If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know I love me some Charlotte breweries. It seems I’m not alone – Fortune recently sang the praises of Charlotte’s craft beer scene, too!
Fortune named Charlotte as the newest hub for craft beer, acknowledging that folks typically give that title to Asheville instead.
One of the stats that blew me away was that Charlotte has 17 breweries up and running, with another 20 (yes, 20… 2-0) in various stages of development and opening. The city’s oldest brewery, The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, opened just six years ago, so this tremendous growth of an industry has taken place extremely fast.
Also noted in the article is that Charlotte’s craft beer industry has been helped not only by having a lot of different good-tasting beers, but by how convenient it is to get them. Many other cities have their breweries scattered here and there. But Charlotte’s breweries have cropped up mainly around NoDa and SouthEnd. Sarah Taylor Brigham, co-founder of Sycamore Brewing is quoted in the article as saying “People will pick a day and do a SouthEnd brewery tour or a NoDa brewery tour. Those two areas are becoming central.”
The one downside to Charlotte’s craft beer industry is that, by law, beer makers can only self-distribute up to 25,000 barrels per year. If they go over that, they must use a distributor for sales and marketing. Most craft breweries do not want to do that, as it raises the potential that their beers will be lost among a larger selection of beers from bigger breweries. There is hope, though – there is an ongoing fight to increase the distribution cap to 100,000 barrels; however, it has been stuck in the NC General Assembly.
If you love our breweries as much as I do and want to find a home near your favorite, give me a call! Let’s explore these neighborhoods together and find you a great place to live!
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net
