USA, NC: Wise Man Brewing now open in Winston-Salem

Winston-Salem’s Wise Man Brewing opened Saturday, January 28 after a 16-month renovation of the 1929 Angelo Brothers wholesale warehouse, the Greensboro News & Record reported.

The brewery is owned by Jason Morehead, Mike Beverly and Sam Victory. It’s located at 826 Angelo Bros. Ave., near the intersection of North Main Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.

They lease the building, which is owned JHP Investment Properties LLC. Wise Man is in the lower level of the building. The upper level will be available as office space.

Victory, the head brewer, started working with homebrew kits about 10 years ago, according to the brewery’s website. Victory, who has a Ph.D. in chemistry, was soon obsessed, and it wasn’t long before he was impressing his friends with his home-brewed beer. They were so impressed that they started asking him when he planned to open his own brewery.

“I learned a lot through Battleground Brewers (a homebrew club in Greensboro). After 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry, I was ready to step up and do something different, where I wouldn’t be moving around,” said Victory, who is 50.

“You can work 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry and never create a product. With brewing, this is scientific and creative at the same time, and you have a product.”

Once he was ready to take the next step, Victory teamed up with friends Beverly and Morehead, all of whom live in Oak Ridge, to open Wise Man.

The name comes from a famous beer quote: “He was a wise man who created beer.”

“Some people attribute that to Plato,” Victory said with a laugh, “but I don’t think he said it.”

About half of the first level holds the brewery, and the other half holds the taproom. The brewery is clearly visible from the taproom through glass windows.

The spacious taproom seats 80 or more people, and there also is a private outdoor beer garden.

The bar has 16 taps. For now, some of those will be “guest” taps, featuring beer from such North Carolina craft breweries as Gibb’s Hundred, Four Saints and D9 Brewing.

For opening day last weekend, Wise Man had just a few of its own types of beer ready, including a cream ale, tropical stout, a triple IPA called Hash#tag (a collaboration with D9) and a dry-hopped IPA called Mountain Calling.

Eventually, the taps will pour predominantly Wise Man beer. “With 16 taps, we’re going to bring as much variety as we can,” Morehead said.

The brewery also plans to start distributing kegs. At first, it will target growler and beer shops that support craft beer, including City Beverage and Jugghead Growlers, Williams said. Later, distribution will probably expand to restaurants, and the brewery may even consider bottles or cans.

02 February, 2017