When you know you are an entrepreneur and plan on opening a business, and then fall in love with brewing and the community that surrounds it, there's nothing left to do, but open a brewery. And when your partner in life and business is a pilot, and your brewing style is to create small batch brews, again there's nothing left to do, but call said brewery, Pilot Brewing Company.
Welcome to the first episode in our series of podcasts where we have partnered up with Malteurop Malting Company (MMC) to highlight some phenemonal craft breweries for American Craft Beer Week, May 16-22.
Starting in the service industry at 19 in a restaurant that served a lot of beers, Rachael quickly learned that she wanted to know more about craft beer and set her professional career in motion doing exactly that. Not only is this her story about rising up through the ranks, eventually opening up her own brewery in North Carolina, but this is also a story about education, community, and innovative practice in a world that needs all of the above.
Join us as we chat about the story behind the name, the Cicerone Certification Program (Racheal is an Advanced Cicerone), Pilot's small batch system (Can you guess the name of it?), her love for community brewing, Pilot's Charity of the Month program, malts and ingredients, and much more. Pilot Brewing Company is truly a neighborhood brewery - the kind where everybody knows your name.
Oh, and she has a podcast where she and her friend, Jen, "separate their listeners through this crazy world of beer knowledge to help them figure it out." The name? False Bottomed Girls. Do you get the pun?
She's got great stories to tell behind the beer, but wait until you hear her response when asked about being a woman in the brewing industry. (I knew it was going to be snarky, and that's why I asked the question.) She is, after all, the pilot of the brewery, and a badass woman!
Pilot Brewing Company
1331 Central Ave. #104
Charlotte, NC 28205
The annual nationwide event of American Craft Beer Week, May 16-22, 2022, celebrates small and independent craft breweries throughout the U.S. Malteurop (MMC) has joined forces with us at Living a Stout Life to highlight just a few of these remarkable breweries through their stories behind the beer. Raise a glass to salute the resilient and extraordinary community that is craft beer!
Click here for the breweries we highlighted for American Craft Beer Week in 2021! There's much to celebrate.
Click here for the full show notes including a few pics, and more stories.
The Craft Beer Travel & Adventure Podcast is hosted by Living a Stout Life, where we share stories, community, and resources for all your craft beer travel and adventure lifestyle needs.
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To Rachael for hanging out with us and putting up with our questions. We knew we would love your answers, and that we did! It was a highlight of our day to chat beer with you while learning more about the Cicerone program and Pilot Brewing Company. We can't wait to chat again over a pint at Pilot.
To Galen Smith and Gretchen Jones from Malteurop Malting Company for putting this together. It may have been meant to highlight Pilot Brewing Company for American Craft Beer Week, and that it did, but it also shined the spotlight on you two and the community within MMC.