5Q: Timmons Pettigrew Charleston Beer
For this edition of 5 Beer Questions we are headed south of the border to Charleston, South Carolina. Charleston is home of one of the highest rated beer stores in the world, The Charleston Beer Exchange and Charleston is the site of the Southeast’s premier craft beer events: Brewvival. This fast rising beer city is also home to Timmons Pettigrew, a historian and craft beer columnist who uncovered some little known details of Chucktown’s beer drinking past and wrote the book: Charleston Beer: A High-Gravity History of Lowcountry Brewing.
When you were researching information for your book, Charleston Beer, what was one of the most amazing facts you were able to uncover?
The craziest thing, which I had no knowledge of prior to my research, was the Dispensary System. Starting in the mid-1890′s, South Carolina preceded Prohibition with a Dispensary, basically a state-run commission that was responsible for selling all alcohol in our borders. My initial reaction is actually in the book – it sounded like something out of Soviet Russia. The system basically split the state between supporters and detractors, with the biggest opposition coming from Charleston. Things came to a head in Darlington (which is just outside my hometown of Florence), where harsh words turned into gunfire, resulting in the “Darlington Whiskey Rebellion.” Militias all over the state got involved on both sides of that rebellion, and we nearly had an internal civil war over it. There was of course all kinds of graft and corruption wrapped up in the system as well. The only other state that tried the system was South Dakota, and they voted it out in two years because it was an abysmal failure, but we held onto it for sixteen.
Your book has been out for a few months now, how Charleston Beer been received by the community?
It’s been overwhelmingly positive. I’ve gotten to meet a lot of folks doing signings and events, and everyone has been great! Distribution has been awesome too, as I’ve gotten tons of support from our beer community. The beauty of writing a book that profiles local beer spots is that they are ready and willing to carry it. So it’s available in book stores and gift shops, but also at all of our breweries, bottle shops, etc. It’s my first one, so I’ve got nothing to compare it to, but I can’t imagine the response being better!
What is your favorite thing about craft beer culture in Charleston today and what areas do you feel, need improvement?
Tough question! I could go at this from a few different angles, but I think my favorite thing right now is our local beer. The culture here is fun, there are a lot of great people pushing us in the right direction, and definitely a sense of community. That said, I think what sets us apart from some other active beer cultures is the sheer quality and variety of what gets produced here. I’m not going to pretend I have no bias, but our brewers produce fantastic beer, some of which holds its own against top-notch American brewers. Take that and combine it with their VASTLY different approaches to brewing, and therefore vastly different style choices, and it becomes really easy to drink great and drink local without just drinking 3 different versions of pale ale. As I sit here right now in mid-January, if I visited our breweries between Thursday and Saturday I could get upwards of 20 styles of beer, from Pilsner to IPA to Russian Imperial Stout to Cabernet barrel-aged Tripel to Coffee Porter to Doppelbock to Saison to Barleywine…the list goes on. That’s with only four breweries, two of which opened in the last year. It’s an awesome time to be drinking in Charleston!
On the negative side, we have a lot of the same issues that any other young beer culture suffers from, and probably even some mature ones. We have some spots jumping on the craft beer bandwagon without any real knowledge or desire to do things the right way. We’ve got our share of frosty glassware, neglected tap lines, beer menus riddled with spelling errors and inaccuracies, etc. Make no mistake, we also have dedicated places doing all the right things, but we could use an increase in education both on the provider and consumer side, as I think any community could.
As far as businesses go, we don’t yet have a killer, experimental, on-point brewpub. Part of that is probably because of our ridiculous laws separating brewpubs and breweries. In South Carolina, if you opt to be a brewpub, you can brew and serve in the same spot, but you can only produce a certain number of barrels per year and can’t distribute outside of your walls (which also means you can’t serve at beer festivals, etc.). Because of that, I can’t say I blame any aspiring brewers for not going the brewpub route, but it would be an awesome addition.
As a writer covering the Charleston Beer scene can you recommend a “must visit” beer destination for out of town visitors headed to Brewvival?
I think most folks would agree, you’ve got to visit Charleston Beer Exchange. They are a retail spot and don’t serve on-premise, but they are your best bet for getting a hold of multiple local beers in one visit, and they co-organize Brewvival along with the COAST Brewing team. Beyond the locals though, the selection is completely insane, especially the imports. They were rated the #1 beer retailer in the US and #2 on the planet this year by Ratebeer.com, so you simply can’t afford to pass it up. I’d normally recommend checking out all of our breweries too, they all have their own vibe and are doing some really interesting things, but they will all be represented at Brewvival.
What is in your beer fridge right now?
It’s a Saturday afternoon, so let’s see.. I’ve got a growler of COAST Single Hop Centennial Pale Ale, and a random mix of bottles as always: Sierra Nevada Ruthless Rye, Stoudt’s Revel Red, Bear Republic Racer 5, Professor Fritz Briem 1809 Berliner Weisse, Sweetwater 2012 Happy Ending, Williamsburg Alewerks Coffeehouse Stout, Hitachino Nest Espresso Stout, 2011 KBS, and a Pliny.
As always you’ll be supporting this beer blog when you order from this link:
Find Timmons on Twitter at @CHSBeer, and stay tuned for his online guide to Charleston in the works: CHSBeer.org
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