Taproom Managers of Brewer’s Row • Part 3: John Query
April 3, 2026
Intro to the Three Part Series:
Brewer’s Row in downtown Charleston, West Virginia, has been a tremendous success in establishing the city as the top craft beer destination in the state. The Row consists of this brewery trio: Bad Shepherd Beer Co., Fife Street Brewing, and Short Story Brewing-Charleston.
Following nearly a decade having only one small brewpub downtown, these three local beer outlets have together transformed the city’s downtown craft beer landscape and accelerated Charleston’s craft beer status.
Yes, you need a good brewer to make good beer, and all three Brewer’s Row breweries have that covered. However, this three-part BrilliantStream series introduces the individual at each brewery taproom who leads their taproom to a successful outcome. We’re talking about the taproom manager.
The following article, which is third in the series, introduces one of these exceptional taproom managers.
John Query
Fife Street Brewing
“The first page of our Fife Street Brewing employee manual says: If you want to be the best, you’ve got to hire the best. I think we did that. I could not be more proud of our staff. About 90 percent of our core staff have been here since we opened.”
He’s a Charleston boy
“I grew up in Charleston, fairly suburban,” John explains. “My mom’s side the family did a lot of cooking, so everyone grew up around food. Food was definitely important to us. We had a big garden; mostly home-cooked meals.”
Beyond enjoying home-cooked meals, as a teenager, he got very involved in music. As many folks know, John has been a long-time drummer (12 years) in The Company Stores band here in Charleston.
His start in the food business came just after graduating high school. He worked for Libby Chatfield at Charleston Bread Company the first summer they opened.
“I would scrub the semolina out of the bread baskets, and I was the dog treat taste tester,” he told with a smile.
That fall he would head off to West Virginia University to major in Music Education.
When he came home at the end of the school year, Charleston Bread was fully staffed and didn’t need help. It just so happened that one of Libby Chatfield’s neighbors, Teddy Queen, who was owner of Sweetwater Cafe was looking for some help.
Query explains how this connection was made. “Teddy was in Charleston Bread, while I was in there one day, asking if Libby knew anyone who needed a job. I said, ‘Hey I need a job,’ and I started working that summer with Teddy.”
After four semesters in Morgantown, John decided to move back home and begin taking classes at WV State University. This allowed him to go to work full time at Sweetwater Cafe.
“And this turned into 15 years of employment,” John says. “We grew through three expansions there, and then opened the General Store. My job became primarily catering, which I found exciting.”
In this role, he regularly called on doctors’ offices and businesses. “I got to meet a lot of Charleston that way, by trying to sell them lunch.”
A step into the beer world
In 2010, he heard about a new restaurant opening downtown: Pies & Pints.
“At this point, food had taken over my life more than music had,” he says. He decided to apply. He got the job and began working there the first week they opened in Charleston.
It was the first place he worked that had a bar.
It was here that the received his training and education in both table service and beer service. He worked at Pies & Pints for 12 years.
From the beginning, Pies had a decent beer selection, John says, mostly Sierra Nevada and Rogue brands initially. He says the big jump in craft beer quality at Pies, though, came with the arrival of Ryan Heastings. Heastings brought a greatly enhanced craft beer culture to Pies. (Ryan would later become the brewer at Charleston Beer Co.)
Ryan began conducting beer education and beer service classes at the restaurant and worked with beer distributors to improve the beer offerings. Pies & Pints expanded from eight taps to 20, plus more special bottles in the cold box. John soaked up all this beer knowledge and became a key employee for Pies
To this day, John views Ryan as inspiring. “He definitely changed my life.”
As Pies & Pints went through its rapid regional expansion phase, John and other leaders from the Charleston store spread out to the new locations conducting staff trainings. He says that was all great experience for when he later needed to train a new staff at Fife Street Brewing.
John would continue to work at both Sweetwater and Pies & Pints into late 2021.
The path to Fife Street
“A couple of the partners in Fife were acquaintances of mine. They were customers of Pies & Pints, who enjoyed the style of service there,” John explains.
The key investors in Fife Street Brewing were none restaurant-bar management experienced. They saw John as one who could set their new taproom off in the right direction—someone who could also train and manage the taproom staff.
