638 West Fourth Street
Winston-Salem, NC 27101
336-777-3348
E-mail: info@foothillsbrewing.com
Website: http://www.foothillsbrewing.com
Hours: Daily, 11 A.M.–2 A.M.
Owner and brewmaster: Jamie Bartholomaus
Opened: 2004
Regular beer lineup: Salem Gold, Pilot Mountain Pale Ale, Torch Pilsner, People’s Porter, Hoppyum IPA, Seeing Double IPA
Seasonals: Total Eclipse Stout, Rainbow Trout ESB, Gruffmeister Maibock, Sexual Chocolate Imperial Stout, Foothills Red, Hurricane Hefeweizen, India Style Brown Ale, Oktoberfest, Foothills Festive, German Alt, Scottish Ale, Olde Rabbit’s Foot (collaborative brew with Olde Hickory Brewery and The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery)
Awards: 2007 GABF Silver Medal for “Baltic-Style Porter”
2007 GABF Silver Medal for “Gruffmeister Bock”
2008 World Beer Cup Gold Medal for “People’s Porter”
2008 World Beer Cup Silver Medal for “Total Eclipse Stout”
2009 GABF Bronze Medal for “Sexual Chocolate Imperial Stout”
2010 GABF Gold Medal for “Bourbon Barrel Aged Sexual Chocolate Imperial Stout”
2010 GABF Bronze Medal for “Foothills Oktoberfest”
2010 World Beer Cup Silver Medal for “Sexual Chocolate Imperial Stout”
2011 GABF Silver Medal for “2010 Bourbon Barrel Aged Sexual Chocolate Imperial Stout”
Foothills Brewing in Winston-Salem
Jamie Bartholomaus started his brewing career at a young age. He began homebrewing around 18, “maybe 19,” as a sophomore in college. He got his start commercially simply by being a good customer. John Gayer, the owner of Blind Man Ales in Athens, Georgia, also ran a homebrew shop, and Jamie was one of his biggest customers. Eventually, he invited Jamie in to help him brew. By the end of 1997—after Jamie graduated from college as an anthropology major—he was brewing at Blind Man full-time.
He still considers his time there to have been some of his most valuable. “It was like large homebrewing equipment. The kettle was a big square tofu cooker with burners on the inside. The mash tun had handmade screens. We only had one pump in the whole facility, so we couldn’t do more than one thing at once. We used to bottle out of homebrewing bottling buckets,” he says with a laugh. “I learned a lot about what not to do, and how to get stuff done at all costs. Now, when stuff goes wrong, it doesn’t really freak me out that much. It’s probably happened before.”
Jamie enjoyed brewing, but it didn’t pay well. Soon after taking the job at Blind Man, he also began to follow his chosen career path, working for Southeast Archaeological Services. He dug at historic sites and brewed on the side.
Soon afterward, a good friend vacated a head brewer’s position at Vista Brewpub in Columbia, South Carolina. Jamie jumped at the chance to be a brewer there. But it was “kind of a dead-end brewpub,” he recalls. “It was French fine dining, martini bar, raw bar, brewpub. They had a French chef, $25 to $30 entrées. Fine wine is what most people drank, and they had a raw bar right there on the bar.” Though it was a fine place to work, it didn’t move much beer. He continued to brew on the side for Blind Man. He worked with Vista for almost four years, all the while looking around for brewery work that would be a better fit for him.
On a trip through North Carolina to visit his sister in Greensboro, Jamie stopped into Olde Hickory for a beer and by chance met the owners, Steve Lyerly and Jason Yates, who were in the process of expanding their production to meet the demands of their new taproom. They needed a brewer. They started asking around after Jamie. Soon afterward, he joined the team at Olde Hickory Brewery, took over production in its Amos Howard’s Brewpub, and helped build its production facility.
Taps lined up at Foothills Brewing
Brewers organizing and cleaning kegs at Foothills Brewing
Jamie worked at Olde Hickory for almost five years, helping the brand grow. Eventually, though, he found himself restless in the job. “Their timeline was different than my timeline,” he admits. “I wanted to move at a faster pace than they were committed to. I really wanted the brand to grow.” So when some friends had an idea to start a brewpub, Jamie eagerly signed on to the project. Feeling it would be inappropriate to open a brewery near the one where he had been working, he took a job at Blue Ridge Brewing in Greenville, South Carolina, while his project got off the ground.
Finally, in 2005, he moved to Winston-Salem and opened Foothills Brewing, a big, open brewpub with two stories of expansive seating, event space, and a comfortable bar overlooked by tall windows through which customers can see the brewery. At Foothills, Jamie had a brand that he could grow. While the brewpub was the main focus, Jamie started self-distributing the beer. By the end of the year, he had footholds in beer markets around the state.
The distribution and growth of the brand are his passion. “The challenges of getting it made often bring me back to the Blind Man days where at any cost it’s got to happen. You know, every year we add equipment, and by the middle of the year we’re struggling to keep up, and you can almost predict it. It’s a lot of fun to keep up with.”
Foothills got to the point where it needed a production facility to meet demand. When Jamie went looking for it, he found an even larger opportunity.
Carolina Beer & Beverage was once a brewery in its own right. In fact, at one point, it was the largest producer of craft beer in North Carolina, thanks to its popular Carolina Blonde and Carolina Strawberry Blonde beers, as well as the Cottonwood brands, which it purchased from Boone’s Cottonwood Brewery when it stopped producing beer. Over time, though, Carolina Beer & Beverage found a lucrative side business—canning energy drinks and bottling progressive adult beverages (like Mike’s Hard Lemonade) for distribution. Its brewing operation fell by the wayside. Soon, all the brands owned by Carolina Beer & Beverage were contract-brewed at Pennsylvania’s Lion Brewery and merely distributed in North Carolina.
Sexual Chocolate, one of the most popular beers at Foothills
Enter Foothills Brewing. Jamie simply wanted to buy the old brew-house and fermenters that Carolina Beer & Beverage had sitting around its warehouse. But Carolina Beer had a different idea. “We’ll sell you the equipment,” they said, “but you have to buy the brands, too.”
Now, Jamie’s wish for brand growth has met its challenge. At the end of 2011, Foothills completed construction on its new brewing facility. Along with all the Foothills brands he has been growing, Jamie is also now brewing Carolina Blonde, Carolina Strawberry Blonde, and Cottonwood’s Endo IPA. The pub, he says, will focus more on special brews, seasonals for the brewpub, and, of course, the popular, award-winning Sexual Chocolate Imperial Stout and the annual collaboration on Olde Rabbit’s Foot.
High-value, small-release beers like Sexual Chocolate and Olde Rabbit’s Foot are some of the best reasons to visit Foothills Brewing. On the date of their annual releases, beer aficionados from around the United States descend on Winston-Salem, attend the prerelease party at the brewpub to get a sample of the coveted brews, and often spend the night outside just to be the first in line to buy a bottle of the beer the next day.
