A tale of two cities

Charleston, West Virginia and Burlington, Vermont are the largest metro areas in their respective states. Burlington is situated in northwestern Vermont on the shore of Lake Champlain. Charleston is located in the southwestern sector of West Virginia along the banks of the Kanawha River.

Both with metro populations just north of 200,000, they each have their state’s largest economies and lead their states in commercial and financial business activity. Both have a full complement of interstate highways, shopping areas, hotels, local restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. They each contain their state’s largest commercial airports. Both are fairly remote from major population centers and are surrounded largely by hilly, rural, forested areas, although the western side of the Burlington metro sits along the lake.

Although Charleston and Burlington are fairly similar in many respects, they are worlds apart in local beer.

• Metro Area includes 3 counties
• Population (2017 est.): 230,000
• Location: remote from major population centers
  3.0 hours from Columbus
  3.5 hours from Pittsburgh
  5.5 hours from DC/NVa
• Surrounding areas:  Rural
• Terrain: Hilly, mostly forested
• Per Capita Income (2010): $20,378
• Number of breweries: 1

The elephant in the room

The elephant in the room is: How can Burlington support 13 craft breweries, while Charleston can only offer one?

Demographics — Burlington’s demographics are somewhat more favorable to craft beer consumption (higher percentage young adults 25-35, more affluent, more highly educated), but Charleston contains one of the most affluent, well-educated populations in West Virginia, with adequate numbers of people who are in the favorable craft-beer-customer demographic. So demographics alone just barely begins to explain Charleston’s lack of local beer culture. While Burlington’s demographics have an edge, it certainly is not anywhere near a 13 to 1 edge.

Legal factors — A review of the brewery laws in the two states does not demonstrate any significant advantages for Vermont breweries. Both states provide a framework in which small breweries can prosper.

Cost factors — The cost of doing business in Burlington is higher than in Charleston. Local property taxes are considerably higher there. While average wages are higher in Burlington, so is the cost of living. which in Burlington is 42% higher than in Charleston.¹ Vermont small breweries pay basically the same price for brewing ingredients as do West Virginia breweries.

Exposure — Developing a taste for craft beer does take exposure to it. Since the mid 2000s, the Charleston market has had many craft beer options offered in its taverns, bars, restaurants, and retailers. Charleston sits quite near to Kentucky and Ohio, where Charleston’s beer drinking citizens have always gone to purchase beer brands that they can’t get locally. So they also see lots of different beer there. Nowadays too, with 5 or 6 breweries from other parts of West Virginia regularly distributing to the Charleston market, city residents are seeing plenty of beer from small breweries in other parts of the state. If you are a beer drinker today in Charleston, you are exposed to lots of craft beer at retailers, restaurants, and bars. Maybe it’s a different set of breweries, but not a whole lot different from the opportunity for exposure you’d find in Burlington.

Higher Education Institutions — While traditional college students are not huge consumers of craft beer (due to their age and income), college graduates are. Burlington, being home to the University of Vermont, has a good 10,000 more college students than does the Charleston metro. Since a percentage of recent college graduates tend to remain in the place they attended college, Burlington should get a boost from having considerably more college students than Charleston.

Local brewery history — Burlington does have some older microbrewery history with one very old brewpub (Vermont Brewery, founded 1988) and one larger brewery (Magic Hat, founded 1994). However,  the bulk of the brewery scene there have started up in the last 10 years, with 9 in the past 5 years. Charleston had its first microbrewery back in the mid-1990s (closed in 1997) and didn’t have another until 2013 when Charleston Brewing was founded, which became today’s Bad Shepherd Brewing.

While I can see Burlington has some advantages, it does not appear that any of the above factors can explain huge differential between the count of local breweries in Burlington and Charleston.

The question lingers

I’m still struggling with this. so, I reached out to a fellow West Virginian who, I thought, might have some insight into the situation.

