Capital at Play September 2015

Bubba & Mike Berlin Bclip Productions p.10

Get Airborne

Hot Air Ballooning in Western NC p.80

The Free Spirit Of Enterprise

Wet Your Whistle in Western North Carolina

p.20

Fairview’s Mead Man - Ivar Schloz p.48 Different Seasonal Beer Selections for Fall p.58 High Country Spirits, Gregg Parsons & Jeff Collins p.66

Volume V - Edition IX complimentary edition

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The Free Spirit Of Enterprise

publisher & editor

Oby Morgan

UNC Asheville

associate publisher

Family Business Forum

Jeffrey Green

PRESENTS:

KEEP THINGS FROM GETTING HEATED IN THE FAMILY BUSINESS

contributing editors

Leslee Kulba, Dasha O. Morgan, Brenda Murphy contributing writers & photogr aphers

Emily Ballard, Todd Bush, Jennifer Fitzgerald,Anthony Harden, Roger McCredie, Toni Sherwood, Jeremiah Tracy, Shawndra Russell gr aphic designer

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Information & Inquiries gener al advertising inquiries

Mr. Tony Simmons,

e-mail advertising@capitalatplay.com or call 828.274.7305

the CEO of McIlhenny Company,

maker of TabascoÂŽ Brand Products, will share how his family developed a formula for getting the most out of family business meetings over the years.

high country inquiries

e-mail jeffrey@capitalatplay.com or call 828.320.6152 for subscription information

subscribe online at www.capitalatplay.com or call 828.274.7305 for editorial inquiries

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this page :

Beer on shelf at Peabody’s Wine and Beer Merchants p.66, photo by Todd Bush

F E AT U R E S vol. v

10

THE MIAMI LANDFILL & SUMO WRESTLERS BUBBA & MIKE BERLIN

ed. ix

48

FAIRVIEW’S MEAD MAN IVAR SCHLOZ

66

HIGH COUNTRY SPIRITS JEFF COLLINS & GREGG PARSONS

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com

7

C ON T EN T S L

s e p t e m b e r 2 015

Biltmore Lake – Splash and Dash maneuver photo by Dan Rzeszut

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Wet Your Whistle in Western NC

Fall in Love with Fall

Airborne

lo c a l i n d u s t r y

Alcohol in it’s various forms from all over the region.

colu m ns

58 M ore Than Pumpkin Different Seasonal Beer Selections for Fall Written by Jeremiah Tracy

l e i s u r e & l i b at i o n

An annual ritual in the mountains, inspiration for leaf looking locations.

briefs

32 Carolina in the West 62 The Old North State 76 National & World News

c a p i ta l a d v e n t u r i s t Hot air ballooning in the late summer and fall.

events

90 Summer’s almost over,

and as you get back to the daily grind, don’t forget to take some time for extracurricular events and activities.

COVER PHOTO: Students from A-B Tech’s first and second graduating classes of the Brewing, Distillation and Fermentation program.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Emily Blackwelder, Chad Eckerich, Geoffrey Happel, Anita Riley, Nathan Ellis, Mike Fuller, Eric Lebsack, Steve Maxwell, Philip Barker, Scott Wiemeyer, Isaiah Young, Chris McGuire, Matt Norman, photo by Stewart O’Shields 8

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Bubba and Mike Berlin

The Miami Landfill written by roger mccredie

|

photos by anthony harden

Mark Terwilliger shooting Ingles store front

10

| September 2015

Shooting a resort profile for Coconut Bay Resort in St. Lucia

& Sumo Wrestlers

Bclip Productions owners Bubba & Mike Berlin have seen it all.

W

henever Hollywood or TVland wants to give us a character who’s driven and edgy, and yet still functions within the parameters of a high-paying, vaguely glamorous job, they put him or her in the advertising business.

As early as the 1930s, Dorothy Sayers gave us a look inside the arcane world of persuading-people-to-buy-or-do-things when she had Lord Peter Wimsey go undercover as a copywriter for a “publicity agency” in her short story “Murder Must Advertise.” The 1950s gave us The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, with Gregory Peck as a straight-arrow account executive with a complex past. The 1960s, when all hell broke loose and ad agencies strove to outdo each other in creative craziness, formed the background for the ballistically successful Mad Men. The 1990s ‘Thirty-something’ offered the ad business-as-soap-opera

and presently Showtime’s angst-ridden Happyish, with the three-martini lunch replaced by weed and Xanax.

Along the way, observers such as Catch-22 author Joseph Heller opined that: “The most creative people in the world today are in advertising.” And Jerry Della Femina, an agency founder himself and author of From Those Wonderful Folks Who Brought You Pearl Harbor, summed up the formula for effective advertising creativity in a chapter titled “Give Me Your Drunks, Your Weirdos …”

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com

11

Canon C100 on set

But on a sunny summer morning, there doesn’t seem to be a single dilated pupil among Bclip Productions’ crew assembled to shoot some interior footage at a local Ingles.

They’re dressed alike in dark gray polo shirts decorated with the company logo, and they radiate cheerful competence. It’s a perfectly routine shoot that, in and of itself, has the potential to be boring — wide angle views of occasional customers wandering through a supermarket— but the members of the Bclip team are actually enjoying themselves.

Part of this is due to the fact that Bclip isn’t an ad agency. It works for ad agencies, as well as directly for individual clients, on specific projects, mostly video-oriented.

There’s a lot of autonomy involved — Bclip pretty much gets turned loose to do what it does and return with a finished product — and therefore it avoids being caught up in the stressful, highly competitive world of interagency competition and intra-agency politics. It plans its work, works its plan, and moves on to another assignment.

“From here, we’re on our way down to Hickory Nut Gap Farm,” says Chris Bainbridge, Bclip’s creative director, waving a sheaf of scripts. “They are one of Ingles’ beef suppliers and they’re just down the road. It’s all part of Ingles’ ‘My Story’ campaign — the one where we show different local vendors telling about supplying Ingles. Fresh and local. That’s the idea.”

“You know the neat thing about working like this?” Bubba Berlin asks rhetorically.

“It’s like being in school; you get to go on a field trip somewhere different every day.

“You get to know the client’s business — or at least enough of it to be able to tell a target audience about it — and you get to know the company itself and what makes its people tick. It’s always fascinating.”

Bubba is the CEO. In CEO-land and on documents, he’s Alfred. He shoots skeet (and pretty much anything else that moves), rides ATVs, and worships at the shrine of LSU football. He’s much more Bubba than Alfred. And since he’s a native of Baton Rouge and his blood runneth purple and gold, the question arises, how did he, and, for that matter, the rest of the group, end up in Asheville?

“I got here through a complicated set of circumstances,” says Bubba, “but suffice to 12

| September 2015

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com

13

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say that 15 years ago I was running Chammies Car Wash right down the street” — he indicates Hendersonville Road — “and, long story short, I ended up selling out to some national guys and didn’t have a clue what I was going to do next. Well, Mike — ” Mike Berlin, Bubba’s brother and Bclip’s co-founder and COO: “I was down in Florida, working for Disney World.

I had a degree from MTSU [Middle Tennessee State University] in mass communications, but I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I ended up at Disney, and that’s where I got hooked on the idea of making videos — of putting people’s corporate messages out there where you can see them and not just read about them.

“That was about the time that putting videos on CD-roms was just taking off.” Mike recalls. “I was seriously thinking about trying to master the technology and get into it on a franchise basis, but meanwhile, Bubba was footloose — ” “ — so,” says Bubba, “I persuaded him to pick up, bag and baggage, and come up to Asheville, and go into the video production business on our own.

“At first,” Bubba recalls, “we worked out of my house. Then, stroke of luck, we met Glenn Wilcox, who owned the [Asheville’s landmark] BB&T Building, and in exchange for a video for one of Glenn Wilcox’s passion projects we got a great deal on rent for a small office.”

“He felt sorry for us,” says Mike.

“Whatever,” says Bubba. “It worked out real well because when we started making a little money and needed more room, they just let us knock out a wall. After that, as the need arose, we’d knock out another one. We kept knocking out walls till there

“So we got hold of a real sumo wrestler and brought him to Asheville,” Bubba says.

“And everything went great. And it turned out all he wanted to do was visit breweries.”

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Chris Bainbridge September 2015 | capitalatplay.com

15

wasn’t any more room left in the basement for us to expand.”

(The company with 16 employees, now occupies roomier digs in an office building on Asheville’s Old Charlotte Highway.)

Along the way, they attracted Chris, who, as the Bclip website puts it: “Captains the rollicking ship that is the production department. The peripatetic Chris was born in Chicago, grew up in North Carolina, Memphis, and Atlanta, then went to college at Furman, where he met his future wife and also founded the college’s first TV station. He did internships at both CNN and NBC, then got a journalism degree – with a concentration in broadcasting – from the University of Nebraska, producing three documentaries for the university while he was still in grad school.”

But Chris’ route to Bclip was pure serendipity. “I was back in Greenville working for a car dealer,” he says, “and wondering how long I could do this and stay sane. Well, I sold one car the whole time I was there. To Mike. He’d come to Greenville car shopping. We ended up talking. The rest is history.”

“We had some early successes doing corporate videos for people like Volvo, and then for a couple of steel mills,” Bubba says. “That gave us some traction, but all this time we were having to learn how to become jacks-of-all-trades in the production department, how to do more and more stuff ourselves and become our own problem solvers.”

“We’re really a logistics company in some respects,” Chris puts in.

“Right!” says Bubba. “Tell about the sumo wrestler.”

“Ah!” says Chris, with the air of a performer who’s been waiting for his cue. “Well, see, we had come up with this idea for a client that had to do with ‘big protection’ ” — “The operative word being ‘big,’ “ says Mike, grinning.

16

| September 2015

“ — and so we thought, ‘sumo wrestler.’ But we also thought, ‘We’ll never be able to find the real thing; maybe we should try another approach entirely.’ Trouble was, we’d already told the client, and the client loved the concept. So we started looking through files and checking sports agencies. We thought, ‘Maybe we could get just, like, a really big guy, or even a professional wrestler.’ But the more we looked the more we realized that nothing on earth looks like a sumo wrestler — ” “Except a sumo wrestler.” (Mike and Bubba say in unison.)

“We sat around looking glum,” says Chris, “until finally we did the obvious. We hit Google. There were three pages devoted to nothing but sumo wrestlers!”

“So we got hold of a real sumo wrestler and brought him to Asheville,” Bubba says. “And everything went great. And it turned out all he wanted to do was visit breweries. In fact, he said he’d heard about the beer scene in Asheville and that really was the only reason he took the gig.”

“Logistics-R-Us,” says Mike. “Do you have any idea the kind of respect you get if you walk into a bar accompanied by a sumo wrestler?”

“The first job we did together — the very first job — was a little training film for Arby’s,” Bubba says. “Naturally it was a great team-builder. Nothing actually cements a team together like working on a project and having it actually turn out like it was supposed to.

“But you know what I really remember? How much fun it was.

I mean, it was a training film for a fast food corporation, so it wasn’t super-glamorous or anything. But the whole time we were doing it, we all realized it was important to the company and they had entrusted us, out of all the studios on the planet, with making it. So you feel called upon to do your best and you do

it, and that’s a huge natural high.” He pauses.

“It still is,” he says.

“Our strong suit, really, is integrating with creative departments, whether it’s an agency representing a client or with the client’s own in-house agency.” This from lanky, youthful Jake Dewey, who has wandered away from looking over the shoulders of the in-store camera crew to join the conversation. “Take Ingles. They have an in-house agency and we’re like an extension of it. We do all their TV, plus their in-store radio, food photography, and their public radio spots. They’ve taught us so much; working with them has been like going to multimedia school, tuition-free.”

Another LSU man, Jake has been at Bclip coming up on seven years, having worked first in Bclip’s outpost office in Baton Rouge for three years. As head of sales and new business development, he inhabits the twilight zone between the creative and business worlds, which stands to reason since his LSU major was fine arts but his minor was business. This combination, the others say, “Gives him that creative edge we need in the business department.” In other words, he has the happy faculty of being able to put a creative concept across to a client without prefacing it with: “Here’s what we came up with, but we can change it.”

“Most of our actual work is done out of town,” Bubba says. “As in waaaay out of town. I was on a shoot in Vegas when my daughter was born. Around that same time we were doing a project that required us to go to Colombia to film fresh flowers being shipped from there to the States. We wanted to get some footage of flowers actually being shipped out. Turns out Colombia is very sensitive about photographing agricultural products leaving the country” (arches one eyebrow) “and it practically took an act of Congress, or whatever they have down there, to allow it, but we actually managed to get onto the tarmac at the Bogota airport and film the flowers being shipped.”

“Logistics-R-Us,” Mike repeats.

What’s the worst shoot you were ever on?

Chris doesn’t hesitate. “The Miami landfill.

In the middle of summer. In hundred-degree heat. Don’t ask. Meanwhile, these guys were on St. Lucia, doing glamorous stuff for their tourist bureau — ”

Mike and Mark shooting a wide shot of the Ingles produce section September 2015 | capitalatplay.com

17

Bubba: “It was rough, but somebody had to do it. St. Lucia, that is.”

“But anyway,” says Chris, “we’re generally all over the place.

Here at home we’ve done a feature for Biltmore Estate Winery and TV spots for Grove Park Inn, but during any given month we may be scattered from Milwaukee to New Orleans.” The company maintains a production space in Baton Rouge (“It’s really just part of a big building down there that the company who owns it lets us use,” Mike says.) and a pied à terre office in Clearwater, Florida.

With a client roster ranging from Simoniz to GE to the Louisiana Department of Transportation, the additional locations come in handy.

In fifteen years it has been a long and kaleidoscopic journey from Bubba’s basement. In fact, this past year’s toast at the company’s Christmas party was a concise summary by Chris of what Bclip had done in a single twelve month period. Chris said: “In 2014 we sold groceries, illuminated flower pots, birdhouses, human powered bicycle generators, doggy products,

Tupperware, legal services, Grout-Aide, delicious egg crystals, lots and lots and lots of air conditioners, giant shipping containers, surgical equipment, various and sundry automotive products, electronic screen cleaner, hotel accommodations, therapeutic swimming pools, grill-cleaning robots, sand mining services, construction equipment, ironing boards, shot blasting

Then the venison gets processed and delivered to local food banks; it’s all coordinated by an online nonprofit called nohungrypeople.org.

It will be shown on the Sportsman Channel. equipment, and a spray-on adhesive that sticks to everything… including cameras and tripods.

“We trained marketers, university employees, car wash employees, folks fighting child abuse, quitting smoking, making milk cartons, using health websites, cooking chicken, cleaning

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motorcycles, spraying on the adhesive that sticks to everything, and identifying personality traits.

“We traveled to the Dominican Republic, Mexico, New Mexico, St. Lucia, Atlanta, Cleveland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Austin, Alabama, Miami, Connecticut, New Jersey, Chattanooga, Dallas, Savannah, Houston, Kentucky, Cincinnati, Indiana, New Orleans, Jacksonville, Virginia, Chicago, and the sketchiest ‘animal sanctuary’ on the East Coast. There was not a week in 2014 when we were not shooting multiple jobs… shooting from boats, moving cars, airplanes, hot air balloons, and zip lines.

“We worked for National Geographic, Omni, Zagat, Cisco, GE, and 94 other companies.

“We competed for Emmys and vodka.

“And we raised awareness for abuse victims, people battling eating disorders, folks trying to start small businesses, people trying to make Asheville a greener and better place to live, and kids.

“I give you 2014.”

So what’s next?

“We’re on the brink of something really exciting: our first TV show,” says Mike. “It’s called Shoot to Grill, and it’s all about a fantastic project that’s been hammered out between hunters

and landowners to provide fresh meat to local food banks.”

“The joint venture is called Backyard Bow Pro,” Bubba explains. “It’s a group of qualified hunters who team up with woodland landowners. The landowners allow the hunters to come on the property and harvest deer. Then the venison gets processed and delivered to local food banks; it’s all coordinated by an online nonprofit called nohungrypeople.org. It will be shown on the Sportsman Channel, which is a natural because a lot of what we shoot will be actual hunting trips with these guys, but we’ll also be tracking the process itself, from meat preparation to ways to prepare venison – we’ve got a renowned chef supervising and giving recipes – to the end result: feeding people. It’s following an activity that’s as old as mankind: hunting to put food on the table.”

And how did BClip manage to become the taleteller for this novel and extremely worthwhile endeavor by bringing it to television?

Bubba Berlin smiles. “Went huntin’ with ’em.”

Editor’s Note: In a past life, feature writer Roger McCredie was a three-time ad agency creative director.

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| www.WhiteOakFinancialManagement.com September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 19

local industry

Wet Your Whistle in Western North Carolina written by jennifer fitzger ald

W

estern North Carolina is in a unique position when it comes to the alcohol industry. The region is home to a growing number of breweries, wineries, distilleries, and cideries.

“We are not the Northern California wine country,” Sheila Tillman, associate dean of hospitality education at A-B Tech said when announcing the school’s creation of the Craft Beverage

Institute of the Southeast. “We are not St. Louis, known for its beer. We are not Kentucky, home of whiskey. We are finding ourselves in the situation of supporting a growing job force of not one part of the beverage industry, but we have three major industries simultaneously coming here.”

Here’s a closer look at the industry and the impact it has on the area.

