Wednesday 12 April 2017

North Carolina: Aviator Brewery - Craft Beer Brewing

On previous visits to North Carolina I have visited a vineyard and winery as well as a moonshine distillery so it just seems to fall into order that this time I take a tour around a craft beer brewery!  Aviator Brewery is located in Fuquay Varina, NC about three miles from my sister's house.

On the Main Street of old Fuquay Aviator Brewery also have a bar - The Tap Room,

a store - The Bottle Shop
and a restaurant called The Smokehouse, all within walking distance from each other.

First stop though was the brewery for a brewery tour.  What do you do when you fly private aircraft and have some down time - you start brewing beer of course!  When you have so many friends stopping by for a glass and the owners of the airplane hangars say that is too many people then what? You move premises and start craft brewing on a much larger scale and Aviator Brewery is born.
When you get to the premises and whilst you wait for the next tour to begin you can sample some of the many beers on offer and of course buy a pint to drink whilst you wait.  There is outdoor seating and a few games to keep you occupied!
The beers all have creative names and very creative ABV strengths rising up to around 13%!
The rise in craft beer brewing in North Carolina surged when the limit for ABV was raised to 15% in the state with Raleigh, the state's capital city having over 20 craft brewers alone and a total of just over 175 craft beer breweries spring up throughout the state.
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After tasting some of the beers on offer we began our tour around the brewery.  The whole process is done in a compact and ultra modern environment.  It is a very slick operation with only 23,000 sq ft of space to brew and can now fill 300 cans per minute!

A quick pit stop for a pint before finishing our tour.  Cheers!!
Aviator believe that beer should be put into cans to better care for the amber liquid inside.  Cans make sure the beer is not affected by sunlight or air as is possible with bottles.  It is also easier to recycle cans.

Our guide said "Anyone can make a beer, the craft is hiding the alcohol taste and leaving the beer taste.". There were loads of pallets loaded with beer cans waiting to be filled,
shrink warpped and packed ready to be shipped out.
Mr R certainly enjoyed trying some of the beers on tap the day we visited!!
Following our tour we proceeded to The Tap House and sat outside on a warm Spring evening, drinking beer and listening to live, local music - pure Southern comfort!

We visited Aviator Brewery with a Groupon voucher thereby we received branded glass each and free beer to take home.  I was not required to write a positive review.  As usual all opinions and photos are my own. No photos may be reproduced in any form without my express permission.

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