Do you like Beer?

Two microbnreweries and one brewpub give the Lowcountry a local flavor

There are few things as refreshing as a nice, cold one on a hot, humid Charleston day, especially when it's a local cold one.

Local thirsts continue to be won over by two microbreweries and one brewpub in the area. All three pride themselves on making beers that are original, creative and just plain good.

Palmetto Brewing Co., Coast Brewing Company and Southend Brewery & Smokehouse are making the casual and the serious beer drinkers alike go bottoms up.

"Making beer is easy. Making good beer is hard," said Ed Falkenstein, who with Louis Bruce, founded Palmetto Brewing Co. in 1994. Palmetto brews an amber, a pale ale, a lager and a porter in addition to one-of-a-kind seasonal brews.

With only four main ingredients, beer could easily be considered simple. However, these three local entities have proven that the most important aspect of beer — the taste — is a bit more complicated.

"Making beer is absolutely fascinating to me," said Ahren Warf, brewmaster at Southend. "The fact that it's so simple in its base form, only four ingredients, and the end product is so dynamic. There are so many different beers."

Southend's beer varieties include seven core beers that are always on tap: light blond, blond, unfiltered wheat beer, pale ale, scarlet ale, brown ale and a stout. An eighth beer on tap is always a seasonal concoction of Warf's.

Coast specializes in seasonals, switching them up every couple of months. Founders, and husband-and-wife team, Jaime Tenny and David Merritt offer two all year.

Their offerings are HopArt IPA, 32/50 Kolsch, and currently, Blackbeerd, the Imperial Stout, Rye Knot Brown Ale, Red Legs Scotch Ale, Honey Wheat Pale Ale, ALTerior Motive, DIS Irish Stout, AYE SB Extra Special Bitter, and the Boy King Double IPA.

Not bad for just a little water, malted barley, hops and yeast.

These endless varieties that local brewers come up with are a toast to their imaginations and ingenuity with beer. They also are only the start to what sets them apart from the rest of the beer industry.

"Being that we're just a small regional brewery, our beer is very fresh and most of the time its only weeks old by the time it's at the restaurant or on the shelf. You couldn't get this beer any place else and it kind of lends itself to that aspect," said Falkenstein of Palmetto.

"And for us, there is a lot of history. Charleston has a lot of history that is certainly great history and we embrace the city and the area."

The original Palmetto brewery was off East Bay street around the market area in the 1850's. It lasted until a little after the turn of the century.

With the help of local historian Jamie Westendorf, the current brewery has pieced together its history and boasts its own collection of the old style glass bottles and other historic pieces from the era.

While they are not sure if it closed because of Prohibition, today's brewery was the first to open since Prohibition. Falkenstein, Bruce, head brewer Michael Davis and William Botts are running today's Palmetto Brewery and are dedicating to preserving the history and legacy of the original.

"Brewing is a cross between being a chef and a scientist. There's a lot of science involved and a lot of regimented hard work," Falkenstein said. "We'll spend hours tasting it like a chef would, maybe this hop would be better or that one. Hops and grains, they change from season to season, so we respond to it.

"As a craft brewery, I define quality a little different than a big brewery. They define it as very consistent, anywhere in the country it will taste the same. But for us, you're yielding to the chef to put his heart and soul into it and we do that. We make tweaks here and there, that's why there's definitely a lot of blood, sweat and tears that gets put behind it."

Tenny and Merritt of Coast can certainly agree to the hard work of brewing and to toasting Charleston's culture. Their motto of "local, creative, organic" hits right on the nose of their beers, their attitudes and their brewery.

"So far, its kept up to be that. Sometimes I don't know what we are, but I know what we aren't," said Tenny. "We're laid back, we're not rigid as far as a style is concerned or original or modern. We're pretty open, we do what feels right to us. We have a pirate, coastal theme, our tap boards are surf boards."

"Honestly, we just want to make a good beer. It sounds really simple but it's true," she continued.

"At the end of the day, we can have a beer that's just good. It brings you back to that goodness. What's important to me is that we use all organic grain. We're just a good crafted beer by hard-working people.

"You know your money is supporting good agriculture, good business, good people. It's just good. When you're in the mood for a certain style beer and you get it, it's perfect, it hits the spot."

Southend Brewery hits the spot, too, with good beer and food. The brewpub is the only one to offer cuisine that suits its beer.

"The culture we try and present is something unique, it's a little bit different," Warf said. "The great thing about a brewpub is that it's brewed here, it's very fresh.

"The food is a huge aspect of this place in particular too. There are a few things like the pizza dough that has beer incorporated into it. The chef and I try to collaborate. We have a dialogue to be in sync with each other.

"I think we offer a really good selection of beers. We have something for just about everybody," he continued. "The food and the atmosphere we have here really makes this place unique, it's what puts the whole experience together."

The Charleston brew experience that these three entities have created has resulted in a local beer culture committed to just making good beer and enjoying it the way it should be: with friends, with family and in good times.