1. Appalachian Mountain Brewery appalachianmountainbrewery.com

12. Oskar Blues Brewery oskarblues.com

1.Banner Elk Winery bannerelkwinery.com

13. Bee & Bramble Fine Meads beeandbramble.com

13. Brevard Brewing brevard-brewing.com

2. Grandfather Vineyard & Winery grandfathervineyard.com

14. Addison Farms Vineyard addisonfarms.net

2. Lost Province Brewing Co. lostprovince.com 3. Blowing Rock Brewing Co. blowingrockbrewing.com 4. Blind Squirrel Brewery blindsquirrelbrewery.com 5. Flat Top Brewing Co. flattopbrewing.com 6.Dry County Brewing Co. drycountybrewing.com 7. Blue Mountain Pizza and Brewpub bluemountainpizza.com 8. Pisgah Brewing Co. pisgahbrewing.com 9. Lookout Brewing lookoutbrewing.com

11. Southern Appalachian Brewery

20

15. Bearwaters Brewing Co. bwbrewing.com 16. Frog Level Brewing Co. froglevelbrewing.com 17. Tipping Point Brewing tippingpointtavern.com 18. Heinzelmännchen Brewery yourgnometownbrewery.com 19.Innovation Brewing Co. innovation-brewing.com 20. Nantahala Brewing Co. nantahalabrewing.com 21. Lazy Hiker Brewing Co. lazyhikerbrewing.com

10. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. sierranevada.com

sabrewery.com

14. Boojum Brewing boojumbrewing.com

22. Satulah Mountain Brewing Co. satulahmountainbrewing.com 23. Andrews Brewing Co. andrewsbrewing.com

| September 2015

3. Vance Toe River Lodge vancetoeriverlodge.com 4. Linville Falls Winery linvillefallswinery.com 5. South Creek Vineyards & Winery southcreekwinery.com 6. Belle Nicho Winery bellenichowinery.com 7. Parker-Binns Vineyard parker-binnsvineyard.com

15.Fontaine Vineyards fontainevineyards.com 16. Eagle Fork Vineyards eagleforkvineyards.com 17. Calaboose Cellars calaboosecellars.com 18. Cherokee Cellars Winery cherokeecellars.com 19. Valley River Vineyards facebook.com/VRVWinery

8. Overmountain Vineyards overmountainvineyards.com

20. Nottely River Valley Vineyards nottelywine.com

9. Mountain Brook Vineyards mountainbrookvineyards.com

1.Bold Rock Hard Cider (soon) boldrock.com

10. Russian Chapel Hills Winery russianchapelhill.com

2. Three Sisters Cidery LLC threesisterscidery.com

11. Burntshirt Vineyards burntshirtvineyards.com

3. Naked Apple Hard Cider nakedapplehardcider.com

12. Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards saintpaulmountainvineyards.com

4. Black Mountain Ciderworks blackmountainciderworks.com

71

T H E R E A R E R O U G H LY

breweries, wineries, & di stilleries combined

in Western North Carolina beer

wine

cider

liquor

4 51 2 m it

ch

ell

3

1 ga watau

3 avery

4

6 madison

2

yancey

15 7

14 haywood

20

10 1 13

rutherford

7

3 polk

er

21

so

18

12

nd

jackson

6

13

2 11 11 12

he

17 23

5

9 mcdowell

buncombe

18 19

graham

cherokee

asheville

14 15 16 17

swain

4 8

89 10

n

20 19 clay

16

macon

22

tr a

nsy

i lva n

a

asheville breweries, wineries, distilleries, and cideries Altamont Brewing altamontbrewing.com

Funkatoriuim wickedweedbrewing.com

One World Brewery oneworldbrewing.com

Wicked Weed Brewing wickedweedbrewing.com

Asheville Pizza and Brewing ashevillebrewing.com

Green Man Brewery greenmanbrewery.com

Open Brewing obrewing.com

Biltmore Winery biltmore.com

Bhramari Brewhouse bhramaribrewhouse.com

Highland Brewing highlandbrewing.com

Oyster House Brewing Co. oysterhousebeers.com

Asheville Distilling Co. ashevilledistilling.com

Burial Beer

Hi-Wire Brewing hiwirebrewing.com

Thirsty Monk monkpub.com

Howling Moon Distillery howlingmoonshine.com

Catawba Brewing Co.

Lexington Avenue Brewery lexavebrew.com

Twin Leaf Brewery twinleafbrewery.com

Noble Cider noblecider.com

New Belgium Brewing Co. (soon) newbelgium.com

Wedge Brewing Co. wedgebrewing.com

Urban Orchard Cider Company urbanorchardcider.com

burialbeer.com catawbabrewing.com French Broad Brewing Co. frenchbroadbrewery.com

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com

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Jeff Irvin, brewmaster at A-B Tech, photo courtesy of A-B Tech

local industry

Wicked Weed flight of beer photo by Anthony Harden

Chamber Hi-Wire Brewing Taps photo courtesy of Hi-Wire Brewing

Carl Melissas, brewmaster of the Wedge Brewery photo by Linda D. Cluxton 22

| September 2015

BREW IT & They Will Come Beer Industry Brings Ripple Effect To Economy

When you visit a brewery in Western North Carolina, you may finding a community and a location that fits them, their cusnot realize the impact that operation has on the local economy. tomer, and their brand.”

From tourism to jobs to revitalization of an area, the growing number of breweries in the area are leaving their mark.

“In Western North Carolina, and the country as a whole for At this point in the beer boom, the supply industry for brewthat matter, the sheer amount of craft breweries has grown eries is a growing one. immensely,” Elise Carlton, public relations manager for Green “As you start to see multiple brewMan Brewery, says. “Breweries are eries, you start to see economies of finding their individual niches in scale which would allow suppliers to the industry environment, and high come in like White Labs (Inc. Pure standards of quality, consistency, Yeast and Fermentation) – locating and creativity are held, especially in on South Charlotte Street, which towns like Asheville.” supplies the yeast and innovative Major players, Sierra Nevada yeasts.”

Brewing Company and Oskar Blues The ripple effect of local brewerBrewery, have joined the scene, and ies is far reaching. Riverbend Malt New Belgium Brewing Company is set House is located in Asheville to to begin production later this year. provide the area’s craft brewers with Many local breweries are expanding locally-farmed, artisan malts. A-B and new ones continue to come.

Tech launched the Craft Beverage “The larger we grow the more Institute of the Southeast, a premier momentum we have for others to education destination to meet the come,” Ben Teague, executive direcneeds of the rapidly-growing bevertor of the Economic Development age industry in the region, in 2013.

Coalition for Asheville and Buncombe Nineteen completed the first class, County, says. “But you have to go and they graduated in May 2015. back to some of the first breweries “Craft breweries have a significant that were here. Certainly the godimpact because they have a real father of all of them is Highland dedication to local talent, probably Brewing. They created a culture more so than a lot of other industries, here that breweries are attracted to.

Oscar and Leah Wong, so that creates even more impact,” So that they find if you look at the photo courtesy Highland Brewing Company Teague said.

“You see it from the culture of Asheville it’s ‘we love beer’, professional business side all the way and there’s a lot of places that love to the production side – all down the chain.

But our goal for the beer, but [Asheville loves] beer, and also our community has a supply chain is not only to have the end user of the brewery, brand that [breweries] see their brand with. but the vertical industry going up the chain.

We would like to “If you look at some of the breweries, it’s not about finding start recruiting more high level suppliers.” the most cost effective plug and play industrial site. It’s about

The Ripple Effect

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 23

local industry

See caption on page 8

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Breweries are catalytic for areas, Teague said. Traditionally breweries and their supply chains will go in and rehab areas that are tough to invest in.

“They are catalytic in terms of where they invest their money in,” he says.

“They don’t come in and take the best of everything and say ‘Okay everybody come to me.’ A lot of times what looks like the worst of things they can really make it a cool funky spot with a lot of investment. And on top of that, a brewery may draw people to an area they may not have been drawn to previously.

“I think that cities and counties and economic development entities can sit there and think about what their plans for an area might be all day long, but speaking frankly, you need a catalytic company to come in there and help get that going, and often times breweries are just that; they are not afraid, and will go in and be the pioneers for a particular area.”

The Brewery District The South Slope area in downtown Asheville is an example of this renovation. Green Man Brewery moved to Buxton Avenue on the South Slope about 10 years ago, which provided more space to expand their production.

“It has been amazing to watch the South Slope turn into its own

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| September 2015

Hi-Wire Kegs photo by Sadrah Schadel community and tourist destination in the last few years,” Carlton says. “We have tourists that spend the majority of their time visiting Asheville on the South Slope now that there is a thriving ecosystem of businesses. Before, people were venturing off the beaten path of downtown to come to our tasting room.”

“Look at Green Man Brewing where they are, and now that Buxton Hall Barbecue is going down there and Vortex Doughnuts is going down there — South Slope is starting to become a hot area, where as before it was described as seedy,” Teague said.

Brewery Tourism Industry In an area of the country already popular for out-of-town visitors, breweries are making a large impact on the tourism industry.

“If you just took the anecdotal things that we have seen across all of our clients

for large breweries, you are going to have several hundred thousand people a year visiting those breweries,” Teague states.

“With synergistic effects of 27 breweries, I think you will see even more than that.

And beyond that you see spinoff services like Brews Cruise and that sort of stuff that is a whole different industry in itself that is facilitating the brewery tourism industry.”

Future Growth?

in buncombe count y There are approximately

608

jobs in breweries, wineries, and distilleries industries

What does the future hold for the local beer industry? Teague believes supplying the workforce that is needed will not be a problem. But will there be enough customers to support them?

“From a customer base standpoint, this is the defining factor,” he says. “If you feel like your customer base is just Asheville, or even Asheville and the surrounding

This is estimated to be 519% above the national average (as of Q2 2015).

New Belgium Brewing Company is joining the Asheville beer scene on a grand scale with an impact on the economy, tourism, and the revitalization of a neglected site.

Nation (51%) & North Carolina (58%).

Since 2010, jobs in these industries have grown

121%

Wicked Weed beer photo by Anthony Harden

n ota b ly fa s t e r t h a n t h e

area, yes, it has a finite future. Because there are only so many customers to serve and there is a lot of competition.

But if you are a larger brewery your customer base may be New York to Miami.

Your local sales in Asheville is a drop in the bucket to what your potential sales are across the Eastern United States.

“If you look at a large regional or greater brewery, I don’t feel we are anywhere close to tapping out. With that said, there’s a third factor that could hurt the

37% of jobs in these industries

are held by 25-34 year olds.

Including wholesale industry activity for beer, wine, and distilleries, the industries create nearly

1,100

j o b s , w h i c h i s 30 8 % a b o v e t h e n at i o n a l av e r ag e

and a

74% g row th s i nce

2010.

Source: Compiled by EDC Research utilizing EMSI and IMPLAN software. Research provided by the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce Research Dept.

appetites of breweries in the area, which is do they see a place for their brand to be represented in the area. I think there is a lot of room for a lot of different looks and a lot of different brands, but they need to be able to have that vision to be able to see that.

“I only see things getting better in terms of more breweries being here. If we had to really shift our attention, yes, maybe there is room for one more large brewery, but we would shift our attention to talent and innovation and supply chain because we want the companies that are here across the entire spectrum of breweries to do well, and that’s going to come through some of those different pieces – talent, innovation, place making for them.

“A lot of the people are seeing breweries as a fast growing and very recent trend, but like most all economic development it takes a long time to be an overnight success. We are standing on the shoulders of a lot of people like Oscar Wong, who brought the craft brew industry here many, many years ago, and we’re proud to do our part over the last six - seven years to cultivate that.”

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 25

local industry

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New Belgium Brewing Company is joining the Asheville beer scene on a grand scale with an impact on the economy, tourism, and the revitalization of a neglected site.

The project is at the peak of construction with most work now taking place on the inside of the facility. On the south end of the site you can see the liquid center, which will house the tasting room that will open to visitors next year. Production is set to begin by the end of this year.

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There are several characteristics New Belgium looked for when deciding where to build their East Coast facility.

Jay Richardson, general manager of the Asheville brewery, explains that easy access to transportation corridors, high quality water, and a desirable place to live are all factors.

The company looked for a site close to the center of town so that co-workers could live close to the brewery and have access to fun things to do.

Was Asheville’s thriving beer scene also a deciding factor?

“It certainly feels good to be in a place that already has an appreciation for craft beer, and throw on to that an appreciation for great food and a growing

farm-to-table movement and all the sustainable characteristics that go along with that,” says Richardson. “Certainly that played into the decision.”

Engaging in Asheville Partnering with nonprofit organizations and community involvement have always been a part of New Belgium, according to Susanne Hackett, the Asheville brewery’s community and media relations specialist. Grant programs will benefit local nonprofits, and New Belgium has already partnered with Highland Brewing Company on the Brewing for Greenways project to support greenways in Buncombe County.

“We have had a really good time engaging in Asheville because Asheville is so incredibly engaging in itself,” Hackett says. “We’ve had a lot of people get in touch with us, and we are really grateful that we’ve been embraced in that way through this process. So even before we are up and running we have had the opportunity to really get involved in the community.

“We’ve worked a lot with our neighborhood and business association in this construction process to work through challenges and share our information to make sure people understand what

Construction will be completed later this year in Asheville, photo courtesy of New Belgium Brewing Company is happening and how it is happening. We’ve also done a lot of potlucks, and that’s been great for us and our new co-workers to learn about Asheville. We’ve really tapped into our neighborhood to help us get settled in, and they have been very supportive about that.”

Opening the Doors Richardson is anticipating 200,000 visitors per year to the Asheville brewery, which is more than the company sees at its Fort Collins’ headquarters. This is due primarily to the amount of tourists who visit Asheville throughout the year.

If you visit, tasting the beers will be a big focus. There will be plenty of space to hang out – both indoors and outdoors. The tour will begin in the liquid center then move into the brewery for a process overview and a look at the company history.

“We are trying to be part of not only the national brewing community but also the local brewing community,” Hackett says. “We’ve been working to make sure that our liquid center, which is our tasting room, is a place where locals want to come and spend time with us.” l o c at i o n o f b r e w e ry : The brewery will be built on

Craven St. between the Craven St. and West Asheville bridges in West Asheville and across the French Broad River from Asheville’s River Arts District. This area is a revitalized commercial warehouse district lined with restaurants, bars, retail, and more than 150 artists and galleries of high-quality fine arts and crafts. It’s the gateway to West Asheville and near downtown Asheville, which is just over a half mile away.

p r o j e c t e d s i z e o f b r e w e r y : 133,000-sq-ft total,

including: 127,000-sq-ft brewery; 6,000-sq-ft Liquid Center

e l e m e n t s o f b r e w e ry : Tasting room, brewery tours,

outdoor event space

a n t i c i pat e d o p e n i n g dat e : Early 2016 September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 27

local industry

Wines are fermenting in the tanks and aging in the barrels, photo courtesy of Burntshirt Vineyards

photo from The Biltmore Company

Processing the grapes. photo courtesy of Burntshirt Vineyards

28

| September 2015

A Great Growing Season Wine may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of North Carolina - but maybe it should be! While Biltmore Winery is celebrating its 30th anniversary, the growing wine industry is thriving in the Tar Heel state due to the various climates from the mountains to the coast.

“The mountains create a very unique environment for growing grapes,” says Justin Taylor, assistant winemaker at Burntshirt Vineyards in Hendersonville.

“From soil profiles, to slope, elevation, mountain temperatures, and even rainfall — this area is very unique. Our growing season is slightly behind that of the Yadkin Valley and the Piedmont because of our elevation, allowing us to have a great growing season.”

Many wineries are on land that has been passed down in families from one generation to the next. A winery offers a unique opportunity to keep the land fruitful.

“We built our vineyard and winery in Western North Carolina because we viewed it as a way to preserve the family farm for at least another generation,” says Jeff Frisbee of Addison Farms Vineyard in Leicester. “The piece of property where Addison Farms Vineyard

is located was my maternal grandparents’ farm, and it is only about one mile from my paternal grandparents’ farm.”

Alan Ward, of Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards in Hendersonville, started his business due to a need he saw for sustainable farming in the area. His winery is located on acreage that has been in the family and farmed for more than nine generations.

“We are always trying to learn new things about farming,” Ward says. “We are constantly pushing the envelope on what we can do.”

His grapes are grown at three different elevations — 2,300 feet at his winery; 3,000 feet on top of a mountain in Edneyville; and 3,500 feet farther south.

“The good weather is one of the main reasons I came to Polk County to plant my grapes in 2000,” says Dennis Lanahan of Mountain Brook Vineyards in Tryon. He explains that Tryon is in a thermal belt and has a viticultural history that dates back over 100 years.

The wine industry has seen changes in the last five years, due in part to research and training.

“Grapes are such a long term product from planting, to yielding quality fruit, and finally producing stellar wine from

OVERMOUNTAIN VINEYARDS & WINERY

that fruit,” Taylor says. “At Burntshirt, As with any business, there are obstaOVERMOUNTAIN OVERMOUNTAIN VINEYARDS & WINERY VINEYARDS & WINERY we have learned what varietals we can cles to deal with — one of them being grow well, and what styles of wines our the weather. fruit is best used for.

“We tend to have higher humidity and, “With the development of associates if Mother Nature deals us a tough hand, programs at Surry Community College, high rainfall in certain years,” Taylor bachelor studies at Appalachian State, says. “It doesn’t make our job impossiand even the fermentation sciences work ble, it just requires us to become more at A-B Tech, we are bringing enough creative with our production goals. The research into the field to grow and high humidity is the largest limiting develop sustainable knowledge about factor in my opinion. Any thin skinned, Located in the Tryon Foothills of Polk County and just around the block from the industry. In five years I believe we tight clustered grape like Pinot Noir, Tryon International Equestrian Center, will look back and realize that we have would have a very tough time growing join us for a tasting of our estate wines in our cozy tasting room or sit back on grown again two-fold.” in Western North Carolina.” the porch and rock away while enjoying New varietals, trellising systems, and Tourism is an integral part of the the picturesque views. wine styles are some of the biggest areas winery business. Many of the local TASTING ROOM HOURS EXTENDED of growth that Taylor has seen. wineries report that out and of town visitors Located in the Tryon FoothillsLocated of Polkin County the Tryon just Foothills around of Polk the block County from andTryon justDURING around International theSHOW block Equestrian from Tryon Center, International us forEquestrian a Center, joi SEASON TOjoin INCLUDE “Wine production starts in the vinemake up approximately 85 tasting of our estate wines in tasting our cozy of tasting our estate room wines orpercent sit inback our cozy on of the tasting porchroom and rock or sitaway backwhile on theenjoying porch and therock picturesque away while views. enjoying the picturesq Sun-Thurs 12 - 6 PM Fri and Sat 12 - 7 PM yard, which is why you see the biggest TASTING their traffic.

