USA, NC: Legion Brewing’s third location set to open this fall

Just a few weeks ago, Phil Buchy was putting the finishing touches on Legion Brewing’s third location, the Charlotte Observer reported on August 27.

With the Trolley Barn now open, Legion’s founder is doing the same over at the brewery’s new space in West Morehead. It is set to open this fall.

While this will be the brewery’s fourth location, it’s only Legion’s second actual brewery. The original brewery in Plaza Midwood produces all of the beer not only for that taproom, but also for the SouthPark and Trolley Barn locations. All of the brewery’s kegs and cans come from that location, as well.

The brewery hasn’t been able to keep up with demand in its taprooms or in the market.

“We have more than 400 accounts around Charlotte and haven’t been able to take on a single one more, just because all of the beer is evaporating,” Buchy said. “We need a new production facility just to supply restaurant demands, plus we launched cans, which dug into our volume.”

The new West Morehead brewery can meet that demand and much more. The brewhouse is currently in place, and soon Buchy and his team will be brewing test batches. New, semi-automated canning and kegging lines are being assembled. Once Buchy is happy with the quality of the beer coming out of the brewery, he will open up the taproom to the public.

“We’ll wait to open the taproom up until after we have beer rolling,” Buchy said. “That’s priority No. 1. We desperately need beer.”

“Juicy Jay is our 800-pound gorilla for sure,” Buchy said. “It probably makes up 80 percent of our production right now.” The East Coast IPA has been popular since its debut, but it really took off last year. When taprooms, bars and restaurants closed in March 2020 due to COVID-19, the brewery had to pivot.

With virtually no one ordering draft beer during the shutdown, Legion had an opportunity to get the beer in cans earlier than planned. Four-packs of Juicy Jay sold out quickly at area bottle shops and grocery stores. The new brewery will allow Legion to produce all of the Juicy Jay it needs, as well as core offerings, seasonals and completely new beers.

“Our first two years we did over 100 different beers a year,” Buchy said. “Then Juicy Jay caught fire, and we had to devote more equipment to supplying that demand. And every year since we’ve brewed less and less flavors because we haven’t been able to fit them into the production schedule.”

Buchy looks forward to ramping up production of beers like Penguin Pilsner and Supernova, the brewery’s rotating fruited Berliner weisse.

There’s one beer in particular, however, that he’s really excited about.

“I guess the one I’d like to see really catch fire is Next Chapter,” Buchy said. First introduced last year, Next Chapter is an East Coast IPA with a rotating hop selection. A portion of the beer’s proceeds support various nonprofits.

“It’s one of the ways we support local charities,” Buchy said. “That’s big for us, building communities and creating a good quality of life for all of our patrons and staff. If that caught fire it’d be really cool, because it’s a beautiful beer and because it’s a good case.”

Legion has been busy expanding since it opened in 2015, but it shouldn’t need another brewery anytime soon. “The equipment that we’re putting in there will give us the capacity to grow to 100,000 barrels if we’re so fortunate to get that big,” Buchy said. “Not that we’re intending to, but it gives us the ability to.”

On the surface, 100,000 barrels of beer might seem unattainable. After all, The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery produced 20,500 barrels last year, as reported by The Charlotte Ledger. OMB is Charlotte’s largest brewery in terms of production, and it opened six years before Legion did.

While 100,000 barrels seems daunting in comparison, Buchy notes that the amount of local craft beer consumed in the market is but a drop when compared to beer produced by Anheuser-Busch InBev, MillerCoors and larger national or regional breweries.

“In the grand scheme of things, 100,000 barrels is nothing,” Buchy said. “That’s not that big, not if you’re looking across the country and across the world. We’ve got 65 plus breweries in Charlotte, from OMB as the current largest to the small boutique places. All of that beer combined is less than 2 percent of the Charlotte beer consumption totals. In the grand economic scale, the Charlotte beer economy is still in its infancy. I think the Charlotte market could easily support those kinds of numbers, but it hasn’t been done yet.”

Legion has partnered with Adams Beverages of N.C. for its distribution. Buchy said the brewery could distribute elsewhere in the future (Wilmington might be the next market), but for now he is focused entirely on filling the demand in the Charlotte market.

While he has goals like any business owner, Buchy said the brewery’s growth so far has been organic.

“The growth is just a byproduct of enjoying what we do and trying to be our version of the best that we can be,” Buchy said. “It’s not just an intentional plan to open X number of locations or have X numbers of barrelage in the next few years.” Buchy said he is approached about new locations daily and could expand even more rapidly if he wanted. But instead, he’d rather select locations that fit the brewery’s culture.

That’s what drew him to West Morehead. “It’s an old established neighborhood that’s really catching fire with new life,” Buchy said. “We love being in neighborhoods. We’re not going to go out and find warehouse space out near the airport or something like that where we could obviously do something a lot cheaper than we’ve done. We want to be part of the fabric of the community. West Morehead fits that.”

Buchy, who played intercollegiate football, is especially excited for tailgating season and walking the mile and a half to the stadium for Carolina Panthers games. He’s a soccer fan, too, and plans to do a “march to the match” when the new Charlotte Football Club starts playing.

Some production breweries are all but closed off to the public. Others provide a small wall or window for curious drinkers to peek through. Buchy has taken it a step further. The West Morehead location’s 40-barrel, five-vessel brewery is located right behind the back bar.

“You’ll be able to see firsthand how the beer is made,” Buchy said. “We’ll be making batches of beer in the taproom during taproom hours. That’s a very unique experience that I’m excited about.”

The brewery also has an outdoor beer garden, with the previous building’s metal trusses still running overhead. The brewery plans to eventually use them as trellises for homegrown hops or wisteria. Legion uses natural wood in various ways at all of its locations, and for West Morehead, the brewery commissioned its biggest grill to date. It will accommodate vertical spits, which the kitchen will use to roast meats for dishes like tacos al pastor, shawarma and doner. The new location will also serve woodfired, Neapolitan-style pizzas (in contrast to the SouthPark location’s Roman-style pies). And there are some fun plans for vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free menus, Buchy said.

Buchy spent more than a decade thinking about opening a brewery before he ever did. He first put the business plan together in 2002. He had some “swings and misses” raising capital in the years thereafter, and continued his work in the construction industry as a project manager. Then John Marrino, a friend and the founder of The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, enlisted Buchy to help build his current facility. That’s when Buchy met his first business partner.

He laughs now when he thinks back to building that first location. “I remember looking at those 30-barrel fermenters and saying, ‘How the hell are we ever going to sell this much beer?’” Buchy said. “Then Plaza Midwood opened, and once Plaza Midwood opened, it’s just been like a rocket ship, trying to hold on and ride it up.”

31 August, 2021