FOOD+DRINK BEER
SHOVEL READY
The coming of Asheville’s celebrated Burial Beer Co. adds a fresh layer to Plaza Midwood
THE CHARACTER of Charlotte’s arts-andentertainment neighborhoods and the craft brewery rosters they support is, unlike much of the beer, growing clearer. South End/LoSo has everyone beat in sheer volume. NoDa harbors a pleasant mix of pioneers (NoDa Brewing, Birdsong) and newer arrivals. Plaza Midwood can’t match either in quantity. But the announcement in March that Burial Beer Co. of Asheville—one of the fastestexpanding craft brewers in the state and most celebrated in the country—planned to open a taproom and bottle shop on Thomas Avenue, in the commercial heart of the neighborhood, seemed to add a layer of definition to Plaza Midwood. You might not be able to hop all day from brewery to brewery there. But the Burial site is within trotting distance of a pair (Top) Burial Beer co-founders Doug and Jess Reiser and Tim Gormley wanted their planned of popular and critically praised establishCharlotte location to occupy a neighborhood with both homes and businesses—and they ments, Legion Brewing on Commonwealth found it in the old Boris+Natasha and Stash Pad spaces in Plaza Midwood. (Above, left to right) Deathstalker, an IPA; The River to Hell Runs Red, a barrel-aged dark sour ale; and Avenue and Resident Culture Brewing Co. on Mythologies of Realism, a double IPA. Central Avenue. Why would you want to? “I think—and I’m probably biased—that even though we have only three breweries, they’re three of just be in a residential or commercial district but in a combinathe best,” says Wes Turner, a Plaza Midwood Neighborhood tion of the two.” Association board member and past president. “Adding Burial Those are ideal locations for craft brewers everywhere. In to that list will just make Plaza Midwood one of the brewery North Carolina, state law allows breweries to operate as many as destinations in Charlotte.” (He includes the nanobrewery Pilot three retail outlets in addition to their primary production sites, Brewing, which opened in 2018, in his count.) Turner adds that and some have capitalized on the provision to stake out territory he’s visited Burial only once but enjoyed what he drank: “I enjoy far from their home bases, says Rich Greene, the executive director of the N.C. Craft Brewers Guild. For example, Burial’s fellow a good IPA.” Burial has plenty of those, along with a growing number of Asheville brewer Hi-Wire Brewing and Catawba Brewing Co., a imperial stouts, farmhouse ales, and table sours to match the Morganton-based company that operates a taproom just outrustic lagers that co-founder and COO Doug Reiser says was the side Plaza Midwood, recently opened locations in Wilmington. brewery’s cornerstone style when it opened in 2013. Since then, It’s a slight contradiction—a statewide mini-empire of Burial has expanded from South Slope, a brewery hub in a former hyperlocal neighborhood pubs—but it’s central to the evolving industrial area just south of downtown Asheville: The Reisers and craft beer culture, which emphasizes sense of place and camapartner Tim Gormley opened a 20-barrel production brewery, raderie with the neighborhoods they choose to occupy. “What restaurant, and winery in Asheville’s Biltmore Village in 2016 and was really, really important to us,” Reiser says, “was to get a space that was historic, that was in a neighborhood, and that had that a taproom and bottle shop in Raleigh in 2019. Reiser says he and his team had eyed Charlotte for years. funky Asheville feel that’s so important to our brand.” South The opportunity to help preserve part of a 62-year-old shop- Slope and Plaza Midwood are unique neighborhoods whose ping center in a thriving neighborhood helped sell them on residents might not relish the comparison. But it’s hard to deny the site, last occupied by a pair of now-relocated boutiques, that the brand fits. Boris+Natasha and the Stash Pad. “We were very intentional about going to the people,” he says. “It’s important for us to not GREG LACOUR is senior editor of this magazine.
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CHARLOTTEMAGAZINE.COM // JUNE 2021
COURTESY
BY GREG LACOUR