“I had my interview on the patio of the Red Carpet Lounge,” John says. “The interview went well and I decided I needed to give my notice to Teddy at Sweetwater Cafe and also to Pies & Pints.
He began working at Fife Street Brewing on Jan. 1, 2022. The taproom had its grand opening that May.
Once there, he first put together the food menu: a unique grilled cheese concept along with salads and appetizers. It’s a good complement to the house-brewed beers.
Working at Fife
When asked the difference between the brewery taproom and a regular restaurant, John responds: “I think the difference is that we are not food-first. People are here for the beer.” That does seem like an important distinction. However, Fife also moves a good bit of food.
“If somebody is hungry, we can get them their food really quick,” John assures.
As is common in brewery taprooms, Fife made the decision early on not to be open late. “We close at 10:00 P.M.,” John says. But while the customers are there, Fife’s goal is to exceed expectations.
“It’s in our mission statement that we want the customers to come spend the best two hours of their day here,” he explains. They encourage people to hang out by maintaining a relaxed atmosphere, a family-friendly vibe.
A word that stands out to John is Gemütlichkeit. It’s a German word that implies cordiality, friendliness, low-pressure. He says they are seeking this feeling.
“We’re not looking for quantity; we want quality time with the customers.”
For staffing at Fife, they look for experienced folks with the right attitude. “We’ve hired a bunch of beer nerds,” John says.
“The first page of our employee manual says, If you want to be the best, you’ve got too hire the best. I think we did that. I could not be more proud of our staff. About 90 percent of our core staff have been here since we opened.”
One outstanding thing that Fife requires of its service staff is Cicerone certification. That certification assures that a service staff member knows their craft beer styles.
“Every front of house staff member becomes Cicerone certified,” John explains. “We are 100% certified.” He holds weekly staff meetings to discuss beers and service. They taste a new beers coming on tap and talk about them. Things like the malt and hops in the beer and what sandwich is going to pair great with it.
“We’ve done something like 400 different beers since we started,” he says.
Fife’s Go-To Brews
According to John, among the 12 taps of house beers at Fife Street, the most popular ones usually include these: Charleston Beer Golden Ale, Charlie West Coast IPA, Kanawha Kettle Sour series, Straight Kölsch Homie, and P-51 Porter.
“And every time we’ve done a Coffee Blonde collaboration with Mea Cuppa (coffee shop) it outsells almost everything.”
When it comes to his personal favorite Fife Street beers, it gets a little more specialty. The first one he mentioned was Shoenwinkle Belgian Tripel. It may have a special place in his heart partly because he got to name this one.
“A Belgian Tripel and a buttery grilled cheese is a perfect afternoon for me.”
And then he beamed as he talked about Fife’s wintertime favorite, Weiz & Shine Weizenbock. “[Head brewer Gil Peterson] brewed it. It is incredible.”
He explains they took some of the Weizenbock and aged it in two Smooth Ambler bourbon barrels. That turned into this big complex beer with coconut-oak character from the wood.
“There was some magic that happened in that one,” John swooned. “I believe I heard Gil once say that it was his favorite beer he’s brewed here.”
Beyond these strong beer specialties, John goes back to his all-time fave, the P-51 Porter.
Market Changes
In the brewing industry, some things stay pretty much the same through the years, but others do change. John loves the growth in breweries on the block, which allows them to specialize more and offer different options. In the recent year or two, John’s noticed growing popularity of sour beer styles.
“I love that we have options on Summers Street now. We have customers that will come in, and if we don’t have a sour on, they’ll go visit one of our neighbors.”
Overall, beer sales at Fife have been strong since the beginning — no matter what is on tap.
Another strong trend these days in brewery taprooms are non-beer beverages, and Fife curates them carefully too. John explains their philosophy here.
“We are a high quality beverage company, so every beverage we have needs to be high quality.”
Some of the other beverages offered in the taproom include local Hawk Knob ciders; Athletic non-alcoholic beer; wines: red, white, and sangria; Tractor organic colas; and the Peroni & Guinness 0.0s.
In summary, John wraps up his experience working at Fife Street. “Everybody here has a lot of respect for each other. It makes coming to work effortless.”
Fife Street Brewing
180 Summers Street
Charleston, WV
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