Southern Pines Brewing Company | North Carolina
When you talk to the owners ofĀ Southern Pines Brewing CompanyĀ in North Carolina, you fall in love with craft brewing all over again. Their story is what craft beer in America is all about.
Southern Pines Brewing Company, named after the city where itās located, is west of Fayetteville, and about 70 miles south of Raleigh along U.S. 1. Itās also about 7 miles fromĀ Pinehurst, the famous home to historic golf championships.
Micah Niebauer, John Brumer and Jason Ginos (pictured above) met in the Army while stationed at Fort Bragg ā not too far from the community of Southern Pines. As part of a small special ops team, the guys were close. They even created homebrews together. ButĀ each found themselves reaching a point where they saw a fork ahead in their Army careers.
āShould I stay and keep doing this, or should I do something else with my life?ā was a question Micah Niebauer, CEO and co-owner, found himself pondering. Just as each hadĀ started to feel the itch to explore a career outside of the Army, they ended up listeningĀ in on a speech about opening a brewery. They were inspired, and started to formulate a plan to open one themselves.
āPart of American dream bucket list is taking a bunch of risks and making your own thing,ā Niebauer says.
They jumped into learning the business as well as hone their craft. John and Micah went to Chicago to take theĀ Siebel Institute of Technologyās Concise Course on Brewing Technology. Then they hit up San Diego to immerse themselves in theĀ Essential Quality Control Course at White Labs. Together, the three would make the rounds to banks for financing ā samples of the homebrew in hand. āWeād pitch for the first half of the meeting, then weād open the beer,ā Niebauer remembers, laughing.
On the day before Thanksgiving in 2013, they found out they had been approved for a loan. They went to work ordering equipment, leasing property, and building out the brewhouse and taproom.
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