The TASTING challenge is reaching Daily Tours at 2TO PM SHOW or by appointment.

ROOM HOURS EXTENDED ROOM HOURS DURING EXTENDED SHOW SEASON DURING INCLUDE SEASON TO INCLUD learning curve in that area,” he says. these people what mayandbe12:00 a limited Sunday-Thursday 12:00 -on 6Sunday-Thursday p.m.; Friday Saturday - 6 p.m.; 12:00 Friday - 7 p.m. and Daily Saturday Tours 12:00 at 2 p.m.

7 p.m. or by Daily appointment.

Tours 28782 at 2 p.m. or by appoint 2014 SANDY PLAINS ROAD, TRYON “Wine production is also finding its advertising budget. | OVERMOUNTAINVINEYARDS.COM 2014 SANDY PLAINS ROAD, 2014 SANDY TRYON PLAINS 28782 828.863.0523 828.863.0523 ROAD, TRYON 28782 828.863.0523 strengths. The varietals like Grüner “For small wineries like us the chalovermountainvineyards overmountainvineyards overmountainvineyards overmountainvine overmountainvineyards WWW.OVERMOUNTAINVINEYARDS.COM WWW.OVERMOUNTAINVINEYARDS.COM Veltliner and Petit Manseng are among lenge is to make ourselves known within some of our whites that are less known the confines of very limited budgets,” in the United States but have really Lanahan says. “Getting people to our taken off in North Carolina.” winery is the challenge we face on a Frisbee notes that one of the biggest daily, weekly, and monthly basis.” and most exciting things he is seeing “Tourism is critical to our business,” unch is how much wine quality is steadily Frisbee says. “The guests to our farm are kend br e e w g vin improving. composed of a little over 85 percent visiNow ser “We are seeing some really interesttors to Western North Carolina and a little runch ing varieties, including a couple that less than 15 percent from local traffic.” ekend b e w g in v we think show great promise in this Ward agrees, stating that on any brunch Now ser eekend w g in v r area,” he says. “Petit Manseng seems given weekend, visitors from Atlanta, Now se to have a real affinity for Virginia and Charlotte, Tennessee, and upstate South North Carolina. It maintains really great Carolina will stop by. acidity while building sugar to levels we In many cases several wineries may runch do not see with other varieties, and that be located near each other, drawing in ekend b e w g in v gives us the ability to create some really more tourists to the area.

Now ser incredible wines.”

“Wineries like to have company – the “The industry has invested heavily in wineries feed each other,” Lanahan the technology of wine making and grape says. “We regularly refer our visitors to growing,” Lanahan says. “We have more the other wineries in the area. We have clones of grapes now than we ever had become a destination for people from 50 years ago. The equipment to assist Greenville, Spartanburg, Columbia, the winemakers in analyzing wine have and Charleston, South Carolina, plus improved dramatically. On a macro basis, Charlotte.” this is now a worldwide industry. Wines These vintners all agree that providing are moving from all parts of the world a good experience for their visitors is to the USA. On a micro basis, North important.

Carolina has grown to over 140 wineries “We want people to understand and in the last 10 years, with most of that enjoy their wine,” Ward says. “Wine is growth coming in the last five years.” made to enjoy.”

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September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 29

local industry

An Apple a Day Where better to produce hard cider than in the heart of apple country? While hard cider is growing in popularity across the country, local cideries are attracted to Western North Carolina due to the bountiful crop of apples.

Alan Ward, the owner of Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards in Hendersonville, is so excited about apples that he is launching a new business, Appleachian Artisan Ciders, in time for this year’s apple season.

He will produce traditional Normandy ciders.

“We get excited about cider, because we are in the heart of apple country,” he says.

Andrew Tate, president of the Henderson County Partnership for Economic Development, shares that Henderson County has experienced recent growth in the cidery market and, of course, has a long history in the business of apple growing.

Most recently, Bold Rock Hard Cider announced a second production location in Henderson County, growing out of their main production facility in Nellysford,

Virginia. The company considered locations in Eastern Tennessee, upstate South Carolina, and Western North Carolina before selecting Henderson County.

Cideries are having an impact on the local economy as well as agriculture. “Cideries create jobs, pay taxes, utilize local apple sources, and encourage tourism,” Tate says. “In this regard, cideries add value to many elements of our economy, encouraging traditional economic development measures like jobs and investment, but also overlapping with consumer and brand engagement driving visitor spending in the area.”

Tate says that cider currently holds a small market share compared to other beverages, estimated at maybe one percent in the United States. The hard cider market is however growing at a rate many times greater than other beverages (according to Nielson who tracks retail sales). Year over year sales growth has been strong over the past few years and shows no sign of curtailing. The Blue Ridge Apple Growers (Henderson County) produce about 85 percent of North Carolina’s

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Bottles getting filled with Cider, photo courtesy of Bold Rock

apples, and North Carolina ranks seventh in apple production in the United States.

“Cideries are attracting visitors to the area as consumers explore the ‘branch to bottle’ concept of understanding the supply chain in their food and beverage choices,” Tate says.

Black Mountain Ciderworks is owned and operated by David Bowman and Jessica Puzzo-Bowman. When they realized that Hendersonville was full of apples, they decided to start a small cidery in the nearby Swannanoa Valley.

“Our goal was to produce cider more like that which we had at a street fair in England than what is mass-produced in the United Kingdom and America,” PuzzoBowman says.

“We get our apples from Henderson County orchards. During the harvest season, we purchase a few bins a week, take them to our cidery, and process them as quickly as possible (chopping and pressing the apples into juice). The season starts in August and goes through the end of the year, but apples are still available in cold storage until about March, so we press and chop from about August to March. It is very much a seasonal business since we don’t buy juice to ferment but rather produce the juice ourselves.”

Award-Winning Wines of Distinction Crafted for the Discerning Palette 731 Phillips Dairy Road, Tryon NC MountainBrookVineyards@gmail.com 828.817.4376 MountainBrookVineyards.com Check our website for “Our Story,” visiting hours, and upcoming events.

photo courtesy of Noble Cider

photo courtesy of Bold Rock Black Mountain Ciderworks produces mostly for their own tasting room and serve about 30 different ciders, meads, and cidermead blends throughout the year. Their plan is to “stay small and grow organically, but never so big that we lose authenticity or are no longer able to do most of the production ourselves.”

Voted NC Winery of the Year!*

Enjoy Award Winning wines in our tasting room, or relax on the terrace that overlooks the vineyard with majestic mountain views.

Music in the Vineyards – Visit the vineyard Saturdays from 3pm to 6pm and enjoy talented local musicians.

Check our Events Calendar regularly for all the entertaining Vineyard Happenings we have planned!

Hours: Sunday thru Thursday 12pm - 6pm • Friday & Saturday 12pm - 7pm Wine Tastings & Winery Tours Daily 2695 Sugarloaf Road • Hendersonville, NC 28792 • 828-685-2402 www.burntshirtvineyards.com • Follow Us on Facebook * New York International Wine Competition

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com

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CAROLINA in the

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Current Conditions at the Airport jackson county

Facilities at the Jackson County Airport will soon undergo upgrades. The mountaintop location houses its terminals, planes, and maintenance facility in a single hangar. But this may change if a recent request to lease space for construction of a T-hangar is honored. At their last meeting, the airport authority approved replacing the metal roof on the main hangar with a rubber material. The roof is about forty years old, and it has been kept up with minor patching. The project was bid out at $49,000. Another investment was approved to break the habit of regularly replacing runway end identifier lights (REILs). Local electrician Dick Wittekind recently investigated

Kayak Collision henderson county

]

the problem and determined the lights were shorting out whenever lightning hit the ground nearby. Jack and Andy’s Lighting, which has expertise in designing lightning-proof lighting systems for high-elevation golf resorts, was consulted, and they recommended installing an underground system of wires to intercept ground currents and shield the REILs. The system should cost about $2,700.

Lastly, US Cellular has been waiting for changes to the county’s cell tower ordinance before constructing a tower, which could be as tall as 150 feet. The tower now used is only 80 feet high. The new tower would bring in $1,250 a month in rent for the airport authority. It will be designed with room for two other companies to collocate their antennas on it, so rent receipts could triple. T-Mobile has already expressed interest.

Legacy Paddlesports, a manufacturer of kayaks, merged with Hurricane Kayaks. Legacy moved to Fletcher from Greensboro in 2012. The company self-describes as a small group of friends who shared enthusiasm for kayaking and getting together to make great boats. They paddled the world, but the mountains and the Green River called them to Western North Carolina. Over the years, the company grew from being a few kids driving around in a car to a factory employing over 100. Legacy invested $4.5 million in a 130,000-sq-ft facility on Airport Road. It manufactures Liquidlogic and Native Watercraft kayaks.

Offerings run from a range of nuanced whitewater boats to pedal-propelled fishing boats. Hurricane is based in Warsaw, North Carolina, where it manufactures lightweight thermoformed kayaks. For the near term, both facilities will manufacture the products they’ve been making, but all lines will be marketed under an umbrella effort. New products will be added, including four designs that will be made available exclusively through specialty dealers. Legacy’s CEO has been replaced by Don Grigg, a co-owner of Hurricane, and twenty-five of Legacy’s

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Put Your Beer Down and Your Hands Up buncombe county

Eleven breweries in the Asheville area have recently received citations from Alcohol Law Enforcement(ALE) agents.

ALE denies it is stepping up enforcement efforts in the once and likely future Beer City. ALE employs eight agents who conduct random inspections of breweries and festivals where beer is served. Neither staffing nor inspections have increased over the last few years.

It’s just that there is so much more going on, it is so much easier to spot violations. At least that is Special Agent in Charge Stacy Cox’s take. During the Beer City Festival in May, eleven breweries were cited when employees were caught sipping on the job. Randomly, ALE agents were not assigned to canvas the Beer City Festival last year. In a July tragicomedy, Oskar Blues had to issue refunds for almost 2,000 tickets to the

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Burning Can festival. The day of the festival, ALE agents took issue with a permitting detail. By turning the festival into a free party at the last minute, the agents’ concerns were assuaged. To avoid needlessly embarrassing or expensive situations, Cox asks that anybody starting up a company or planning an event that will serve beer to contact the agency to ensure compliance with all permitting rules.

They Tapped the Future in Atlanta buncombe county

Mother Earth Produce has taken an alternative tack on raising capital.

They joined contestants in the roving Miller Lite Tap the Future Live Pitch Tour regional in Atlanta. Tap the Future is stopping in big cities and giving entrepreneurs a chance to pitch their businesses before a live audience and a panel of celebrity judges, most notable of whom is Daymond John of ABC’s Shark Tank. Based on its written business plan, company stats, and mission statement, Mother Earth was first selected as one of thirty semifinalists from a pool of 1000 applicants. When they appeared

carolina in the west

on-stage at the Opera Nightclub in Atlanta, they walked away the winner of $20,000 and a chance to compete for $200,000 in the final round, to be held in Chicago in September. Mother Earth Produce provides farm-to-door, as opposed to farm-to-table. That is, the Weaverville-based business delivers organic produce from local famers to the doorsteps of families as far east as Black Mountain, as far West as Candler, and as far South as Greenville and Spartanburg. Weekly routes are streamlined, guaranteeing delivery on the same day each week at about the same time.

Customers may order standard baskets or customize. Items delivered include fruits and vegetables, meat, bread, dairy products, vegetarian meat substitutes, coffee, and more.

Recycling News buncombe county

American Recycling of Western North Carolina, located in Candler, is now equipped to process Nos. 1-7 plastic recyclables. Plastics currently comprise 20-30 percent of the company’s business, but it is hoped the change will raise that share to 50 percent, or 30 million pounds, by the end of the year. American Recycling

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collects recyclables by the bale through brokers and recycling facilities feeding into the I-95 corridor. The Candler plant has been operating since 2012. Mixed plastics are screened, presorted, and then sorted. Wellman, Custom Polymers, and ClearPath are among purchasers of American Recyling’s recovered polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Envision, KSW Plastics, and Greenline Polymers are among buyers of its high-density polyethylene (HDPE). PET is commonly used in soft drink bottles; HDPE is used to make milk jugs and plastic bags.

Materials that remain mixed after a reasonable sort are sent to Atlanta for further processing. For the record, there are only seven recycling numbers, No. 7 representing “other.” PET is No. 1 and HDPE is No. 2. Nos. 3 and 6 are seldom picked up by curbside recyclers. No. 3 is vinyl, but it can be recycled for things like paneling and speed bumps. No. 6 is Styrofoam, and it may be recycled for packing materials or insulation.

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Shining Rock Classical Academy was going to be the first charter school in Haywood County. Following state authorization, a handful of parents volunteered their time to make the school a go within a two-year time frame. They at first thought they could lease a parcel in Waynesville and haul in modular classrooms. The plan fell through after delays in site prep and a failure of the parents and the landowners to agree on a price.

Two months before the first day of school, the charter school board met in closed session and emerged to vote on setting up the school in a temporary location on an unnamed parcel. It turned out to be a building on a 35-acre tract on Raccoon Road at the Lake Junaluska Assembly, but the damage was already done. Since the charter school will be receiving public funds to purchase the land, general

statutes required the public to have had a chance to weigh in, and this was not provided. Tara Keilberg, chairman of the board, argued confidentiality was kept to reduce the risk of counter offers. Lawyers interviewed by the press indicated the move opened the board to legal challenge, which could, after delays, force a reversal of any purchase agreement while adding legal fees as penalties. The board is still looking for a permanent location.

Hire Away henderson county

Two Henderson County manufacturers, Wilsonart and Continental Teves, had so much demand for new employees, Friday Staffing hosted a job fair at their South Asheville office. Friday had 58 full-time positions to fill. Pay ranged from $10-12/hour. Continental offered 12-hour shifts, and Wilsonart employees would work 10-hour rotating swing shifts with 15 days off a month. Positions were open for experienced assembly line workers, platers, machine operators, material handlers, forklift operators, shipping and receiving, and personnel.

Friday invited potential employees to show up and fill out an application on-site using one of their computers.

Interviews with Friday agents and representatives from the two manufacturers would follow within minutes. Pending a successful drug screen, applicants were told they could be hired on the spot.

Wilsonart is a global manufacturer of laminates and other composites used largely in interior furniture. Continental is a global manufacturer of automotive supplies, most notably brake systems.

A Festival that Helps Local Business macon county

Linda McKay and 24 other downtown merchants decided if they wanted

Solutions Without Limits something done, they’d better do it themselves. During the Taste of Scotland Festival, McKay, who owns NC Mountain Made in downtown Franklin, realized just how much local festivals helped out her business. The canceling of the Airing of the Quilts festival, held Mother’s Day weekend, cost her business $2,000. She didn’t want to see how much damage the cancellation of the Franklin Folk Festival was going to bring. The twelfth annual festival got the axe this year with the intention of bringing it back next year. It had been managed by the Folk Heritage Association of Macon County and Franklin’s Main Street program.

After the festival became too large for volunteers to handle, the two groups assumed responsibility for grant writing, bookkeeping, insurance, and road closures. But the Main Street program went inactive this year. The merchants, therefore, decided to make their own festival. In three short weeks they pulled together a festival, with no outside funding. The town only helped by designating public spaces and allowing the display of advertising banners. Businesses like Ruby City Gems traditionally lost money from the road closures, so owner Kevin Klatt is happy to see a festival for established local businesses instead of outside vendors. Outdoor 76 sees no change in business with or without festivals, but they joined in to be good neighbors.

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Blue Ridge Parkway in Transylvania County, photo by Tracy Turpen & Transylvania Tourism September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 37

leisure & libation

“Autumn...the year’s last, loveliest smile,” author William Cullen Bryant once wrote. Keeping that in mind, Western North Carolina finds itself the beneficiary of that smile every September and October.

Fall in the mountains is spectacular. A peek out of any window provides a kaleidoscope of color. Splashes of vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges announce the arrival of the autumn season and cooler temperatures in the area.

It is the perfect time of the year to wander the roads and highways of the mountains in search of the beauty of fall. Grab a camera, pack a picnic, and head out on some of the following great adventures:

Blue Ridge Parkway The Blue Ridge Parkway is a jewel in the mountains that offers prime leaf looking opportunities. The Parkway’s website features a “Fall Color” section that includes helpful information and links to fall leaf forecast reports.

With the changing elevations and north-south orientation, drivers on the Parkway in mid to late October will likely catch at least some sections at or very near their peak color. www.blueridgeparkway.org

Asheville The Asheville Convention and Visitor’s Bureau website has an abundance of information on scenic drives, as well as a weekly fall forecast and color report and a time lapse video of the progression of fall color. With the range in elevations in the area, Asheville has a long foliage season, and this site breaks out the season into segments of early, mid, and late fall. www.exploreasheville.com/science-behind-fall-color

Kimberly Avenue/North Asheville Located just north of downtown Asheville, Kimberly Avenue will be canopied by the orange tint of sugar maples. A drive offers views of the historic Grove Park Inn perched on the hill above the street. From downtown Asheville, take the Charlotte Street exit off I-240 and proceed north on Charlotte. Turn left onto Edwin Place and follow through the light as it turns into Kimberly Avenue. Follow Kimberly to Beaverdam Road. Turn right and drive through the scenic Beaverdam Valley before circling back to Asheville.