Joshua Clarke, the friendly fermentation specialist who did stints in West Virginia at Wheeling Brewing, Heston Farm, and The Rambling Root, moved from Fairmont to Burlington in the fall of 2018. Since his move he  has worked around a couple of the local Burlington breweries. During that time, he’s made several pertinent observations about the beer community there. Even though Vermont’s most famous breweries — Hill Farmstead, Lawson’s, and The Alchemist — are located in other regions of the state, Clarke sees Burlington residents supporting Burlington-made brews.

“You can drive and leave the local [Burlington] area to seek out some other brewery, but why do that when you can legitimately turn three hundred and sixty degrees around and within a stone’s throw hit eight different breweries at once within walking distance,” Clarke observes.

In contrast to the Charleston area, where local beer has not really caught on, Clarke calls craft beer one of the economic life bloods of Burlington. From his year working around Burlington breweries, some things really stand out to him, like, “Everyone and their grandmother in this state drinks craft beer and supports their local breweries.”

Clarke see a striking difference between public attitudes on local beer between the two states. In Vermont, Clarke observes that local beer is all around you, and it is “something every Vermonter takes a great deal of pride in and celebrates.”  He says the West Virginia public has a long way to go to get to where Vermont is with its relationship to craft beer.

Clarke’s observation of Vermont’s more welcoming attitude toward small breweries certainly could play a role in why things are so different. While many West Virginia business development interests continue to hang their hats on heavy or extractive industries, Vermont may have been much friendlier to small agricultural, food and beverage-related businesses, in large part because they do not have much large-scale heavy/extractive industry. Maybe the more dominant small-business economy there creates a more celebratory public expression and, therefore, a more favorable small brewery environment. I can buy that, but it can’t be the whole story.

Other areas of the West Virginia with a long history of extractive/heavy industry still have more local breweries than Charleston. Marion County has two breweries; Raleigh County has two; Wheeling has two; Parkersburg has two, Preston County has two. These are all areas with much smaller favorable demographic numbers than Charleston, but each has more breweries than Charleston.

More and more, in America today, beer is about local. Today, the fastest growing segment of the beer industry is the neighborhood/small-community brewery. People love to support their local small brewery taprooms. That is what dominates Burlington’s brewing culture.  It’s no longer the one or two larger breweries in a state or region that define its brewing culture. It is the number and  variety of small or tiny brewery taprooms dotting the landscape that is more important.

If there was ever a place ripe for small brewery development, it is Charleston, WV.

Winds of change blowing

It’s said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. That brings me to the importance of a study currently underway on how we can build a stronger local craft beverage and local food industry network in the Charleston-Huntington region. This food and beverage trail study may not answer the question about why Charleston only has one little brewery, but it hopefully will help us set a development strategy to not only boost our number of breweries, but also increase the count of other craft beverage and boutique food producers, for things like distilled spirits, cider, kombucha, mead, specialty food products, fresh meats, produce, and more. Moreover, it will help us begin a concerted effort to involve our local farmers, restaurateurs, food processors, and visitor and tourism assets as part of the effort. Look down the road five years, and imagine a network of craft beverage and specialty food producers whose products are featured in many local restaurants and bars. Imagine the development of an attractive, uniquely regional Appalachian cuisine and beverage culture that makes a statement and puts our region on the national food and beverage map — providing a great asset for local residents, visitors and tourists alike. I’m convinced it can happen.

The study project, led by the Robert C. Byrd Institute of Marshall University, will have its first phase complete this winter. Brilliant Stream has been participating in this study alongside local groups such as the Charleston Area Alliance, Huntington Area Development Council, Advantage Valley, Putnam County Chamber of Commerce, and other area tourism and business development organizations. If you have an interest in the local food and beverage economy, this is a project you want to be aware of and one you need to be involved in as it develops over the next years.  We will be reporting on the recommendations coming from the phase one study here in Brilliant Stream. Stay tuned.

¹ From BestPlaces.net

If you are interested in these kind of beer market comparisons, take a look at our review of the Montana brewery market compared to ours.