Pitcher This: The South will rise … for first time
Renewal after a fall is an essential theme in Southern identity.
The image of rebirth from figurative flames is powerful in a region that still remembers actual flames, and that image is applied to everything from city seals to literature.
Of course, to get to that image of rebirth, a thing has to be born for the first time.
That may be what’s happening across the South now in craft brewing as the drive for quality, locally produced beer that’s swept much of the nation finally gathers steam here. Three Deep South breweries hope they can enjoy the rise, and maybe just skip the bit about a fall and subsequent rise from the ashes.
All three of these breweries — Mississippi’s Lazy Magnolia Brewing, Georgia’s Terrapin Beer Co. and Huntsville’s Olde Towne Brewing — have been founded in the last five years and are on the leading edge of what could become a surge in Southern brewing.
Sadly, Olde Towne will have to make a real rise from the ashes. The brewery, founded in 2004, burned in July, halting production. Don Alan Hankins, founder and brewmaster, says the company has decided to build anew and hopes to be brewing again by June.
New equipment, Hankins says, will give him more control over the quality of his bottled beer — perhaps making it taste more like the draft product — and allow the company to fill 90 bottles per minute over the previous 20. That should help Olde Towne fill more orders, putting more Alabama-made beer on store shelves throughout the region.
Lazy Magnolia also hopes to get more from its Kiln, Miss., plant on the Gulf Coast. Brewery boss Leslie Henderson says a new bottling line could have the first Mississippi-made six-packs on shelves by Christmas. Since its 2004 founding, the company has produced only kegs and 2.25-gallon jugs of its beers, including its signature Southern Pecan, which is flavored with the staple nut.
Henderson says she believes Southern brewers are feeding off each others’ success.
“The South is about to turn into the great haven of microbrews,” she says. “Once you see one brewery achieve success in an area, it gives you courage and a model to go after.”
Athens, Ga.-based Terrapin, founded in 2002, also is counting on new equipment to build on the early success of its Rye Pale Ale. President John Cochran said the company is now moving into a brand-new brewery, Terrapin’s first. The South has lagged behind the rest of the country in beer culture, Cochran says. But that’s starting to change.
“I’d like to think beer’s finally going to be accepted in the Southeast,” he says. “This year, craft beer seems to have really turned the corner.”
Hankins, like his peers in Georgia and Mississippi, doesn’t see the other brewers as competition. The more choices there are on the shelf, the more likely consumers will be to try something new, he says.
“And eventually somebody’s going to pick up our beer,” he says. “The more beer the better.”