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Photos courtesy of ExploreAsheville.com

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Reems Creek Valley Follow US Highway 19/23 north to the New Stock Road exit.

Turn right at the light and left at the next light, onto US 25.

Follow this highway less than one mile to Reems Creek Road and turn right. Drive five miles to Zebulon B. Vance Birthplace State Historic Site, site of a working 1830s-era farm once owned by North Carolina’s Civil War governor, Zebulon Vance.

From Vance Birthplace, turn left and travel half a mile to Ox Creek Road, winding through the picturesque community to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Turn south on the Parkway. You may want to shop for mountain handicrafts at the Folk Art Center and drive a little further south to the North Carolina Arboretum before returning to Asheville.

North Carolina Arboretum Surrounded by the Pisgah National Forest, the North Carolina Arboretum is nestled amidst one of the most beautiful natural settings in the United States and is a great place to see Mother Nature’s fall color finale. The Arboretum is located south of Asheville on the Blue Ridge Parkway at Milepost 393, or take I-26, Exit 33 (formerly Exit 2) and proceed two miles south on Highway 191/Brevard Road. www.exploreashevillle.com

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photo by Blowing Rock Tourism Development Authority

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photo courtesy of ExploreAsheville.com

Black Mountain Exit 64 off of Interstate 40 will lead you to Black Mountain.

Follow the signs to Lake Tomahawk, a 4.5 acre lake surrounded by a .55 mile walking path. It offers views of the Seven Sisters mountain range. Or head to close-by Montreat, the home of Lake Susan, for additional fall color. Finally, take NC Highway 9 for a relaxing drive from Black Mountain to Lake Lure. www.exploreblackmountain.com

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photo by Blowing Rock Tourism Development Authority

photo by Blowing Rock Tourism Development Authority

Blowing Rock The Blowing Rock The attraction for which the town is named, The Blowing Rock, offers sweeping views of the Pisgah National Forest and nearby ridges and peaks like Grandfather Mountain. The Blowing Rock is located at 432 Rock Road. From Valley Boulevard/Hwy 321 in Blowing Rock, turn onto Rock Road, across from the historic Green Park Inn.

Bass Lake/Moses Cone Memorial Park Moses Cone Memorial Park is a large historic area on the Blue Ridge Parkway with 26 miles of carriage trails. The trails are well maintained and provide a large network to enjoy fall color.

In particular, the Bass Lake Loop is a popular spot for the serene views of the lake and the Cone Mansion. The estate house and main parking area is accessible via the Blue Ridge Parkway at Milepost 294. To access Bass Lake: from Main Street Blowing Rock, turn down Hwy 221 and travel for a half mile to the Bass Lake Parking area on the right.

Price Lake A large, calm lake on the Blue Ridge Parkway, Price Lake often reflects the colors of the trees surrounding it, creating a beautiful scene with Grandfather Mountain in the background. The trail around the lake is a great leg-stretcher, too! Price Lake is located at Milepost 296. From Blowing Rock, access the Blue Ridge Parkway off 221, one mile from Main Street. Turn to go South on the Blue Ridge Parkway and travel two miles. The lake will be on the left.

Tanawha Trail at Rough Ridge Overlook The Tanawha Trail is a long and varied trail off the Blue Ridge Parkway. A popular access point is at Rough Ridge Overlook, Milepost 302.8. This access point offers a spectacular view after about a 10 minute hike. From Blowing Rock, access the Blue Ridge Parkway off 221, one mile from Main Street. Turn to go south on the Blue Ridge Parkway and travel eight miles.

The overlook and parking area will be on the right with a sign that reads “Rough Ridge Overlook.” www.blowingrock.com

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The Dragon US Hwy 129, named the #3 best road in America to ride

by The American Motorcyclist Association (2011). The area is world-famous among motorcyclists and sports car drivers, for its 11-mile section with 318 continuous curves. To reach this area from Bryson City, drive West on US 19/74, then follow NC 28N to the Deal’s Gap, intersection with US 129, which is the start of The Dragon.

Nantahala River Gorge Driving west from Bryson City on US 19/74 takes you through the Nantahala Gorge, home to premier whitewater rafting and kayaking. This is a beautiful drive right next to the water with plenty of pull-offs and picnic spots. There are a number of whitewater rafting and kayak outfitters, three ziplines, and several restaurants in the gorge.

The Cherohala Skyway The spectacular 51-mile skyway connects Hwy.143 in Robbinsville to Hwy.165 in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, traveling through the Cherokee and Nantahala National Forests. The name comes from a combination of these two forests.

Soco Falls photo by Mary Anne Baker

Bryson City/Swain County There are many trails along the shores of Fontana Lake, land owned by either the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) or the U.S. Forest Service. The 42-mile, multi-use trail system at Tsali Recreation Area is famous among mountain bikers, and is consistently rated one of the top 10 riding destinations in the United States.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park Newfound Gap Road (which is US 441 between Cherokee and Gatlinburg) and the road to Clingmans Dome (which is a spur off Newfound) are peak places for color. www.greatsmokies.com

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Blue Ridge Parkway near Cherokee, photo by J.R. VanLienden

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Haywood County Richland Balsam This is the highest peak on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which Haywood County shares with Jackson County. Richland is a great hike. It doesn’t boast long range views at the top, but the parking area does have some incredible views, making it a great spot to stop and view fall colors.

Waterrock Knob Found at Milepost 451.2 on the Blue Ridge Parkways is great spot for fall viewing. The Maggie Valley entrance to the parkway is the closest access point. Its unique location winds you up to the viewing area above the actual parkway at almost 6,000 feet. The area offers incredible long range views on two sides of the parkways, giving you miles and miles of unobstructed fall views. There is a visitor center and picnic areas here, too, making it the perfect spot to stop for a scenic picnic. There is also a short hike to the summit, which offers even more breathtaking views.

“The Road to Nowhere” photo courtesy of the Bryson City/Swain County NC Chamber of Commerce.

Devils Courthouse (MP 422) & Graveyard Fields (MP 418) They can be accessed by taking the Blue Ridge Parkway south from Asheville; closest access point is the Parkway entrance via Hwy 276.

Cataloochee Valley The remote valley has several hiking trails and historic sites that become even more exquisite in the fall. But the best part is the chance to catch the bugling of the elk. During fall breeding season, also known as “rut,” male bull elks perform their legendary “bugle” calls to attract female cows and other bulls. The most direct route into the valley is to take Cove Creek Road. To get to the valley from interstate I-40, exit at North Carolina exit #20 and travel 0.2 miles on route 276. Turn right onto Cove Creek Road and follow the signs 11 miles into the Cataloochee Valley. www.visitncsmokies.com

McDowell County Point Lookout Trail, Old Fort This 3.62 mile non-motorized trail is a scenic section of Old U.S. Route 70, between Old Fort and Ridgecrest. Popular with hikers and bicycle enthusiasts, the trail opens to spectacular views of the Royal Gorge. Trailhead Parking: From Asheville - I-40 East to Exit 73/Old Fort, north onto Catawba Avenue to stoplight intersecting Main Street/US Hwy. 70. Turn left, traveling west turning right onto Old Hwy. 70. Drive approximately 2.4 miles to Mill Creek Road. Old Fort picnic area is on the left, with parking available May through 44

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Trans Triple Falls - DuPont Forest, photo by Tracy Turpen & Transylvania Tourism

L October. Walk/ride to end of US Hwy. 70; trailhead and U.S. Forest Service gated entrance is at road end. From Hickory - I-40 West to Exit 73/Old Fort. Follow directions above. Alternate parking is available at Kitsuma Peak, located at the top of Old Fort Mountain at I-40 Exit 66/Ridgecrest. Follow Royal Gorge Road to dead end and parking area. Kitsuma Peak Trail is an unpaved route for mountain bikers and hikers. It ends at Old Fort picnic area.

Linville Gorge and Linville Falls Explore these trails, located directly off the Blue Ridge Parkway at Milepost 316.3. The visitor center will provide maps and answer your questions. Stunning views surround the hiking trails and waterfall overlooks.

McDowell Quilt Trail Fall leaf lookers will enjoy following this impressive trail of storytelling quilt blocks, meandering through the back roads of McDowell County. Discover the names and histories of more than 150 unique blocks by visiting their website. Maps and books describing the trail and block locations are also available at the McDowell Arts Council, 50 S. Main Street in downtown Marion. www.mcdowellquilttrail.org

Orchard at Altapass This nonprofit operates a historic apple orchard, first created to feed railroad workers. Today, it is open May through October with free, live music, cultural exhibits, demonstrations, hayrides, and more. Visitors may walk through the orchard trails and pick their own apples or grab a picnic table to enjoy lunch and a piece of Miss Charlotte’s fudge. Located at Milepost 328.3 on the Blue Ridge Parkway, between Linville Falls and Little Switzerland at Milepost 334. Read about Orchard events online or call them.

The Devil’s Staircase and Lake Tahoma Ride the Devil’s Staircase, also known as NC Hwy. 80, between Marion and Micaville. This winding road passes by beautiful Lake Tahoma, local trout farms, and artist studios. Take a break to access the Blue Ridge Parkway, just below Little Switzerland at Milepost 344.1. NC Hwy. 80 is a fall color gold mine as you wind this curvy road between U.S. Hwy. 70 and NC Hwy. 226.

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DiamondbackNC Cutting a path through the Pisgah National Forest, the DiamondbackNC (NC Hwy. 226-A), is 12 miles of sweeping curves and stunning scenery with s-curves and 360 degree switchbacks surrounded by fall foliage. Read about the DiamondbackNC online.

Directions: I-40/Exit 86/Marion/Hwy. 226 North. Follow NC Hwy. 226 North to intersection at NC Hwy. 226-A. Driving north to Little Switzerland, topping out at the ridge line opening to stellar mountain

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September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 45

Hwy 64 near Lake Lure photo by Ashley Thompson

leisure & libation

views, the road ends at NC Hwy. 226, just below Milepost 331 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. www.diamondbacknc.com

Lake James Loop A favorite with motorcycle and sports car enthusiasts, the Lake James Loop is a 2.75 hour, 89.7 mile loop around Lake James and the Blue Ridge Parkway. Begin the loop from the Blue Ridge Parkway at Little Switzerland/Milepost 331 or from the Linville Falls area at Milepost 317.4. Turn by turn directions are available online at www.blueridgemotorcycling. com/ride-maps/blue-ridge-parkway-lake-james-loop/.

Chimney Rock State Park

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To get there from Asheville, also follow I-240 E to US-74 ALT E into Chimney Rock (about 33 miles total).

Rutherford County

Lake Lure

The Lake Lure Dam To get there (from Asheville), follow I-240 E and US-74 ALT E for about 30 miles into Lake Lure and then turn left onto Buffalo Shoals Road, and follow that until you clearly see the dam.

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The lake, approximately 720 acres, with about 21 miles of shoreline, sits in the heart of Hickory Nut Gorge. www.rutherfordcoc.org

L Transylvania County Land of Waterfalls Loop Beginning in downtown Brevard, this route takes you into Pisgah National Forest where you can get sidetracked by any number of great attractions, from Looking Glass Falls to Sliding Rock to the Cradle of Forestry. Top out on the Blue Ridge Parkway and follow it south.

Numerous overlooks offer up stunning views of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the awesome rock monolith of Looking Glass Rock. Each of these overlooks is perfect for taking in the fall color.

Pounding Mill Overlook, in particular, offers panoramic views.

At Devil’s Courthouse, stretch your legs on a trail that summits on a granite aerie that makes you feel like you’re standing on the very edge of the world.

This spot rivals Pounding Mill Overlook

for panoramic awesomeness. Come off the Blue Ridge Parkway at US-215 for a winding trip back down into the valley. This stretch also offers abundant opportunities to discover why Transylvania County is known as the Land of Waterfalls, including Courthouse, Bird Rock, Mill Shoals, and French Broad Falls. Head east on US-64, and you’ll be back in town just in time for some al fresco dining in one of Brevard’s notable restaurants or breweries.

Directions: From dow ntow n Brevard, go south on US-64 for 3.4 miles. Turn left on US-276 and go north for 15 miles. Turn left onto the Blue Ridge Parkway and go 11 miles.

Turn left onto US-215 and go 17.3 miles. Turn left on US-64 and go 8.6 miles to downtown Brevard. www.visitwaterfalls.com 800-648-4523

Hooker Falls in Dupont State Forest photo by Tracy Turpen & Transylvania Tourism

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 47

Head Mazer J.D. “Ivar” Schloz

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Fairview’s

Mead Man written by shawndr a russell

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photos by anthony harden

F

or many, the concept of a traditional retirement of leisure is either unattainable or uninteresting—or both.

For head mazer Ivar Schloz of Bee & Bramble, our area’s newest meadery, he often vowed to retire by 50 from his work as a metallurgical engineer so he could escape cube farms. This specialized field tasked Schloz with optimizing aluminum processes and minimizing waste for companies that convert metals into everyday products, but when the economy took a nosedive, Schloz’s six-figure job went with it. Then, “The company I was contracting with got rid of my whole division, and I didn’t see any more consulting jobs coming up,” he explains, since he mostly worked with construction and leisure activity companies, which still haven’t fully recovered. As his self-declared retirement age of 50 loomed only a few years away, he turned down several job offers in other cities because he wanted his teenage daughter to be able to finish high school in Fairview, North Carolina.

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 49

Flextank fermenters used for their micro-oxygenation properties and ease

Labeling machine for accurate application of the two-piece labels

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Luckily for him, a few consulting gigs resulted in a windfall of money around that time totaling $60,000, but “I knew I’d burn through that in a year or two,” he says. After years of dabbling with home brewing and mead making, Schloz decided to finally listen to his friends’ insistence that he launch a mead business.

He credits his professional background as helping him get a leg up as a head mazer; “Even though I don’t use my knowledge of process engineering as much for aluminum work anymore, it translates very well in other procedures. Wine production is a complicated process as well, and the tools and techniques I learned in aluminum processing were highly instrumental in developing my mead-making methods.” He experimented with 30 different yeasts and boatloads of recipes until he landed on the perfect Dry Mead, Metheglin, Melomel, and Cyser products, the latter being a mixture of a hard apple cider and mead that isn’t widely produced in the United States.

Being a numbers guy, his goal was to create a self-sustaining business from the get-go. In fact, he has taken on zero debt to open the business and plans to grow organically and strategically so he never has to. “I needed to start making money right away for my family and not have to worry about paying other people back first,” he explains of his slow-and-steady business plan.

This controlled growth approach has already paid off; only six months after opening Bee & Bramble for business in November 2014, it already covers his overhead, carrying costs, and bills.

He joins about 225 other mead makers in the United States, but many of these also brew wine, beer, or liquor, with only about 150 producing only mead like Bee & Bramble. This relatively low number—in comparison to around 3,500 craft breweries and 8,500 wineries in America—is surprising when you consider that mead is deemed the oldest alcoholic beverage. However, 2014’s first annual Mead Industry Report declares: “The world’s most popular beverage throughout most of recorded history nearly died out after the Middle Ages but now counts as the smallest but fastest growing segment of the American alcohol beverage industry.” Seems like Schloz’s gamble was a good one as mead sales more than doubled from 2012 to 2013, with no sign of slowing down. Schloz says, “Microbreweries and microdistilleries seem to be topping out. Ciders and meads are getting a lot more attention. I predicted some of this, but was very pleasantly surprised at the timing—right as I was rolling out my product.” Some have speculated that mead is the ‘Next Big Thing’ for the craft industry, but Schloz emphasizes he and his fellow mazers have their work cut out for them, since misconceptions about mead being only a super sweet beverage prevail. Another factor he thinks might help meads rise in popularity is that it’s very clean and therefore may be less hangover-inducing than beer and wine for some people—at least for him personally and according to feedback he has heard from consumers thus far.

Part of Schloz’s no-debt game plan meant renovating a rundown building that already existed on his property in Fairview, which he designed himself. “I found a builder who was willing

6-spout manual bottle-filling machine

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com

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Ivar stands near his hives adjacent to the meadery

to let me do a lot of the work myself and even work alongside him, which saved me a lot of money,” he shares. He hired acquaintances as subcontractors whenever possible, including fellow musicians (Schloz plays the fiddle.) As an insurance policy should the meadery fail, Schloz converted the second floor of the barn-like structure into an apartment space. So, if necessary, he could rent out his modest house and live above the meadery operations. “I had to think on different levels because I didn’t want to be put in a tough situation again, and I want to be able to stay here.” Driving by his small plot of land, you’d never know a budding craft business resides on this curvy, residential Fairview street. His other passion, music, is well-represented in the barn’s apartment, with several fiddles hung with care next to bookshelves crammed with mead making books that facilitated Schloz’s self-taught brewing education. He also relied on a rapport he cultivated with former Montaluce winemaker Maria Peterson, who now works in California at Scott Laboratories, a provider of products and expertise for the beverage industry.

On the bottom floor, several polyethylene Flextank vessels line one wall, which is where his mead ferments and can be stored. His labeling and bottling stations sit across from these tanks next to boxes of mead piled high and ready for delivery to local wine shops. Each Flextank only costs about $1,500, and Schloz can easily scale his operation as demand grows 52

| September 2015

using his current inventory of equipment. When and if needed, buying a few more Flextank’s can up his production volume instantaneously. “One of the challenges with a business like this is sizing everything. How big of a fermenter can I manage?

