Shortway, Worth T he Trip
By Karen A. Mann
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Visitors to the Crystal Coast can be forgiven for breezing past the sleepy town of Newport – dubbed “The Town with Old-Fashioned Courtesy – on their way to sun, surf and seafood just a few miles away at the ocean. But with the recent opening of Shortway Brewing in Newport’s charming little downtown section, beer-loving beachgoers have the perfect reason to make a detour. Located in a storefront that was once home to a popular soda shop, Shortway Brewing is the brainchild of Matt and Lindsay Shortway, a former Marine and his wife who were once stationed at Cherry Point and decided to return to Eastern North Carolina once Matt’s final tour of duty was over. Matt was a former biochemistry major who developed a passion for home brewing. While stationed in Southern California, the couple spent their spare time touring breweries, learning
We wanted a place where people felt like they were at home, hanging out in the back yard. -Lindsay Shortway
about the business and developing a business plan. “We always wanted to be entrepreneurs,” says Matt. “I never thought I’d be career Marine Corps but it just kept going and going and going and was going well. When we hit the 10-year mark and it was either now or never.” The brewery uses a five-barrel,
60 | Carolina Brew Scene | Summer 2018
single vessel brewing system by Colorado Brewing Systems and they use five, five-barrel fermenters, which allows Matt to brew a lot, but with a lot of variety. Beer names, such as the Neusiok IPA, Mill Pond Blonde and Simmons Fire Tower Red, reflect local landmarks. As much as possible, they try to use local and family grown ingredients, such as sweet potatoes from nearby Garner Farms, coffee brewed by Crystal Coast Coffee Roasters, as well as rhubarb grown from Lindsay’s mother in New York, and hops grown by Matt’s father in New Jersey. Spent grain even finds new life as feed for chickens on a Down East farm. As the parents of three young children, the Shortways had family and community top of mind when developing the brewery. The storefront is directly across a very sleepy street from the town’s school,
