USA, NC: Fourth Creek Brewing Co. set to open in Statesville later this year

The microbrewery trend is finally poised to take flight in Statesville, NC, Statesville Record & Landmark reported on September 3.

Fourth Creek Brewing Co. - set to open late this year - will be the first brewery to open in the city since the 1930s.

Owner Jonathan Nobinger said opening the 2,600-square-foot establishment at 226 W. Broad St. has been a two-year process, and there’s still permitting and renovations to be done before the first beer is served.

“You think, ‘Oh, I can brew. I’ll just open a brewery,’” the 35-year-old IT specialist and Atlanta native said. “But it doesn’t work like that. It takes a long time and you have to figure out what path you’ll take. We could do distribution and try and get our beer on every shelf from here to the sea, but that’s not we’re about. We’re going to be all about Statesville. We want to be something that matters in the community.”

Along with the pale ales, IPAs, stouts and ambers Nobinger plans to offer, there will be a guest tap each week.

The venue, which formerly housed Friendly Q Billiards, also has a private parking lot, which Nobinger said played a big role in determining the brewery’s location. The lot, which is behind the building, will allow patrons easier access to the brewery and will allow food trucks a space to set up.

The state is home to more than 200 breweries, according to the North Carolina Brewery Map, but until now the growing industry - estimated to bring in nearly $800 million in North Carolina in 2015 - had eluded Statesville.

City councilman Michael Johnson said the brewery's opening is yet another sign of downtown's business resurgence.

“We certainly have room to grow,” he said. “We’ll see more of activity and not just microbreweries. This will bring in other retailers and business opportunities.”

Johnson said at least two other brewery operations are considering downtown locations.

“Downtown is becoming such a force in attracting business in the region,” Johnson said. “Our recognition factor is very high and people really enjoy coming to the community."

Fourth Creek Brewing Co. owner Jonathan Nobinger hopes to bring something new to Statesville, even if this isn’t the first time a brewery has opened in the city.

In the 1930s, the Old South Beer brewery failed to take off, in part due to the Depression, according to Steve Hill of the Statesville Historical Collection.

“Statesville had a love-hate relationship with alcohol," Hill said. "Most folks around here were Scots-Irish Presbyterians who opposed the retail side of alcohol in the latter part of the 19th century, but they were in favor of wholesale manufacture and shipping barrels to the Southeast.”

Though beer making never took off, Statesville was well known for its distilleries around the turn of the century.

Much of downtown’s growth in the 1880s and '90s was due to the liquor, tobacco and herbs trades, Hill said.

Now, more than a century later, officials hope alcohol can once again trigger development.

05 September, 2017