It becomes a calculation. I can run a whole batch in a day’s work. I can bottle an entire batch in a day’s work. I can label it in a day’s work. If I want to add capacity, all I have to do is add another fermenter. I don’t have to really change anything or buy a bunch more equipment.” He currently does this 3-day cycle of work once about every twelve weeks, which equals about 400 cases per year. He hopes to reach full capacity in the next few years, which would produce 1,800 cases.

At first, he was suspicious of these plastic, egg-shaped tanks, but a winemaking buddy in California assured him that Flextanks were the way to go. “I did some research on my own, too, and they are really taking over the wine industry because people are seeing how valuable they are,” he says. Schloz’s perception about the tanks quickly shifted when he found out that a fellow engineer—this one of the aerospace kind—designed the tanks.

Their permeable casing allows for a small amount of oxygen to seep through, making the wine age and ferment simultaneously.

What really drove home their value for Schloz was comparing his mead from glass containers to those produced from the Flextanks. “I was afraid of an odd flavor with them,” he shares,

Keith Phillips created this ceramic piece, which served as the inspiration for the labels, also designed by Keith

“but it actually turned out better than what I was making in glass.” Not to mention the savings in comparison to stainless steel tanks, which run about $8,000 fully outfitted. Plus, they are extremely light when empty, relieving Schloz of the need for additional equipment to move them around—crucial since it took three tries before he got his workflow layout just right in the small space. A floor corker also sits wedged between his tanks, and he pays someone $15-20 an hour to cork bottles on bottling days. Bottling takes about five hours for him now, with Schloz “bottling so fast that my corker has trouble keeping up,” he says with a laugh.

Every other aspect of the mead making process he does almost entirely on his own, including delivering his products firsthand to his partner wine shops and restaurants, and he’s not in any hurry to change that. “Maybe in 3-5 years, I’ll be able to expand my operations, maybe buy a bigger plot of land,” he muses.

Although he says this in his unassuming way, there’s little room for doubt that Schloz will do just that. His laser focus, careful planning, numbers crunching, and dedication to his craft all point to a lot more mead being part of his so-called retirement.

A few yards from the meadery entrance sit four simple beehive boxes that give Schloz the capability to use his own honey—even if it’s just a fraction of the total amount he actually uses to complete a batch.

Being basically a one-man show suits Schloz, who loves getting to talk with his partners on delivery days and educate consumers at festivals. “I don’t get a charge out of seeing my name in print. I like to talk to people individually and just talk about my products.” Being a self-distributer helps in other ways, too. “As a licensed distributor and wholesaler, and direct shipper, I am able to avoid ‘entangling alliances’ that affect our bottom line. This is a big reason that our product is priced as competitively as it is.” His 750ml bottles currently run between $13.99 to $16.99 each, but he does anticipate increases in his prices over the next few years as honey prices are projected to escalate. One of Schloz’s favorite places to share his mead are music festivals, like the Appalachian String Band Music Festival in West Virginia that he was heading to immediately after our interview. He’s also received a lot of positive feedback at mead offs, hanging out at a recent event in Durham, North Carolina, with the president of the American Mead Makers Association,

✁ mead cocktail recipe

Schloz’s “Summer Sunday Buzz” Ingredients: 1 part blood orange soda 3 parts Bee And Bramble Blackberry Buzz 1 lime wedge (wipe the rim with lime first)

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com

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who complimented his dry mead making approach.

A few yards from the meadery entrance sit four simple beehive boxes that give Schloz the capability to use his own honey—even if it’s just a fraction of the total amount he actually uses to complete a batch. “I like being able to say that my honey is in every bottle,” he says with a grin. In the future he hopes to grow his honeybee operation enough to use it exclusively—or at least a higher percentage. For now, he gets his honey from high in the mountains because he prefers the taste and finds them to be more complex due to the higher density of brambles (hence the name) and more varied vegetation which all lead to greater complexity. Schloz relies on a variety of local honey makers in addition to local farmers, designers, and printers. However, he makes a clear distinction about quality over some pre-set number of maximum miles he’s willing to travel to get his ingredients. “I’m not artificially limiting a certain radius of where I’ll get products from. If there is a blueberry farm next door, I’ll go there first and try their product. But if there’s another one 20 miles away, I’ll try theirs too, and the best tasting one that can also supply what I need wins.”

Self-described as “obsessively locavore,” Bee & Bramble also dedicates itself to differentiating from the super sweet meads that most people associate with honey wines. Schloz’s creations are drier, with the intent of being an adult beverage that people can enjoy multiple glasses of at a time. “I want a product where people can finish the bottle and say, ‘I want another bottle of that!’ The sweet meads, ports, and sherries don’t appeal to me as a business model.” This approach he hopes will also translate into his meads being something that people turn to regularly instead of sporadically—“My style is meant to be drank more often than just at Renaissance fairs or holidays.” To aide his cause, Schloz’s next focus will be on reaching out to bars and restaurants about mead cocktail recipes he’s

been working on. Currently, Ben’s Tune-Up has Bee & Bramble mead on tap, and Schloz promises, “You’ll be seeing a lot more mead cocktails in the near future around here.” Even Bee & Bramble’s logo and design were created by an UNC Asheville design professor, whom Schloz first discovered through a glazed pottery cup he purchased featuring a small printed bee years before he even thought about launching his mead business.

Schloz’s obsession with high quality presents itself in his chosen mead process, also. “I ferment all the way to dry. Most meaderies will run a lot of residual sugars, so their mead is sweet, but when you do that, you have to kill all the yeast off,” he explains, “and you have to put a different kind of fining agent in, and you have to run it through a filter, so you’re stripping out anything that might add to the character of the wine. What you end up with is something that you might have to add a sugar back in to give it a little more flavor.” In his opinion, only a few of the larger meaderies and

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cideries are striking the right balance: Starrlight Meadery in Pittsboro, North Carolina; Moonlight Meadery in Londonderry, New Hampshire; Noble Cider in Asheville; and Foggy Ridge Cider in Dugspur, Virginia. He aims to create more complex meads like these established businesses and avoid what he refers to as one-dimensional honey wines that lack aroma and depth. “There are a lot of horror stories about making sweet meads because they have to add all these extra steps and ingredients in, upping their chances of failure or issues,” he explains.

Although it may seem like Schloz had a slightly charmed path, it has been anything but to get to where Bee & Bramble is today. “I had my power shut off a few times because the companies I did the windfall jobs for stiffed me for six months, but I’d already started building the meadery and was pouring all my money into it,” he says with a touch of pride now that

he’s on the other side. “It was a real nightmare.” Panic set in each time, but Schloz took everything in stride and kept moving forward steadily. In addition to the 24 inspections it took to get his facility built, a 9-month back-and-forth with the federal government for label approval slowed things down, too, along with the multiple permits required. However, he does praise the North Carolina Alcohol Beverage Control Com m ission a s being very helpful from the perspective of a wine maker.

“I can do things that I didn’t think I could do until I talked to the state. They gave me permits I didn’t even know I could get, like self-distribute and sell at events. It helps that they are trying to grow the wine industry in North Carolina, and anytime I have a question, they’ve been Johnny-on-the-spot.”

Another hurdle in Schloz’s path is his dislike of marketing—“I hate that stuff. I figure, and this is probably a naive position, that

He explains, “If demand outstrips supply, we will look at pricing as the solution, rather than increased volume. We want to be the best, not the biggest.”

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the product should sell itself. I take a more organic approach to business development and like to float with the current rather than fight it, allowing the market to pull my product along versus me pushing it.” Yet, he’s all about building relationships as evident by his shelf space at Appalachian Vinter and Divine Wine and Beer, not to mention his latest retail partner, Whole Foods, who will stock him locally and move out from there.

He’s also now stocking at Earth Fare’s Westgate location and Greenlife too. “These agreements took me calling over and over to the point of feeling like I was bugging them” he explains, “but they told me to keep in contact because they’re so busy, so I did, and it paid off.”

While he’s undoubtedly excited about the local interest in mead, he notes that retailers should always use wine margins instead of beer margins as he encountered at one store. But as with any obstacle he has encountered along this journey, Schloz shrugs off the problem. “I’ve figured out how I can make enough money to support myself. I won’t be rich from this, but as long as I can work locally and continue to put out what are personally my favorite meads, then I’ll be happy,” he says.

So if riches aren’t his end game, what is? Schloz’s calculating engineering brain doesn’t like to get too far ahead of itself, but

he does share his dream to get the product in more peoples’ hands and perhaps adding a taproom if he’s able to open up a bigger production facility down the road. He explains, “If demand outstrips supply, we will look at pricing as the solution, rather than increased volume. We want to be the best, not the biggest.” He might even take a stab at microdistilling whiskey five or ten years down the road. “We’ll see if the numbers work out,” he says with a knowing grin.

While no business comes with a guarantee, Schloz’s methodical, debt-free, no-investors-ever attitude hints that he’ll have a happy semi-retirement making his wines by hand for years to come. If you’d like to give Bee & Bramble meads a try, order it online, try some at an event, or pick a bottle up at several local retailers, and look for mead cocktails like the one on page 53 at Asheville bars in the near future.

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More Than Pumpkin Different Seasonal Beer Selections for Fall

J

jeremiah tr acy

is a Certified Cicerone (R), and is the Head of Beer Education and Quality Control for the Thirsty Monk Pub & Brewery.

58

A

S YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED, OR IF YOU HAVEN’T yet you soon will, fall seasonals are popping up on tap lists and store shelves at an ever increasing rate. The brewing industry’s push for everything fall has begun, and with good reason.

Fall beer styles, especially the beloved pumpkinspiced ales, are overwhelmingly popular and highly lucrative for the industry’s booming breweries.

Unfortunately for many of the well seasoned and adventurous craft beer-loving crowd, this can also become a very monotonous seasonal beer overload.

As the temperature drops, the leaves change, and the physical season catches up with the fiscal, let me encourage you to seek out some of the other fantastic brews that the autumnal harvest has to offer.

Pumpkins ripen as the warm, sunny days transition into cooler nights, making them a readily available source of fermentable sugar. This makes them a prime choice to toss into the boil kettle with some common baking spices to create the quintessential harvest ale. The fleshy gourds aren’t the only plants giving up the ghost and with it their prized fruits.

Fall is also hop harvesting season and many craft breweries are seizing the opportunity to make some truly special wet-hopped ales. Wet-hopped refers to the use of freshly harvested, whole-cone hops, for the majority or entirety of a beer’s hop bill, rather than the kiln-dried, pelletized hops more commonly used. Hops degrade extremely

| September 2015

quickly, losing precious essential oils and volatile aromatic compounds (those delicious hop flavors and aromas) with each passing hour. Kiln-drying preserves the hops and dramatically improves their shelf life, but many of the most delicate chemical compounds in the hops are destroyed in the process.

Wet-hopping offers craft consumers a unique chance to taste and smell the full bouquet a hop varietal has to offer. Ironically though, the relative bittering power of wet hops is substantially lower than the dried, compressed counterparts. This provides a more subtle, and arguably more drinkable, hop profile. Using fresh hops is an extremely costly, labor intensive, and delicate process. In order to get the hops from the field to the boil kettle as quickly as possible, breweries must procure overnight refrigerated transport and adjust their hectic brewing schedules to accommodate the incoming harvest. The majority of wet-hopped ales tend to be hop-focused and moderate to aggressively bitter beer styles, such as American pale ales and IPAs. Since up to as much as 10 times the amount of wet hops are needed to provide the same bittering effects as dried hops, the amount of hops required to reach

J

the requisite IBU (International Bitterness Unit) is dramatically increased. Brewers must be sure that they contract with the hop growers to purchase the literal tons of hops needed to produce substantial quantities of their wet-hopped beers.

Sierra Nevada is credited with pioneering this process with their Wet Hop Harvest Ale in 1996. Today, Sierra Nevada offers a range of wet-hopped ales spanning hemispheres and seasons, but the original, now known as Northern Hemisphere Harvest ale, is still delicious. This IPA provides a wealth of citrusy, floral, grassy hop flavors and aromas set against the background of an amber malt backbone. My first wet-hopped beer experience was with a highly quaffable offering from another well known craft icon. Founders Brewing’s (Grand Rapids, Michigan) Harvest Ale was the beer that turned me on to the style and is still a release for which I wait anxiously each fall. Freshly harvested American hops give a huge, juicy, citrus nose and pleasantly similar palate with just the right amount of bitterness for my personal preference. The lighter body of this orange-hued beauty provide a crisp balance that let the hops really shine. Troegs Brewing (Hershey, Pennsylvania) hasn’t been in our market for nearly as long as the aforementioned craft giants, but they have been producing beer since 1997, and their Hop-Knife Harvest

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AS THE TEMPER ATURE DROPS, THE LEAVES CHANGE, AND THE PHYSICAL SEASON CATCHES UP WITH THE FISCAL, LET ME ENCOUR AGE YOU TO SEEK OUT SOME OF THE OTHER FANTASTIC BREWS THAT THE AUTUMNAL HARVEST HAS TO OFFER. ale is a serious contender in the wet-hopped game. The use of fresh hops and their own HopCyclone process (mixing hops with the beer throughout fermentation) creates a delicious IPA that lands squarely between the bright, crisp Founder’s Harvest ale and the more resinous, pungent Sierra Nevada Northern Hemisphere Harvest ale. While these deliciously resinous ales are complex enough to stand on their own, they also pair well with hearty, spicy dishes. One of my favorite dishes to pair with IPAs and other bright, clean, hoppy ales is chile colorado.

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sweet potatoes, chilis, figs, persimmons, and pomegranates in a red sauce, comprised largely of ripe, red chili peppers, this are just a few of the fall favorites that get incorporated into dish is perfectly complimented and intensified by beers such libations across the country and around the world. In addition, as wet-hopped styles. The burst of hop flavor and bitterness many of these require farmsets off a chain reaction from to-table methodology to get the peppers’ heat and brings the ripest, freshest ingredients out the crispness of the radish, into boil kettles and fermenters cilantro, and lime that usually PAW PAWS ARE A FLESHY FRUIT to produce incredibly complex reside alongside the fiery steak.

THAT GROWS ON CLUSTERED and unique brews. One of my The alcohol and carbonation TREES, REFERRED TO AS favorite breweries, The Bruery scrub the palate of the fattiness A PAW PAW PATCH. THEIR (Placentia, California), makes of the beef between bites and an awesome riff on the typical the toasty malt underneath FLAVOR IS SWEET AND TANGY, fall seasonal. Their Autumn helps sooth the heat ever so WITH HINTS OF BANANA, Maple ale substitutes yams slightly.

MANGO, AND CANTALOUPE. in place of the usual Jack-oFall is the prime ripening lanterns and ramps up the season for a host of other complexity of the obligatory tasty fruits of the fields and baking spice regiment with additions of molasses and maple forests, and being the intrepid sort that they are, craft brewers syrup. The resulting ale is a massive 10% ABV behemoth have found creative, delicious ways to incorporate these late dripping with sweet, fall flavors and an earthiness that hides bloomers. The list of plants whose fruit ripens in the fall varies its alcohol content so well it could be dangerous. It would be regionally, allowing for unique seasonal beers that can only be produced in certain geographic areas. Quince, pears, apples, tempting to go the easy route and suggest pairing this ale with

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J a holiday-style feast, but where it really shines is breakfast. I eat breakfast any time of day and I prefer a nice stack of pancakes or a waffle, fried eggs, and, if I’m being honest, thick cut bacon and spiced, country-style sausage. Autumn Maple’s molasses, maple, and spices blend seamlessly with the breakfast breads and their sticky counterpart. The rich, full mouth feeling compliments the smooth texture of runny yolks and the richness of fatty pork.

The sweetness of the beer is cut by the spiciness from the pork, enhanced by the cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice in the brew.

North Carolina’s very own Fullsteam Brewery (Durham, North Carolina) uses a local fruit known as paw-paws to create a truly regionally unique fall seasonal. If you’re wondering what a paw-paw is, you are likely “not from around these parts.” Paw paws are a fleshy fruit that grows on clustered trees, referred to as a paw paw patch. Their flavor is sweet and tangy, with hints of banana, mango, and cantaloupe. The fruits rot and bruise easily upon ripening and must be used or frozen within 2-3 days of harvest. Fullsteam used 300 pounds of foraged fruit to create a Belgian-style golden ale that was accentuated by the paw paw’s unique flavor. Fullsteam epitomizes the farmto-table philosophy in their Forager series of beers, referring to it as “plow-to-pint” while taking it a step further with the

use of locally foraged foods. If possible, try a beer as unique as this one with its actual fruit ingredient in the raw for the full experience. Dogfish Head (Milton, Delaware) is well known for producing eccentric, creative ales, and their Piercing Pils is no exception. While categorized as a winter seasonal, its December 1st release date technically lands it in late fall. This Czech pilsner is infused with pear tea and pear juice to create the perfect balance of sweet, bitter, fruity, and tart. This lighter, crisper cold weather offering is a welcome break from the darker, heavier beers more commonly seen throughout fall and winter.

Try pairing this golden beauty with a warm bowl of mussels in a traditional white wine sauce. The sweetness of the pear and the softness of the bready pilsner malt accentuate the succulent mussels. The carbonation and tartness provide contrast and a palate cleansing effect against the background of the creamy sauce in which the mussels are bathed. With such a great variety of fall seasonals that stray from the status quo there is no excuse not to break away from the norm and enjoy a beer that celebrates the diversity of harvest time.

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THE OLD

NORTH

STATE [

and banking industries. As for the green angle, Securis refurbishes old equipment when possible, and otherwise sells parts for scrap.

current edition has 53 chapters with more than 1,200 pages. Moving with the times, this edition has new material on pertinent advances in materials science and emissions control technologies. Focus is placed on cleaner technologies, with coverage of topics like solar steam generation, converting waste to energy, and something called “advanced ultra-supercritical boilers.” In addition to text, the book contains charts and tables, short versions of codes and standards, and a healthy index. A CD version of the book will be provided with every book sold, and for the first time ever, the book will be sold in PDF format.

