An intimate look inside Weathered Ground

Weathered Ground Brewery advertised the Tales From The Taproom event as a night to spend “talking with the brewers and staff about the magic behind the brews, tour the brewhouse and learn more about our brewing process as well as what motivates us to continue to grow and thrive as a company.” It didn’t disappoint.

As brewery co-owner Aryn Fonda put it, “We’re always so busy behind the bar, in the brewery, chasing our kids, and don’t often get a chance to talk to customers as much as we’d like.” So this evening, the Fondas wanted to give people a chance to get an inside look and to talk with them in a relaxed environment.

Overall, it was a very nice event. Hopefully, Weathered Ground and other West Virginia breweries will continue to find ways of involving their customers more deeply in the brewing culture. 

I didn’t know that

Beyond the special insider’s tour of brewery operations, what was most fun was the tell-all Q&A session with head brewer Sam Fonda. There were so many “I didn’t know that!” moments. Here’s a few of them.

• Fonda graduated from Ole Miss with a history degree and never had any thought of becoming a brewer during his college days. It wasn’t until he landed a job at Old Mecklenburg Brewery cleaning beer lines in Charlotte that he developed an interest in brewing.
• The owners originally wanted to build their brewery in either White Sulphur Springs or Lewisburg, but couldn’t find a suitable building. It was only after a realtor friend located the site in Cool Ridge that they seriously began thinking of building a new brewery in Raleigh County. The property’s owner only agreed to sell after being assured that the new business would not be a strip club.
• Before deciding to name the brewery Weathered Ground, they were calling the place Lonely Field. “I’m so glad we didn’t name it that,” Sam said.

• Weathered Ground is already outgrowing its brewery space. In hindsight, Sam wishes they would have made the downstairs brewery equipment area the same size as the upstairs taproom and restaurant area. Currently, it’s only about half as big and is getting cramped. Luckily, they have a 30-acre property, so when it’s time to expand, they will have plenty of options.
• While they are most noted among beer geeks for their IPAs, their best selling beer is Cool Ridge Lager, a 5.5%, lightly hopped beer.
• Sam says he often brews on a whim, deciding what to brew on the day of based on how much of each malt and hop they have in inventory. He usually does not name a beer until about an hour before it goes on tap.
• The exact recipe for Scrappy Rye Pale Ale has changed a bit each time it’s been brewed depending on “whatever bags of grain are open.” One constant is the inclusion of Rye malt from Riverbend Malt House in Asheville.

• Sam obtains most of his yeast from Brewing Science Institute in Colorado. For the majority of his ales, he uses their dry English ale yeast, including for his imperial stout and barleywine. For his lager yeast he uses a traditional style German lager yeast. For the higher gravity hazy ales he often uses London III, and for standard strength hazy IPA’s he goes with BSI-13 or White Labs London 013, which are very similar yeasts. He feels that using the less common London 013 in IPAs may give his beers a slightly different character from most others that predominantly use London III. 
• Weathered Ground filters all its water through a high efficiency charcoal filter. Instead of adjusting water chemistry with chemical additives, they typically use acidulated malt to lower the mash pH (to make the beer more acidic which is good for brewing lagers). Sam finds that one 50 lb. bag of acidulated malt will bring the water pH of a 7-barrel batch down where he needs it.
• Sam says he has some “fun beers,” currently aging in wine barrels. He is building up his funky-brett sour beer cultures that will be the basis of a long term sour beer program.
• To make a kettle soured beers, such as Gose and Berliner Weisse, Sam substitutes three bags of acidulated malt for the same quantity of regular malts. Then, instead of adding a pure lactobacillus slurry like most breweries do, he adds a tub of regular active-culture yogurt to the kettle and lets the bacteria in it ferment the beer for two days. He says it works and is much less expensive than purchasing the commercial lactobacillus product.
• The brewery’s small batch program is currently on hold because they have been too busy brewing on the big system just to keep up with demand. Brewer Anthony Meador is in charge of developing all the small batches and has had several popular ones scaled up and brewed on the big system. They plan to bring back the small batch program as soon as they can.
• Being a new brewery without a long term hops contract, Weathered Ground has been lucky to have a great relationship with Triple C brewery in Charlotte, which has been selling some of its hops to them. 
• Sam loves using the local hops grown by J.R. Ward of Lost Ridge Farms, also in Raleigh County. The hops in WG’s Hop Farmin’ Miner are the first pelletized Cascade hops produced by Lost Ridge Farms. 
• They are looking forward to adding more packaging, likely first will be some small-scale bottling. Currently everything is kegged and sold as draft or in one-quart crowlers at the bar.
• Once the brewery gets its kitchen operation really rolling, expect more Tuesday and Wednesday events, like special dinners and tastings.

Weathered Ground website