Project Showcase: Well Crafted NC

25 February 2019 – Erin Lawrimore

digital history, sense of place, archives, entrepreneurialism, economic development

Anita Riley, assistant brewer at Lonerider Brewing Company in Raleigh, NC, being interviewed for the Well Crafted NC project. Photo Credit: Richard Cox/Well Crafted NC

Since the North Carolina legislature legalized the operation of retail facilities by craft breweries in 1985, craft beer has become big business in the state. More than 300 independent breweries exist in North Carolina, a number that has quadrupled since 2010. By one estimate, the annual economic impact of the craft beer industry in North Carolina exceeds $2 billion. Seeing the growing importance of this relatively young industry in the state, archivists at the UNC Greensboro University Libraries launched Well Crafted NC in July 2017.

Well Crafted NC began with a focus on documenting the history of beer and brewing in downtown Greensboro. The project team created a timeline of historical places, legislation, and events in local beer history to contextualize the modern craft brewing industry. Oral history interviews with current brewers and brewery owners coupled with digitized and born-digital archival records (including photographs, label art, marketing materials, and reports) provide the foundation for the story of Greensboro beer today.

Interest in Well Crafted NC from industry leaders, craft brewing professional organizations, and the public, however, quickly spurred the project’s creators to enlarge the scope to encompass all of North Carolina. Expanding the project statewide in a state with over 300 breweries had to be done strategically. The Well Crafted NC team began by focusing on documenting breweries and individuals who have significantly impacted the industry across the state. For example, the team prioritized interviewing Uli Bennewitz, owner of Weeping Radish Brewery in Grandy, NC, and the chief advocate for the passage of Senate Bill 536 in 1985. (See the interview here.) Additionally, an internal faculty research grant in the summer of 2018 supported 21 interviews with women leaders in the North Carolina craft beer industry.

A new grant from UNC Greensboro’s Institute of Community and Economic Engagement will aid this growth. Through a three-year collaboration with faculty in UNC Greensboro’s Bryan School of Business and Economics and the Triad Brewers Alliance (a regional industry organization), Well Crafted NC will conduct oral history interviews and collect records from breweries in the Piedmont Triad region, a 12-county area containing and surrounding the cities of Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and High Point. These materials will serve as resources for the creation of a regional marketing plan to promote the North Carolina Triad as a craft beer destination.

North Carolina’s craft breweries do more than produce delicious beer. They serve as catalysts for revitalization and community development by repurposing mills, warehouses, and other industrial spaces that were left vacant as the state’s manufacturing industries declined. Farmers seeking a cash crop to replace tobacco often find partners in the craft beer industry. Well Crafted NC ensures that craft breweries and the changes they bring to North Carolina are documented. The project serves as a valuable resource for the industry as well as researchers, now and in the future.

~ Erin Lawrimore, co-founder of Well Crafted NC, is an associate professor and university archivist in the UNC Greensboro University Libraries.