Pick up Steam

Station Not Stationary

news briefs

Like a Broken Record greensboro, north carolina

Stephen Cox, who owns Harley-Davidson dealerships in North and South Carolina and Pennsylvania, has opened a Securis franchise in the Triad. According to Cox, Securis is in the business of destroying or recycling “anything with a screen and a cord.” In addition to wiping, or degaussing, electronic memories, Securis offers media shredding, a process corporate headquarters describes as “grinding old hard drives into tiny scraps.” Securis’ methods meet or exceed all government regulations, including those of the Department of Defense; even the NSA has given its approval. Securis stays up-to-date with codes for media destruction, which are described as complex and ever-changing.

Decommissioning of memory-containing devices is now regulated in the healthcare

]

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Babcock & Wilcox, better known as B&W, has announced the release of the 42nd edition of Steam: Its Generation and Use. Headquartered in Charlotte, B&W employs 6000 with power generation projects in over a dozen locations.

Activities include research and development, design, engineering, construction, and management for fossil fuel and nuclear power plants in over 90 countries.

Steam, a textbook for engineers, has been continually published since 1875. The

Apex Town Council wants to buy the four lots comprising CSX’s downtown train station. The station is located behind the chamber of commerce, but the councilors want to move it out-county. Apex was founded in 1873 as a railroad town.

Councilman Scott Lassiter explained trains are a very important part of the economy, but they don’t fit in downtown anymore. Citizen Joe Howard launched a petition drive against the trains. 500 signatures were collected in two weeks,

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residents and merchants complaining about soot, noise, traffic delays, and even cracks in buildings allegedly produced by the rumblings of trains. The four lots, totaling 2.4 acres, would probably sell for $10 million. Town councilors would expect help with the purchase from the state and federal governments. The City of Greenville bought out its train station in 2013. Costing $9.7 million, CSX picked up about a quarter of the tab, and North Carolina and the federal government paid the remainder.

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Joe Murray, president of DeSales Trading Company, Incorporated, has launched a new company just for the fun of it. He and his wife, Tish, now sell camouflage sport jackets as DeCamo, LLC. The handsome suit coats in a woodsy design feature mesh lining and a special pocket for concealed carry. Murray said people treat him like a rock star whenever he wears the jacket, hounding him and wanting to know where he got it. It’s so eclectic that it can be worn for almost any occasion. The yarn for the jackets is provided by Unifi, Incorporated in Greensboro, and the weaving is handled

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by Copland Industries in Burlington. The cloth is sent to Tennessee for printing, to Georgia for cut-and-sew, and then back to DeSales in Burlington for distribution.

To date, about half of the 500 jackets made in the first batch have sold. The going rate is $450, but about a dozen have been donated to charity. Murray has no business plan. He just wants to have fun.

He sells online and out of his truck and indicates growing the business would be somebody else’s responsibility.

There’s a Warm Wind Blowing the Cloud Around perquimans and pasquotank counties , north carolina

Amazon.com has caved to pressure from customers, not the least of which are Netflix and AWS, to be more like the competition when it comes to environmental responsibility. Apple powers 100 percent of its data centers with renewable sources; Google, 35 percent. Amazon has set the goal to power 40 percent of its data centers’ needs with renewables by December 16. To accomplish this, it has agreed with Iberdrola SA, of Bilbao, Spain, to build a 104-turbine, 208-megawatt wind farm on

the old north state

24,000 acres in two counties on the North Carolina coast. In more tangible terms, the facility would generate the equivalent of the power needs of 61,000 average American homes. Dubbed Amazon Wind Farm US East, North Carolina’s first largescale wind farm is slated to go online at the end of the year. It will serve as a power plant for Amazon’s data centers in Ohio and Virginia. It seems ridiculously inefficient to run powerlines across the Appalachians, but the plant couldn’t be built in Ohio due to limitations imposed by state setback laws. It wasn’t deemed economically feasible for the plant to sell power to North Carolinians because state law allows independent generators to sell output only to utility companies.

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product after correlating 20mg doses with worsened cognition. vTv’s executive chairman, Jeffrey Kindler, was president and CEO of Pfizer when the drug was being tested. The drug has been shown to bind to receptors in the brain that might otherwise attract proteins that cause tissue to tangle. In doing so, it would slow the buildup of proteins that cause vascular dysfunction and chronic inflammation. Funds raised will pay for an eighteen-month, placebo-controlled test of 800 patients in the United States and Canada. Results should be published by 2017. The trial goes by the acronym STEADFAST, which stands for Single Trial Evaluating Alzheimer’s Disease Following Addition to Symptomatic Therapy.

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Dole Food Company is sponsoring banana and pineapple Ph.D. programs at North Carolina State University.

Other partners include the NC Research Campus (NCRC), the University of Costa Rica, the National Center for Science and Food Technology, the University of Costa Rica Agricultural Research Center, EARTH University, and the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency. Nominations of candidates for the banana program began in August, but pineapple candidates will have to wait until next year. The successful candidates will work on developing varieties with more nutritional value for humans, as well as fruits more resistant to drought and disease. They will also assume leadership positions in the NCRC’s Plant Pathways Elucidation Project, an internship already studying blueberries, broccoli, oats, and strawberries. The Ph.D. programs represent the first step in following through with an agreement forged in 2015 between Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis and David H. Murdock, who is the founder of the NCRC and CEO and owner of Castle & Cooke and Dole Food Company.

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Yoga pants are ubiquitous. Soccer moms, businesswomen – everyone – is wearing them for every occasion. For a year, Levi’s has been trying to make jeans more like them. So is it any wonder Acme-McCrary isn’t hopping on the bandwagon? Acme-McCrary has been in the textile business for over a hundred years.

Its main product has been pantyhose, but demand for hosiery has been declining since 1990, and the downward trajectory is expected to continue for about five more years. So, in order to remain relevant, Acme-McCrary is going seamless.

It is easy enough to adapt the hosiery equipment to make yoga pants and tank tops. The transition has already begun and is credited with saving 300 Asheboro jobs. It is expected that by 2010, 40 percent of Acme-McCrary’s operations will be dedicated to seamless apparel. The company has other divisions that do cutand-sew. Donnie White, the $100-million corporation’s new president, wants to make Acme-McCrary a one-stop supplier for customers like Walmart, JC Penney, Kohl’s, and Spanx.

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Developer Greg Rudolph of RTG Holdings and longtime partner Robert Gunn of Gunn Financial kicked off presales for 1 Brevard. The light-and-glass high rise will be uptown Charlotte’s first condo tower built since the recession. Rudolph is optimistic about sales, noting pent-up demand manifested as a 370-condo project in Austin, Texas, recently presold 90 percent of its units in one week. 1 Brevard will feature 174 residential units on twenty-two floors.

They will range from 687 to 3,197 square-feet and go for $400,000-$1.8 million. Amenities will include decks equipped with a pool, a lawn for a large

movie screen, a lounge, a fitness facility, three private dining facilities, an outdoor kitchen, an indoor dog park, and a rooftop observatory. Seven levels of parking will underlie the residential spaces. The first floor will be donated as retail space for the McColl Center for Art + Innovation.

A gallery seemed a better space than a restaurant, as designers didn’t want smells from the kitchen wafting up to the amenity spaces. The gallery will be operated under the leadership of Irina Toshkova of the New Gallery of Modern Art. FMK was the architect for the project, and TJ Larsen of My Townhome Realty is the listing agent. It is estimated the tower will cost $111 million to build.

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Duke Energy Renewables has acquired a 20-megawatt solar project in the rural Shawboro community in Currituck County. The acquisition is part of a push inspired by EPA requirements that power companies reduce carbon emissions to 30 percent of 2005 levels by 2030. As Duke Energy closes coalfired plants, the nation’s largest electric power holding company has acquired sixteen solar facilities in different stages of completion across the state. Duke now operates sixteen wind and twenty-seven solar farms in twelve states, which combined generate more than two gigawatts of power. The Currituck solar project was purchased from Ecoplexus, a San Francisco-based company that has completed more than fifty solar projects in locations that include Japan and Turkey. The facility’s buildout is scheduled to be completed by year’s end by Swinerton Renewable Energy. Projects undertaken by both Ecoplexus and Swinerton provide hundreds of megawatts to utilities, governments, and private-sector clientele. The Shawboro facility will provide power to approximately 4000 homes via Dominion NC Power under a fifteen-year contract.

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High

Country

Spirits

Fellow Entrepreneurs Gregg Parsons and Jeff Collins are in their fourth business and twenty third year as business partners written by emily ball ard photos by todd bush

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A view of beer inside Peabody’s September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 67

Chris Riley- Peabody’s Beer Manager

A

s the craft beer market explodes across Western North Carolina, as well as across the c ount r y, t wo long t ime friends and business partners reap the benefits of a business that they bought before beer and wine were such hot commodities.

Jeff Collins and Gregg Parsons are the owners of Peabody’s Wine and Beer Merchants, a specialty shop set in the beautiful mountain town of Boone, North Carolina. As you drive into town, you are first met by a row of chain restaurants, hotels, and banks, but tucked in between these structures you’ll quickly recognize the purple and white Peabody’s sign, one of the only independently owned stores on this busy strip. Starting early in the morning their parking lot begins to fill with customers, a testament to a successful business that has been serving and supporting the community since 1978.

Jeff and Gregg casually, yet attentively, greet customers as soon as they enter the door. Many are addressed by their first name, obviously regulars to the establishment. Newcomers are instantly offered assistance, a much appreciated gesture as you enter a sea of bottles that reach from floor to ceiling and to the deep recesses of the store. Under the register is a display case of cigars, and behind the counter are a row of taps and local brews at the growler station and a line of wine bottles open for tasting. There are specialty food items and gourmet chocolates. Each item in the store has been handpicked by the owners and selected for its quality. Each nook and cranny is filled with something interesting and delectable. Jeff and Gregg pride themselves on genuine customer service and community enrichment, but their first business venture together looked far different than the pretty labels and tasty assortment that they boast today.

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The Trash Niche The two co-owners began working together in 1991 at a seafood and produce market, a wholesaler that delivered to restaurants. At this point Jeff was 23 and Gregg was 34. Both employees felt that the management was lacking and that there was room for much improvement in the running of the business. They began hashing out ideas and came up with a plan to start a trash recycling company.

With the idea fresh in their mind they put in their notice at the market and were suddenly tasked with three weeks to get up and running.

They were starting completely from scratch.

“We didn’t have a truck, we didn’t have anything other than a flier.

We would go door to door and started signing people up.”

People began enlisting their services for trash pickup, and the week before their first scheduled retrieval they found a truck, borrowed $5,000 total from their respective families, and simply started their business.

Jeff had a business degree and Gregg was a returning student at that time with plenty of retail experience. They had worked together for a year and a half at their old job at this point and had a good understanding of how to run a business, as well as how not to run a business. At the seafood and produce market, they had worked throughout the twisting and quirky high-country road system, and knew how to plan their route. They also had a work ethic unmatched by most, and weren’t afraid to get dirty, quite literally.

What they found was that the garbage industry was full of opportunity, and business was good. They created a niche in the community for a much needed service that wasn’t being addressed by the big corporate trash company.

“There was nobody at the time you could call commercially and say, ‘I’m moving, come clean out my basement’, or ‘Come get my dead freezer’, or ‘A tree fell in my yard, come get it.’ If it had to do with coming to get it and taking it away, we did it,” says Gregg.

“We did anything,” they say in perfect unison, as two seasoned business partners with decades of stories to tell.

Their business was called County Disposal, and they provided pick up services to private neighborhoods, country clubs, individual businesses, and individual households. They became a full service company. They attribute their success to their ability to work on the fly, make their own decisions, and consistently be proactive, qualities that they felt the corporate giants just didn’t offer.

Another service that the existing trash company wasn’t offering was recycling. Their company was the first to commercially recycle anything in the town of Boone, and they were instrumental in helping to implement parts of the community’s recycling plan. They were also the first to offer various sizes of construction dumpsters, a service not previously available for businesses.

Although they admit that the first few years in this new business were lean, they were starting to see real growth and opportunity. They had leased the laundry facility at Jeff’s apartment building for office space. At the time there were no cell phones and Jeff would venture twice a day down to a local wine and beer shop run by a friend to use his phone and check their messages. The store was called Peabody’s and it was two doors down from where they kept their trucks.

Jeff and Gregg in one of two outdoor access keg coolers with 100+ kegs in stock all the time

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 69

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New Business Always the entrepreneur, in 1996 Jeff became involved in the cigar business with his friend and owner of Peabody’s. In 1997 this friends’ personal life dictated that he relocate, and so Jeff and Gregg seized the opportunity to buy the business. Now the energetic duo not only owned a thriving trash business but also a local wine and beer store. This didn’t deter or slow them down.

“We would get up at four in the morning and work the trash business and then come work Peabody’s. We worked 16 to 18 hour days for years,” Gregg recalls.

As if they didn’t have enough on their plate, in 2000 they took over a large building that had been used by a big paving contractor and started the only diesel mechanic shop in the area at that time. This business was born more or less out of a necessity for their growing recycling and trash operation and the work they needed

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“And that’s why a lot of the town really loved us, because we would actually go crawl into the dumpsters with gloves and boots and shovel that stuff out into a truck...” on their own trucks, but once they had all of their trucks in working order they opened the business to the public.

The space was called Mountain Diesel, and it gave them room to store both their equipment and the hundreds of dumpsters they used.

“That was a really great addition to our business. It made our lives much easier because now we didn’t have down time, we had backup equipment. You have to pick up trash. It can’t stay there no matter what,” says Jeff.

Both men recall the many times that they spent standing in dumpsters, emptying the trash into a four wheel drive truck, because the bigger trucks were unable to get to them because of the commonly uncooperative mountain weather.

“When it snows two or three feet, you can’t get the trucks in. The dumpsters would be full. And that’s why a lot of the town really loved us, because we would actually go crawl into the dumpsters with gloves and boots and shovel that stuff out into a truck. We never left people hanging. We had a really good reputation and it worked out great,” Gregg remembers.

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1. Walls of wine line the store 2. Wine on the tasting bar 3. Eli in one of the keg coolers 4. Jeff and Gregg at the main counter assisting customers 5. The front door of the store

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1 3

What started as a two man operation with one truck and a hopeful idea had now escalated into a full-fledged successful and continually growing business. In ten years’ time they had 19 trucks and a community that embraced and appreciated their services. The business was such a success in fact that the big corporate company was seeing a hit in their profits. Being in competition was not working for them and they came to Jeff and Gregg with an offer that they just couldn’t refuse on the garbage business. The men sold it and decided to put their full focus on running Peabody’s.

Peabody’s One of the projects they had worked on in the trash business was cleaning up an old pantry convenience store when it went

out of business. They saw this as a great opportunity to move Peabody’s from its small 700 to 800-square-foot location in a strip mall with poor visibility, to a space almost three times the size and, in their eyes, a superbly better location. They were so certain that this was the right place for them that they paid two leases for a year just to acquire the more desirable spot.

They tried for years to actually purchase the property and the building. The landlord let them buy the adjacent lot, which they eventually sold to a Marriott hotel, the current inhabitant.

And after many years they were able to buy the building and the acre and half they wanted. They finally had the visibility and the parking that they knew they needed for the business to thrive.

So the question remained: Would a seemingly long leap from the trash business to the wine and beer business prove to be as lucrative and satisfying for these two go-getters?

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 73

The answer is simply: yes. Call it luck or strategic planning, Jeff and Gregg have effectively pinpointed profitable businesses and trades in the area at precisely the right moment.

“When we first owned it, if you had 100 beers, you had everything. But now we have 1500 beers in there,” says Jeff.

This is in large part due to a movement ten years ago led by a group that was fed up with a 6% ABV restriction on all beers sold and brewed within North Carolina. The group termed the initiative “Pop the Cap”, and once the cap was lifted in 2005, the industry forever changed in this area. Peabody’s was ready for the expansion that inevitably happened after the law passed.

“We have always tried to be proactive instead of reactive. It changed a lot of things. Breweries started popping up and we

were able to buy beers from Iowa and Colorado and everywhere.

And as a natural progression to that, because the alcohol wasn’t so limited it really gave birth to the craft brew not only here in North Carolina but everywhere,” says Gregg.

Jeff explains that this really opened the floodgate for beer aficionados and enthusiasts. They were able to expand their inventory to include a range of beer types and varieties from around the world that were unavailable to them previously due to the alcohol restriction.

Just as they had entered the trash business as Boone started booming and needed their services, they were able to purchase Peabody’s before the real beer craze started. They found themselves proprietors of a solid company in an industry that was experiencing exponential growth and interest.

On any given month they may taste over 400 wines, with only 10 or so actually making it to the store. They offer a variety to those with minimal knowledge, and also to those with specific tastes.

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The Future They now have a staff of nine employees, some of which have been there over a decade. Just like they pick the goods that they sell based on quality, so also do they use this method for those that they hire. They require that they know and are passionate about the products, and they affectionately call them their career beer and wine geeks. There is a sense of camaraderie in the store, with some friendly jabs and humor that only close colleagues would tolerate. They are certainly a family that works hard, and most likely plays hard.

Always looking for new opportunities, Jeff and Gregg’s newest venture is a sister store in downtown Boone called Benchmark Provisions, selling beer, wine, cigarettes, candy, sandwiches, fruit, or just about anything you would expect from a local downtown community market.

