E-Malt.com News article: USA, NC: Draft Line Brewing to open in Fuquay-Varina this spring

Fuquay-Varina will get a second craft brewery by the end of May, if everything goes as planned for Scott Palmieri and Scott Wood, owners of Draft Line Brewing, Triangle Business Journal reported on March 18.

The two Scotts have been friends since Wood, a general contractor, built Palmieri’s house in the late '90s. Wood is a Holly Springs native and Palmieri moved to Fuquay-Varina from Buffalo, New York.

“I’ve been brewing beer at home for about eight years,” says Palmieri. “I’m an engineer by trade. I’m a hands-on kind of person. I love the process, and I love creating new things. We created a homebrew system in my garage where we can brew 40-gallon batches at a time.”

The brewers brought on an investor who contributed about $450,000 for the facility and the brewing system, which will allow 30 barrels to be brewed at once, or 930 gallons of beer.

“It’s a large micro-brewery,” Palmieri says. “We are bringing a head brewer on. When we started drafting the business plan and looking at the budget, it was pretty clear up front we couldn’t run a business, deliver beer, deal with paperwork and deal with brewing the beer.”

But he won’t stop brewing at home, because that’s what it’s all about, he says.

“We are still brewing test batches and trying different things,” he says. “We love IPAs, but we won’t just have IPAs; we’ll have a wheat, a Scottish strong, a Pilsner - which is a great summer beer - and a robust porter with chocolate notes.”

So what’s in the name? Palmieri says draft lines appear in blueprints, which he and Wood deal with in their work on a daily basis, but draft lines also appear in taprooms.

“It took a lot of time to come up with that name,” he says, adding that his beer names and labels will have a theme revolving around industrial styles, with steampunk motifs thrown in.

“I’ve always been into cars. The brewery will have a garage-type atmosphere," he says.

Nearly 75 percent of the interior construction is done, and once the weather improves, they will tackle the exterior.


19 March, 2014