Author: Fay Mitchell
Superbowl Sunday is coming and North Carolina can be a great place for beer drinkers. You may have heard that North Carolina has the most microbreweries of any Southern state and is in the top 10 nationally. Small wonder, since the first non-native people to brew beer in North America may have been the settlers on Roanoke Island 435 years ago.
In 1585, one of the settlers wrote, “Wee make of the same in the country some malt, whereof brued as good ale as was to be desired.” A tradition was born.
North Carolina’s microbrewers have got to hope that the “buy local” philosophy guides shoppers preparing for Superbowl Sunday, when Americans reportedly consume 325 million gallons of beer.
Did Europeans bring beer to the New World? Nope. In 1709 John Lawson recorded in “A New Voyage to Carolina” that Native Americans made beer from cedar berries and corn, while another account indicated that they also used molasses.
You might think it was all hops and malt from then on, but not so. Beer became less popular in colonial times because it was difficult to store or transport over wagon rutted roads. Farmers turned their excess grain into whiskey instead. Then along came Prohibition, and in 1908 North Carolina was the first state to vote for it, 62 percent to 38 percent. Prohibition went national in 1919. North Carolinians voted against the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, so the legislature adopted a plan to let communities decide on the sale of alcohol in 1937.
In the 1970s commercial brewing came to the state with Schlitz and Miller breweries. In the 1980s and ’90s microbreweries began to appear. These brewers generally produce less than 15,000 barrels of beer and ale a year which is sold on premises. By the early 2000s, many of the state’s colonial brewing traditions were reestablished. Well, with a notable exception.
Remember how housewives were the primary brewers in colonial America? They were part of a long women and beer tradition. In Mesopotamia 4,000 years ago, women owned taverns and Samarians had a goddess of beer, Ninkasi. Her priestesses were the top conveyers of a beloved brew. In ancient Egypt too, women primarily made and sold beer. About 150 years ago in the move from home to industrial brewing, men took over.
Today a number of microbreweries are owned or jointly owned by women, and female brewers are popping up across the state. Bombshell Brewery and Bold Missy are some of the more colorful names.
But the increasing use of natural, local ingredients today reflects the bygone ways. While molasses, corn, pumpkinseed or dates may have flavored beers past, today tangerine, mango, chocolate, pine esters, and whatever those creative minds can imagine may flavor beer.
So have a few super suds this Superbowl Sunday, made right here in North Carolina.
Read more about the history of North Carolina's Beer and Breweries on NCpedia.