The main concern for these two business partners is a sense of community and giving back. They felt that they were really improving a service with their trash business and it is easy to see that this carries over into the beer and wine business.

They spend their time seeking out the rare items that their customers will like. On any given month they may taste over

400 wines, with only 10 or so actually making it to the store.

They offer a variety to those with minimal knowledge, and also to those with specific tastes.

“Everyone gets treated the same whether you want an $8 dollar bottle of wine or a $1500 bottle of wine. You are going to get the same service and knowledge. We want your experience to be good and we want you to enjoy what you are buying,” explains Jeff.

Gregg says that they take pleasure in customers poking around the shop and finding hidden gems on the shelves.

They strive to educate their consumers through tastings and events, stating that for them an educated consumer is their best customer.

With the drive and business savvy that Jeff and Gregg possess who knows what new opportunity they will have their hands in next, but in the meantime Jeff seems to be quite content.

“Wine business definitely beats real work. This is a fun job.”

And after decades of hard work these two certainly deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

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UPDATES FOR

&

NATIONAL WORLD [

news briefs

Lost in the Shuffle or Just Lost london, england

Food-ordering websites are changing the carry-out landscape in the United Kingdom. But traditional restaurants aren’t worrying. Sites like Hungry House and Just Eat are described as having been a good thing at first. But now, they have so many subscribers, they aren’t attracting many new customers for vendors. Subscribers have complained that upfront the websites offer incentives to join, but then they start charging fees.

Just Eat, for example, takes a 20 percent fee out of orders. It can take more out if a business wants to be top-listed. Recently, subscribers were also put in the awkward situation of providing discounts at Just

]

Eat’s request. On the bright side, Just Eat works like a BBB in getting rid of subscribers who don’t live up to standards.

Hungry House charges lower fees but is not as widely used as Just Eat. While the Asian Catering Federation has advised its 1500 member organizations to set up their own online ordering systems, many businesses feel they’ll fall by the wayside if they don’t subscribe.

Uber could care less. Uber is one of many companies that raise a lot of money but don’t turn a profit off-the-bat. Amazon is another example. Reasons for revenues chasing losses include investment in marketing, research, and administration. The company just raised $6 billion in order to introduce its services in India and China and promote new products like Uber Pool. Available data indicates Uber is most profitable in cities where it has operated the longest. Its most mature markets are Washington, DC, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. These cities bring in tens, if not millions, in annual revenue. Released documents indicate back in 2013 Uber had thousands of drivers providing tens of thousands of weekly rides in each of these cities.

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Uber, now a $50 billion company, has been described as “wildly unprofitable.”

News came with documents leaked on the website Gawker. And leadership at

Keurig, inventor of the K-Cup, is going to try to sell tabletop soda machines.

The Keurig 2.0 rather flopped, leading to a 60 percent decrease in share prices. Dropping sales, combined with downward pressure on pricing from

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competing K-Cup companies, inspired the move, which industry analysts are not betting on. The Keurig Kold, which will sell for $300, is a mini version of SodaStream. Reasons to prefer a Keurig Kold to a SodaStream include no need for gas canisters, automatic chilling of o drinks to 39 F, and authentic flavors from the Coca-Cola Company and the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. Coke invested $2.4 billion on developing the product, $1 billion of which is now chalked down as sunk. Early complaints about the product are that it is too expensive, Americans are running away from sodas in light of growing health consciousness, and SodaStream isn’t doing such a hot job, either. Soda companies are hoping Keurig will help turn around their waning popularity.

Business Administration estimated damages to thirty businesses ran $8,927,000.

The Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) has distributed more than $450,000 in grants to at least 62 of them.

Most stores have reopened, but some may not be able to. The BDC, in partnership with the City of Baltimore, provides a platform to help businesses vandalized and/or looted during the riots in April and May with obtaining city permits, filing insurance claims, and procuring loans or grants. The Labor Department’s survey of businesses indicated payroll counts in the city declined by about 3,600, falling at a rate comparable to those in the rest of the state, and yet higher than counts in June of last year. The tourism industry slumped only 3-5 percent, with day-tripper haunts suffering more than hotels.

Broken Windows in Baltimore

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According to various agencies, rioting hasn’t had too deleterious an effect on Baltimore’s economy. About 400 businesses sustained damage during recent rioting. A survey conducted by the Small

Kansas State University opened its new, $65 million football facility to athletes for a sneak preview. The completion of the Vanier Family Football Complex coincides with a $125 million athletic

national & world

facilities capital improvement plan undertaken by the school. The stadium upgrades were paid for in part by $20 million from a $60 million donation from the Jack Varnier family, the largest private donation in the university’s history.

The ultramodern facility looks more like an airport than a stadium. The locker room is twice the size of the old one, shaped like a football, and accessible via a hall of “crazy” purple lights. Football games play on big screens throughout the facility. Players can train in an 18,000-sq-ft Olympic-quality conditioning center, soak in therapeutic water art, visit the on-site barbershop, or catch a drink at the picture-perfect Gatorade bar. At last count, there were still 100 yards on the football field.

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Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, is among fourteen investors pouring millions into Editas Medicine. Editas is developing CRISPR-Cas9, an enzyme bacteria use to fend off viruses. CRISPR is now considered the best way to cut and

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paste DNA. A new firm, bng0, is Editas’ lead investor, having just banked $120 million on the company. Boris Nikolic, former science advisor to Gates, heads up bng0. Another investor, Juno, is prepared to risk as much as $250 million once production lines start rolling.

Google Ventures is among about a dozen other investors. The only snag might be an issue with patent priority. Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuel Charpentier published the first paper on CRISPR. Doudna was an original founder of Editas, but she has licensed her patent to Intellia, whereas Charpentier licensed his patent to CRISPR Therapeutics in Basel. Feng Zhang, who beat Doudna and Charpentier to the patent office, licensed his patent to Editas. At this stage in the game, everybody is too excited about CRISPR’s potential for curing congenital disease. Edita’s game plan is to start out looking for a cure for easy fixes – like a form of Leber’s blindness and hemoglobinopathy – first, and sort the royalties later.

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Nokia is gearing up to return to the mobile phone market as soon as a 2016 noncompete agreement with Microsoft expires. Nokia, which at one time made more mobile phones than any other company, exited the business in 2013 when it sold its handset interests to Microsoft. Since then, it has focused on manufacturing equipment for telecom networks. Representatives indicate Nokia has learned from its mistakes, and this time around it has a plan to keep up with trends. It will focus on research and development, and license its products. The company already has ads out for software experts, and it will soon complete the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, or Bell Labs, which has to its innovative credit eight Nobel Prizes. Industry analysts think this will

be an uphill battle. In Nokia’s favor are the patents it retained in the Microsoft deal and name recognition. Currently, Apple owns 90 percent of the mobile industry, with a host of global competitors nibbling for market share. Under new CEO Rajeev Suri, Nokia has been slimming strategically and launching new products like an Android tablet sold in China, a virtual reality camera, and a content-organizing app for Androids.

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Billionaire business magnate, corporate raider, and investor Carl Icahn is raising eyebrows. He just purchased an 8.18 percent stake in natural gas exporter Cheniere Energy, which hasn’t been profitable in twenty-one years.

He made the move as gas prices, and commodities prices in general, were diving. Icahn had already lost hundreds of millions of dollars on his energy holdings in what Bloomberg described as “the worst commodity price crash in a generation.” Cheniere was one of a few companies to get caught in the middle of the shale-oil revolution. First building a complex of terminals for imports during a projected shortage, the oil company followed the money and retooled for exports. Cheniere, under the leadership of Charif Souki, wants to become the nation’s largest buyer of natural gas. Souki accepted a salary of $1 in 2014 following news that he was America’s highest-paid CEO in 2013. Icahn described Cheniere’s shares as undervalued, and the Wall Street Journal is calling this move brilliant.

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During the first week of August, stock in media giants plummeted. For example,

CBS shares dropped six percent, Disney, nine, Discovery, 11%, 21st Century Fox, 11%, and Viacom, 20%. While these businesses continue profitable, the lack of confidence shown by investors reflects concern over customers dropping cable subscriptions en masse, and those who keep them using technology to skip through commercials. Companies like Cablevision Systems and Time Warner Cable reported internet subscriptions were offsetting an exodus of Cable customers. Services like Hulu that carry TV shows online, and streaming of Amazon. com and Netflix programming are jibing more with viewers’ lifestyles and are now the in-thing. Disney’s CEO Bob Iger isn’t fazed at cable subscribers canceling outright. His company, which owns ABC and ESPN, is following the viewing preferences of younger audiences who “consume television in very different ways.”

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Not all users liked the idea of a forced Windows 10 upgrade. They liked having a say in when things start and stop. That would have been a minor concern for people who voluntarily contract, were it not for glitches. The forced updates included a bug that switched off monitors. To fix the problem, within 24 hours of the upgrade date, Windows issued a patch, KB3081424. The problem was, KB3081424 would poop out after a percentage of installation. The user would then receive a popup message, “We couldn’t complete the updates: undoing the changes.” Undoing the changes required a reboot, and reboots now trigger forced updates, so the buggy installs worked their way to the stopping point again, and the vicious cycle repeated.

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Airborne:

Ballooning over Western North Carolina written by toni sherwood

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photos by phyllis barnard

Spring balloon at Hominy Valley Singing Grounds September 2015 | capitalatplay.com

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It’s six am on a Saturday morning.

The sun has yet to break the horizon, but a caravan of trucks and trailers are already waiting as sleepy adventurers begin to arrive at the Rejavanation Café in Candler. This is where our balloon adventure is set to begin.

If you wonder why ballooning takes place in the wee hours of the morning, it’s all about the wind. “Balloons like it cool,” pilot Tom Mackie, owner of Asheville Balloon Company, says, “as the sun rises it gets hotter, but it also picks up the wind.”

There are four balloons scheduled to fly today. Rick Bowers, owner of Asheville Hot Air Balloons, will be piloting one of them.

Bowers had his first flight at age five when his dad took him up in a Cessna trainer. He’s been piloting airplanes since the 80s.

The sport of ballooning has come a long way since the first hot air balloon flight took place September 19, 1783. The passengers (a sheep, a duck, and a rooster) were airborne for a mesmerizing ten minutes. The first manned flight quickly followed on November 21, 1783. Two French brothers, Joseph and Etienne Montgolfier, constructed a balloon that was launched from the center of Paris and flew for 20 minutes. In the 1950s Ed Yost was developing the modern ballooning equipment we use today, which made the sport of hot air ballooning affordable and practical for the first time. His first successful flight was on October 22, 1960.

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1. Balloon over Biltmore Lake 2. The launching of the balloons 3. Balloons inflating for the trip, photo by Allison Ciaramita 4. Splash and Dash at Biltmore Lake, photo by Angela Murray September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 83

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Tom Mackie, inspecting the balloon

Outside Rejavanation Café, waiting passengers sip coffee, while the pilots and crew check Doppler radar, weather reports, and any information they can find to tip them off as to what we will encounter if we fly today. But still, it’s not enough. “After all that, the real test is to send up a pibal,” Mackie says.

A pibal (short for pilot balloon) is a small helium-filled black balloon. The crewmembers release it into the air as all eyes track its course. Soon the pibal is just a black dot in the sky. Somehow the pilots and crew manage to keep it in sight, noting speed and direction as it changes altitude. Finally satisfied, crewmembers climb into vans full of equipment. About two-dozen passengers follow suit, piling into vans and buses, which will transport us to the secret launching point. (Hint: There’s a big paper mill there.)

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Suddenly we hear an airplane approaching.

“Oh, that’s Junior,” Mackie says. “He’s about 85 years old. He flies that plane every morning.” A bright red twoseater plane passes by at our altitude.

Traveling in our van are an assortment of crew and passengers, including pilot James Eagle, whom everyone calls ‘Chief’. Chief is taking his young son, Paul, and his best friend up today. A young woman and her mother-in-law are celebrating a birthday. “We do this every day, but for some people it’s a once in a lifetime experience,” Bowers says. “Ballooning is on a lot of people’s bucket lists.”

There’s nervous chatter as we make our way down the highway pulling a trailer full of equipment. Suddenly a huge explosion erupts behind us. “We just blew a tire,” Chief says.

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photo courtesy of Asheville Balloon Company

We stop to assess damages. The fender is lying in the road. As the crew debates what to do (keep going slowly or try to replace the tire now?) another far worse emergency arises. “They forgot to put marshmallows in my hot chocolate!” Paul says. But ballooners are not derailed by such disasters. They have learned to trouble shoot all kinds of unexpected obstacles and challenges, from a flat tire to missing marshmallows, it’s all par for the course. As we continue at half speed, Chief and the driver recount a string of misadventures from past ballooning trips.

When we get to the launching site, which is a field near Canton High School, the balloons are already laid out and crewmembers are inflating them with huge electric fans.

Passengers group around Bowers for the pre-flight orientation. With his wry humor he prepares us for anything that might happen; from how to handle a hard landing (put your feet and knees together and keep your knees bent), to the possibility of skimming treetops in order to slow the balloon down (“If I do that, yes, I can see the trees,” Bower quips), to condensation from the fuel tank dripping down and staining your shirt.

One of Bower’s most entertaining stories is of a woman who wanted to conquer her fear of flying. She cried the entire flight. But that wasn’t the worst part. The second they landed she jumped out of the basket. So without the extra ballast, the balloon, still carrying Bowers and the woman’s boyfriend, shot up thousands of feet straight into the air. “It took me another 20 minutes to land,” Bowers recalls. This story was strangely reassuring: At least we knew to avoid that major faux pas.

The passengers were divided up between the four balloons. Somehow six passengers, a pilot, and a tank of fuel fit comfortably into our rectangular wicker basket. The pilots communicated over walkie-talkies as all four balloons took to the sky.

Steering a balloon is truly an art; it requires patience, timing, and finesse.

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“The way you steer a balloon is by altitude,” Mackie says “Different altitudes have different wind directions and wind speeds.” Mackie releases the hot gas into the balloon to climb higher. He can gently pull on a rope to release hot air and descend.

The steering capability of modern balloons was greatly improved by Tracy Barnes, owner of Blimp Works, who invented the ‘parachute vent’ or ‘parachute valve’ as it’s sometimes referred to, which is now the most common type of top vent.

“The parachute valve is one of the most important innovations to the safety of hot air ballooning,” Charles Willard, vice president of Blimp Works, says. “Before the parachute valve, balloons had a system sort of like a twist tie on a bread bag.

Once you opened it to land, there was no turning back, you were committed.” But with Barnes’ invention, if a pilot starting to land spots a power line he had not previously noticed, or a change in wind direction, he can now release hot air, which will close the parachute valve and allow the balloon to rise again.

“It’s a beautiful design in terms of simplicity and dependability,” Willard says. Barnes, who built his first balloon in 1961, was inducted into the U.S. Ballooning Hall of Fame in 2008. Now in his 70s, Barnes runs Blimp Works from their headquarters in Statesville, North Carolina.

As we float about 3,000 feet above the ground, Mackie points out Mount Pisgah, Cold Mountain, and even Mount Mitchell far in the distance. We glide above forests, farms, and houses. The pilots keep constant contact and note each other’s locations as we begin to fly towards a gap in the mountains ahead of us.

Suddenly we hear an airplane approaching. “Oh, that’s Junior,” Mackie says. “He’s about 85 years old. He flies that plane every morning.” A bright red two-seater plane passes by at our altitude. We wave and Junior dips his wing to say hello.

People balloon for lots of occasions: birthdays, anniversaries, and graduations. But one of the most popular things to do seems to be getting engaged in a balloon. Over walkie-talkie we heard announced that an engagement went down in Bowers’

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balloon. Not to be outdone, one of our passengers gets down on one knee and pulls out a gorgeous diamond ring. After a very enthusiastic ‘yes’ from the bride-to-be, we all watch nervously as she gets the ring securely on her finger. Who can forget Bowers’ warning: “Anything drops out of a balloon, you’re probably not getting it back.”

Now that the groomto-be can relax, we all return to the beautiful scenery. A breeze feels good as the day heats up; unfortunately the breeze is not taking us where we want to go.

Mackie confers with the other balloons to figure out where to pick up the wind direction he’s looking for. After an altitude adjustment we are back on track.

“Asheville is not an easy place to fly,” Willard says. “You need someone good. Mountains offer their own challenges; the

wind flow is affected, and there are not as many places to land because so much of the area is undeveloped.”

Mackie scans the possibilities as he plans his descent.

“We have nicknames for everybody who let’s us land,” Mackie says “There’s the pool guy and the bee guy. I think we’ll go for the helicopter guy.”

Below us, one the other balloons is attempting to land in a small yard.

Crewmembers on the ground are waiting to grab hold of the tethers.

“I knew a guy landed in a stream in the middle of the forest,” Mackie recalls. “It took him the whole day to get out of there.”

Our landing spot is a beautiful home with a huge freshly mowed yard. The owner comes out to greet us and show us the photos he took of our landing.

“With ballooning you literally shift perspective, and that’s a great metaphor for what it takes to see another person’s viewpoint,” Bowers explains. “Or if you’re trying to land and you’re stressed out, you can climb higher and suddenly more options present themselves.

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As we climb out of the balloon there is a combination of relief and accomplishment. A couple guys admit they felt more nervous in a balloon than they did skydiving. But now we can all giggle at our nerves while we celebrate with champagne and French cheese, a traditional finale to ballooning.

Bowers, who started as a Presbyterian minister, sees ballooning as a great fit with the work he is doing now creating leadership and team building programs. “With ballooning you literally shift perspective, and that’s a great metaphor for what it takes to see another person’s viewpoint,” Bowers explains. “Or if you’re trying to land and you’re stressed out, you can climb higher and suddenly more options present themselves. Similarly, if we can get some distance from our everyday troubles, we can loosen our emotional attachment and better problem solve.”

