By Lucie Shelly
Courtesy of the Carrboro Commons
Increasingly in Carrboro, you will find a culture of artisan foods and gourmet gurus. Some of it is imported and some of it comes from the old mill town itself. But among the French wines, Columbian coffees and produce from the Piedmont, there is something inauspiciously missing: a true Carrboro brew.

Photo by Lucie Shelly
Arguably, one of the things many Carrborites love about the downtown scene is sitting out on a fine day, chilled bottle in hand, spectating on the hippies and young families alike. Considering how much people like to feel part of the town, shouldn’t their bottle come from the town too? Three men who have known each other and Carrboro since their days at Guy B. Philips Middle School certainly think so.
“It just makes sense to have a brewery,†says Cody Maltais, 26, one of the three founding members and the “Financial Czar†of what will be Carrboro’s first brewing endeavor, the Steel String Brewery.
Maltais, along with Brewing Czar Willis Isley, 26, and Logistics Czar Andrew Scharfenberg, 25, (yes, they put those titles in their official state paperwork), say that they know and love the Carrboro community. They also say that they understand how the community loves to support its own.
“Carrboro is a place that has always supported local products, supported local businesses,†says Maltais.
Scharfenberg agrees, and in light of this dynamic, says it’s odd that there isn’t already a local brewery.
“That’s what we’ve been saying all along. It’s weird and it will fill a niche,†says Scharfenberg.
The trio is in the process of confirming the final location for the brewery, which they hope to announce on Monday.
Try this at home
Getting this idea off the ground has required some lateral thinking and determination. It helps that the men are unwaveringly enthusiastic about their brewing, and that they have found like minds in the regional craft-beer industry. They got their start the same way as most curious minds – they ignored the classic cautionary warning, and tried it at home.
Isley graduated from UNC with an English degree in 2007, and after some stints doing string reporting is now pursuing his master’s in teaching.
“I came back to here and at that time we started home brewing and we actually made some pretty decent stuff, and I started talking with Cody about starting a business,†Isley recalls. “We bought one of those $150 kits, started with extract and it’s just really fun.â€
Despite his literary background, it was a latent interest that stirred the brewing idea.
“I like cooking, and it’s also like some science. I started as a science major. It’s just kind of a nice mix. Creativity plus science equals beer,†Isley says.
This is not the trio’s first venture together. They were once three parts of a bluegrass band called The Blackswamp Bootleggers. They had some success, but they have since channeled their energies into the brewing, hence the name Steel String.
Scharfenberg, who works in a law firm, is largely responsible for the mechanics of the brewing process, while Maltais has played the primary financial role after his time in the military during the past few years.
While the roots for Steel String were in place before Maltais went away, it was a concept that evolved.
“Whenever I came home to visit, Will and Andrew would have some new homebrew to check out, and it became one of the things of coming home, always seeing how their brew was going,†says Maltais. He was in Iraq for a year, during which time he worked on the business plan with Isley and Scharfenberg via email.
Collaborating
Despite Steel String’s eventual proximity to local Chapel Hill breweries like Top of the Hill, the founders do not believe there will be a hostile or overly competitive environment.
“We’ve been working very closely with the Top of the Hill guys. They just do so well in their own location,†says Isley.
Collaboration, Isley and the others explain, is essential to the survival of all craft beer.
“The big three still have 90 percent share of all beer sold,†says Isley. “Craft beer is only at 10 percent. So really, us doing well and them doing well is chipping away at the big guys; we’re not really cannibalizing them at all.â€
Scharfenberg adds that success for one independent group can mean success for the others.
“We want to pull people in to the craft-beer fold and say, ‘Hey, there’s something out here that tastes better,’†he says.
Chris Creech of Fortnight Brewing, a craft-beer company based in the Raleigh-Durham area, was offering tastings of his brews alongside the Steel String czars at the National Session Beer Day event on April 7 at Carrboro Beverage Co. This was not the first time the two companies had crossed paths.
“We’ve brewed a time or two together,†said Creech. “It’s fun to keep up and go to festivals together.â€
Such events and joint work provide a good platform for exploring and contrasting what a craft beer offers the more pensive drinker.
“We’re the English take on the session beer; it’s malty, caramel and full-bodied,†Creech explains. “Steel String is more the American, West Coast style, meaning it’s more of a citrus.â€
Isley says that Steel String will offer four signature brews, all of which have been tried and tested for complexity, quality and sophistication compared to your average brand beer.
The four beers are the Black IPA Manzonita; Big Mon, the West Coast-style IPA; a porter called Eponymous; and the Rubber Room Session Ale, which has an especially low alcohol content at just 3.7 percent. For the pale ales, the brewers used four hops and four malts.
In round one, the brews seem to have passed the test, as local taster Colin Sheffield of Carrboro gave his glass the thumbs up.
“I’m on a major IPA cycle right now,†says Sheffield. “It was refreshing, light; I enjoyed drinking it.â€
Going from hobbyists to businessmen is something the guys think Carrboro’s culture will welcome.
“I mean, the thing is, every home-brewer talks about it, right?†says Scharfenberg.
Well, now it’s time to serve it up.
Lucie Shelly is a UNC student writing for the Carrboro Commons, a bi-weekly online lab newspaper for Jock Lauterer’s Community Journalism class at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Hi, when it rains it pours!! I guess I better finally announce that Starpoint Brewing will be opening this May. Nestled in the pine forests of Carrboro I will be brewing 3 BBL batches into 6 BBL fermenters. Fed permit is issued and the Premier Stainless brewhouse and tanks will arrive in late April. Looking forward to the beginning of a great Craft Brewing environment in this wonderful part of North Carolina.
Thanks,
Tim
website in the works but of course there’s facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/StarpointBrewing