#7–I’ve Never Been to a Brewery

While trolling the internet to find fun and inexpensive things to do around the Charlotte area, I came across a company called The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery. It is a newer company in Charlotte, contrary to what the name suggests, that focuses on creating German style beer. The founder was inspired to recreate what he had experienced at beer gardens while working in Germany. The building is located in a warehouse area near the light rail in Charlotte, not some trendy neighborhood. But you wouldn’t know it – they were packed while we were there on a Saturday afternoon and a tour bus even stopped. The Tap Room is a brick and wood paneled room with long tables where you can sit and enjoy your beverages. While we visited they were between seasons so they only had 2 choices of beer. I don’t drink beer, but Mike and our friends Gina and Dave sampled the selections and all decided they liked the traditional “Copper.”

The main reason for the visit however, was to tour the brewery which is located behind the Tap Room. Our guide led us back to the area. The first thing they do is add the water and the ingredients of the beer in these metal tanks and it goes through many heating stages and mashings. The OMB follows the beer purity laws created in 1516 called Reinheitsgebot, which means only water, malts, hops, and yeast can be added. You will not be finding any flavored beers or my favorite perry.

The mashing and boiling tanks.

Gina is not a fan of hops!

Behind these three tanks are the fermenters. The beer sits in these tanks where the yeast goes about its work eating the sugars in the beer and creating carbon dioxide to give the drink its foam.

Mad science experiment? Nope, beer!

The fermenting tanks for different brews.

After it has fermented the appropriate amount of time for that beer it gets kegged in this machine. This machine takes 2 minutes to clean the keg and fill it.

From here we were shows the stock and it was surprisingly limited. Because OMB does not put any preservatives or anything extra in their beer, the turnover has to be very high to keep the product fresh. We visited on Saturday the 6th and the oldest thing in their stock was from August 3rd.

It was really neat to see a local business at work. I’ve toured wineries before and this was much the same process and look, but with different ingredients. Although I will not be drinking their product any time soon, it was fun to see the people in the Tap Room enjoying themselves and supporting a local place. If you are looking for something to do on a weekend I suggest checking them out. The tours are free and the beer is reasonably priced. What more could you want!?!