There’s a real sense of camaraderie among these veteran balloon pilots. “It’s much more fun to balloon with other balloons,” Mackie admits.

“A formal pilot is trained to start with a flight plan; where he will land, what altitude he will fly. It’s all very regimented,” Willard says, “but with a balloon, the only thing you know for sure is where you will take off.” According to Willard, a pilot like Mackie is a rarity; both formally trained and yet able to let loose and go on the spontaneous adventure that ballooning offers.

“I’m more careful piloting a balloon than I am a 747,” Mackie quips.

Mackie balloons all over the world, even hydrogen ballooning in Europe. “We go for a couple days,” Mackie says. “We’ll sleep in the balloon.” But despite all of his experience ballooning in different locals, he has a favorite spot. “This right here is the most beautiful spot in the world to balloon,” Mackie says.

Admittedly, hovering midair with the Blue Ridge Mountains receding in all directions, farmlands spread below, and a glorious blue-pink sky above, it’s a breathtaking sight.

Asheville Hot Air Balloons, Rick Bowers: ashevillehotairballoons.com Asheville Balloon Company, Tom Mackie: flyaballoon.com Blimp Works, Inc., Tracy Barnes & Charles Willard: theblimpworks.com Firefly Balloons, local manufacturers of hot air balloons utilizing Tracy Barnes’ designs: fireflyballoons.net

September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 89

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EVENTS

> Admission: Adult $7; Children, Seniors & Active Military $6

> 828-295-9099 > blowingrockmuseum.org september 3

The Wailers september 1- 30

Fall Exhibition Celebration at Brahm 10am-5pm Mon-Sat, 1-5pm Sun Blowing Rock Art & History Museum 159 Chestnut Street, Blowing Rock, NC Three new installments will be on exhibit this fall. Romantic Spirits: Nineteenth Century Paintings Of The South From The Johnson Collection features thirty-eight paintings by thirty-two artists spanning the nineteenth century. The paintings show development of the romantic movement in the American South. The Sculptor’s Voice showcases the work of five contemporary sculptors.

Lastly, The Picture Man: Photographs By Paul Buchanan, is a collection of forty-nine professional photo portraits capturing the personality of life in the Appalachians between 1921 and 1951. The museum is open until 7pm Thursdays.

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9pm The Orange Peel 101 Biltmore Avenue, Asheville, NC If you love reggae, does it get any better than the Wailers? Well, the personnel have undergone some shakeups since the Bob Marley days, but the band plays on. In fact, their tour schedule looks more prolific than the globetrotters’.

>Tickets: Advance $20 > 828-398-1837 > theorangepeel.net september 4 -7

69TH Annual North Carolina Apple Festival 10am-8pm Main Street, Hendersonville, NC Hungry for apples? Organizers invite you to share the fruits of our labor day.

Each year, this family-fun event draws numbers on a par with the population of Asheville to the booths of 200 vendors on nine blocks. Free, live music will flow from the historic courthouse continuously during festival hours Friday through Sunday. Labor Day will feature the King Apple Parade. Youth groups will march with professional floats, fire engines, and antique cars in what had better be a “Spectacular Finale.”

> Free > 828-697-4557 > ncapplefestival.org september 10

Alsarah and The Nubatones 7pm Lipinsky Auditorium: UNC-Asheville Are you in the mood for some Sudanese jive and swing? UNC-Asheville welcomes Alsrah and her infectious, flirtatious smile to show Asheville why NPR placed Alsarah and The Nubatones on their “International Music You Must Hear Now” list. Singer/songwriter/ethnomusicologist Alsarah fled civil unrest in the Sudan to resettle in Brooklyn – but not without

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bringing a basket of East African retro-pop to share with you. The visit is part of a world tour.

>Tickets: GA $20; Staff, Faculty,

Alumni $13; Student $8; UNCA Student $6 > 828-251-6674 > cesap.unca.edu/upcoming-events

Forest. Registration for runners closes September 7. This is a family-friendly event. Check website for no-no’s.

> Admission: $20, Admission With Camping $35 > 303-776-1914 > steepcanyon50k.com

september 11-13

september 10

Steep Canyon 50K & Relay Hullabaloo 12pm Reeb Ranch 315 Shoals Falls Road, Hendersonville, NC Oskar Blues Brewery, Black Mountain Running Company, Mountain Song Festival, and those amazing musical geniuses The Steep Canyon Rangers are sponsoring the first ever Steep Canyon Hullabaloo. It will take place at Oskar Blues’ very own ranch, and proceeds will go to Mountaintrue (formerly Western North Carolina Alliance) and Oskar’s very own charity, the Can’d Aid Foundation. The trail features 1,634 feet of elevation gain on switchback mountain terrain through the waterfall-full Dupont

Goombay

2-10pm Fri, 10am-10pm Sat, TBA Sun Roger Mcguire Green - Pack Place Asheville, NC Tired of the same-old festival routine? Try Goombay. It’s named after a skin-covered drum, and it’s held each year to celebrate good times in the African-Caribbean way. Expect lots of colorful robes and high headdresses. It’s okay if you don’t have a native costume. Make something up or come as you are and get down to live bands groovin’ out the funk, reggae, gospel, and soul. There will be lots of opportunities to check out traditional food as well.

> Free > 828-252-4614 > ashevillegoombayfestival.com

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september 10 -12 The Music Fest at Blue Bear Mountain Campers’ Hours Blue Bear Mountain Campground 196 Blue Bear Mountain Road, Todd, NC Blue Bear will provide the entertainment.

A number of bands have agreed to haul up to the top of the mountain. All you need to do is haul yourself up, feel the wind in your hair, and just be. See website for camping rates.

>Tickets: Thursday $20, Friday $30, Saturday $35 > 828-406-4226 > musicfestatbluebearmountain.com

september 11- 20

North Carolina Mountain State Fair 3-11pm Mon-Thu, 9am-midnight Fri & Sat, 9am-11pm Sun Western NC Ag Center 1301 Fanning Bridge Road, Fletcher, NC This is a real fair, attended by over 180,000. It has all the big-thrill rides, the fair fare, the booths manned by folks who

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events

want to share anything from brilliant craftsmanship to partisan politics, and the agricultural exhibits and competitions that got it started in the first place.

Discounted advance tickets are available from Ingles’ stores and the Ag Center.

> Admission: adult $8, senior $4, child $4 > 828-687-1414 > wncagcenter.org

september 12 -13 Grandparents’ Day Special 8:30am-5:30pm Chimney Rock State Park 431 Main Street, Chimney Rock, NC What do mammaw and papaw want for Grandparents’ Day more than anything? That’s right. Quality time with the precious little noodnicks. So why not buy mom and dad a ticket to Chimney Rock and let them spoil the little noodnicks for free? Coupons for free child admission with the purchase of one regularly-priced adult ticket are downloadable from the Chimney Rock website.

>Tickets: adult $15, child $7 or free with coupon > 800-277-9611 > chimneyrockpark.com

self-confidence to the physiology of thought and advertising strategies. The event sold out almost instantaneously, but, in the spirit of the old adage that you can always get a ticket to a sold out show, there is an online signup for standby passengers.

>Tickets: $45 > 828-713-6586 > tedxtryon.com september 12

A Blue Danube Evening 7:30pm Blue Ridge Community College Concert Hall 180 Campus Drive, Flat Rock, NC The Hendersonville symphony orchestra, conducted by maestro Thomas Joiner, will recreate the atmosphere of the Vienna New Year’s concerts. The Vienna Philharmonic describes the events as an opportunity for people around the world to “draw joy and optimism for the new year through the light-hearted yet subtly profound character of this music – a greeting in the spirit of hope, friendship, and peace.” Selections will include waltzes, polkas, marches, and mazurkas by greats like Mozart, the Strauss family, and Schubert.

>Tickets: $35 > 828-697-5884 > hendersonvillesymphony.org

september 12

Tedx Tryon 9am-4:30pm Tryon Fine Arts Center 34 Melrose Avenue, Tryon, NC What’s Tedx? It is described as “a community conversation exploring the people, places, and experiences that shape our lives...” That didn’t help. Okay.

So it’s what all the hip intellectuals in the rising generation are doing, sort of a Moogfest with or without the music.

Invited speakers will talk on anything from beauty secrets and building 92

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september 16 - 30 Corn Maze At Eliada Home See Website For Schedule Eliada Home 2 Compton Drive, Asheville, NC Getting lost in a corn field hardly sounds like a popular pastime, but each year, 20,000 people come to Eliada Home to do just that. Like some kind aliens making a crop circle, the good folks at Eliada carve four miles of trails into the

corn each year. This makes an interesting picture for anybody who happens to be flying overhead. More importantly, it raises money for the home, which provides a safe place with opportunity for at-risk kids. Eliada’s is actually ranked one of America’s top-ten corn mazes.

> Admission: Adult $10, Child (4-11) $7, Senior (65+) $8, Infant (0-3) Free > 828-254-5356x300 > eliada.org

september 18 -19 4TH Annual West Jefferson’s Olde Time Antiques Fair 1-8pm Fri, 8am-5pm Sat Downtown West Jefferson West Jefferson, NC Thousands of people go out to the country to enjoy antiques, primitives, collectibles, and all the normal festival stuff. In its fourth year, the festival now runs the entire length of Jefferson Avenue.

> Free > 866-607-0093 > wjantiquesfair.com september 19

Bee Happy Vintage Market 10am-5pm 9 & 12 All Souls Crescent Asheville, NC It’s time for the quaint and curated, open-air, semi-annual market to showcase the artisan, vintage, antique, and handcrafted. The unique boutique will add to the turn-of-the-century aura of historic Biltmore Village’s aura. This event keeps getting bigger and bigger.

> Free > 828-808-2684 > beehappywares.com

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September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 93

End of Season Blow Out!

events

september 19

6TH Annual Polkfresh Farm Tour 9am-2pm Mill Spring Ag Center 156 School Road, Mill Spring, NC

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“Miles of Smiles”

In conjunction with the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, special Polk County farmers are opening their stables and fields to public self-guided tours. The Mill Spring Ag Center, Cool Mama’s Bakery, and The Columbus Farmer’s Market will be collecting admission, issuing wristbands, and handing out official guidebooks. Participants are asked to dress comfortably and bring a cooler for all the farm-fresh food they won’t be able to resist buying. A selfguided winery tour from 12-6pm is also part of the program.

>Tickets: Advance $25/Car,

Door $30/Car > 323-228-4959 or 828-863-2355 > polkcountyfarms.org

september 19

Cherokee Heritage Festival 10am-3pm Cherokee Homestead Exhibit 21 Davis Loop, Hayesville, NC This festival will do its music and dancing, food, arts, and crafting with a Cherokee twist. The Cherokee Homestead Exhibit is one of five tourist attractions along a two-mile strip in Hayesville. The Quanassee Path is named for a long-gone but important stop along an old trading route from South Carolina to Eastern Tennessee. The festival is near other native American curiosities like The Clay County Museum, The Cherokee Cultural Center, Spikebuck Mound, and The Cherokee Botanical Sanctuary.

> Free > 828-389-3045 > cccra-nc.org 94

| September 2015

september 19

Rocky Knob Triathlon 7:45am-7pm Watauga County Fairgrounds 748 Roby Greene Road, Boone, NC The Boone Kiwanis Club is sponsoring this opportunity for the uberfit. Some poet writing for the website painted an idyllic portrait of the forests and fields through which runners would trot: “You will start by running eight miles on paved and almost paved roads down, down a scenic route to the historic New River... The New River awaits you with rocks, swirling pools, and whatever water level late summer brings to the event... You will beach your boat at Riverside Restaurant, where you will pick up your road bike... Your grueling finish will take you back to the Watauga County Fairgrounds, where you will end as you began.” Preregistration is required. See website for group rates and rental fees.

> Free to spectators > Rockyknobtriathlon.com september 19 - 30

The Glass Menagerie 7:30pm Fri & Sat, 3pm Sun Parkway Playhouse 202 Green Mountain Drive Burnsville, NC This American classic catapulted Tennessee Williams to fame. Williams hinted it was autobiographical, but to what extent may never be known. It is set in the apartment of a poor family with its own set of dysfunction. When all is said and done, nothing really happened except for an emotional ride of coulda-shouldas. Isn’t that just like life?

>Tickets: Adult $18-$22, Child $10-$12; Fees Apply > 828-682-4285 > parkwayplayhouse.com

september 21- 30 (est.)

The Robot Zoo

8am-7pm The North Carolina Arboretum 100 Frederick Law Olmsted Way Asheville, NC Normally when you think of an arboretum, you think of trees and flowers. Not this time. The Robot Zoo is coming. The traveling installation teaches children what makes animals work in terms of mechanical engineering. More than a dozen larger-than-life, hands-on creatures dynamically illustrate in 3-D how flies walk on the ceiling, chameleons change color, and squids squirt through water. The animals have cutaways to reveal the shock absorbers and pumps in their physiology.

> Parking: Autos $12, Vans $50, Buses $100 > 828-665-2492 > ncarboretum.org

september 24 - 30

Take A Child Outside Week 8:30am-4:30pm Chimney Rock State Park 431 Main Street, Chimney Rock, NC Take A Child Outside Week provides an excuse for families to spend quality time together, moving around, enjoying nature’s splendors in the fresh air.

Every day of the week at the rock that is supposed to look like a chimney, park rangers will lead special programs and hikes for the whole gang. Saturday, families can sleep over in a big campout.

>Tickets: Adult $15, Child (5-15) $7, Toddler (0-4) Free > 800-277-9611 > chimneyrockpark.com

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EILEEN FISHER

events

september 25 - 27 Greek Festival 11am-9pm Fri & Sat, 11am-4pm Sun Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church of Asheville 227 Cumberland Avenue, Asheville, NC

2onCrescent

828.274.1276 • 2oncrescent.com Mon-Sat 10-5:30; Sunday 10-4 4 All Souls Crescent, Biltmore Village

Opa! It’s time to go Greek, in the old sense of the phrase, with grape leaves and lamb – or as the Greeks say, kourambiethes, galatoboureko, and loukoumathes. A temporary Greek village will be set up for ambience. Kick back and feel the warm embrace of a culture that screams hospitality and fun. Enjoy the flair and colors of rich cultural heritage. You know you want to flash-mob a Zorba the Greek dance.

> Free > 828-253-3754 > holytrinityasheville.com september 26 - 27 Tour De Falls 9am-2:30pm Dupont State Recreational Forest 89 Buck Forest Road, Cedar Mountain, NC Twice a year, buses troll along a twelve-mile path, giving passengers views of Triple Falls, High Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and Lake Julia. This is great for those who yearn to see some of nature’s most beautiful offerings, but, whether it’s because of the kids or Uncle Arthur Itis, they “don’t get around much anymore.” Buses will stop to give passengers time for photo ops and exploring. W hile trucking along, onboard tour guides will share fascinating facts about the 10,600 acre forest. This is a three hour tour.

> Requested Donations: Adult $12, Child (6-17) $6 > 800-828-4244 or 828-883-3700 > dupontforest.com

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september 26

Annual Fall Doll Show And Sale 9:30am-4pm Western North Carolina Agricultural Center, Boone Building 1301 Fanning Bridge Road, Fletcher, NC Doll collectors from all over the country will converge at one of the South’s most important doll shows. Up for sale will be antique, vintage, modern, and artisan creations, along with clothing, accessories, parts, and supplies.

> Admission: $5 > 828-883-4899 > landoskydollclub.com september 26

Old Timey Fall Festival 10am-4pm Town Square - Main Street Burnsville, NC The Yancey History Association wants kids to have a chance to learn about old-timey ways. Consequently, crafters will take to the streets and weave baskets, spin yarn, grind corn, make candles, quilt, and beekeep. Scheduled events include an antique car and tractor parade, woolly worm races, mountain music, and a raffle.

> Free > 704-756-3321 > oldtimeyfallfestival.com

If your organization has any local press releases for our briefs section, or events that you would like to see here, feel free to email us at events@capitalatplay.com.

Please submit your event by the first day of the month preceding your event.

Signature

Gold

COLLECTION Quality Without Compromise

ASHEVILLE: Historic Biltmore Village 9 Kitchin Place 828-274-2630 STORE HOURS: Mon.-Fri. 9:30am-7pm Sat. 9:30am-6pm Sun. 12pm-5pm September 2015 | capitalatplay.com 97

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BMW 3 Series

bmwofasheville.com 828-681-9900

START WITH PERFORMANCE. THE REST WILL FOLLOW. THE NEW BMW 3 SERIES.

Driving isn’t about commuting or carpooling. It’s about performance. Performance is driving at its essence. Performance connects man and machine. It’s the thrill of superior handling under enhanced suspension and steering systems, and the joy of being near-perfectly balanced. When performance is given the highest consideration, the rest just falls into place. And – in the case of the 3 Series – the rest of the automotive world follows.

NO-COST MAINTENANCE

UP TO 4 YRS / 50K MILES1

For special lease and finance offers available through BMW Financial Services, visit bmwusa.com.

BMW of Asheville

649 New Airport Road

Fletcher, NC 28732

828-681-9900

bmwofasheville.com

Experience the Difference.

1

For model year 2015 or later vehicles sold or leased by an authorized BMW center on or after July 1, 2014, BMW Maintenance Program coverage is not transferable to subsequent purchasers, owners or lessees. Please see bmwusa.com/UltimateService or ask your authorized BMW center for details. ©2015 BMW of North America, LLC. The BMW name, model names and logo are registered trademarks.

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Ingles is a family of local farmers, vendors, ranchers, bakers and builders‌ all working together to bring you the highest quality local products.

We built our stores around your towns, so at Ingles, local is the basis of our business.

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