. “He was really the catalyst to making the company happen.” Now, Tom is Thomas Creek’s chief brewer and Bill readily admits that being in business with his son brought them closer together.

Just because Thomas Creek is a family affair doesn’t mean they aren’t serious about what they do. Both Bill Davis and Sales and Marketing Director Katie Barnes are armed with research and statistics that would make an accountant proud. Thomas Creek will approach 10,000 barrels brewed in 2010, making it the largest micro-brewer in South Carolina and the 65th largest in the US. Their knowledge is more than raw numbers though. It comes from a belief in the beer drinker. Says Barnes, “People like crafted beer. We’ve seen it over and over... Once people are exposed to microbrewed beer, they start to ask for it.” And in some cases, they start to make it themselves.

Indeed, a healthy portion of Thomas Creek’s business comes from the sale of home brewing supplies: malted and flaked grains, liquid and dry yeast, hop pellets, bottles and draft equipment. If you send ahead a recipe, the staff at Thomas Creek will be happy to have your goods together for you when you arrive. And a couple of times a year, the brewery hosts a meeting of the Upstate Brewtopians, an organization of local home brewers who gather to share tricks and techniques, a taste of whatever’s new in their barrels.

Mark Douglas is president of the Brewtopians. A lifetime tinkerer, Douglas first became interested in home brewing in 2004. “My first attempts weren’t very good,” he admits. “But they were just barely good enough to spur me on. I started to think ‘I could do this.’” In no time, Douglas started exchanging sample bottles with whomever he could find online, and right in his own backyard, he found the Brewtopians. He was soon elected president. Under his guidance, the group has become more web-savvy, which has helped membership climb to approximately 150, with an average of forty showing up for each monthly meeting. A respectable sampling of beers might include a dozen or more, with labels as straightforward as Stout or IPA, or as campy as Hugh Hefe, or Caribou Slobber Brown.

The Brewtopians’ gatherings are jovial affairs to be sure, but there are guidelines. Meetings have a “sacred” 2PM start time; Douglas is mindful of the fact that the group is drinking alcohol, after all. “I want it to be a safe, family atmosphere, but still fun,” Douglas says. “We are a beer making group, not a beer drinking group.”

Beer snobs will probably not find much comfort at a Brewtopians meeting. The focus is on the time and effort that goes into making a good home brew rather than bad-mouthing the large breweries. As the founder of the Brewtopians, David Amberg says, “We are there because of the beer, no question. But we keep coming back because we have a good time and enjoy each other’s company.”

RECIPE

Centennial Pale Ale