Northside Breweries
 

Birds Fly South Ale Project

Northside – 1320 Hampton Ave. Ext. (Hampton Station)

Pour-sona: THE AFICIONADO 

The High-Lites

In this fast-paced world we live in, it's truly rare to find a business focused on taking its time to make sure it not only creates the best product possible, but to do it with methods that you'd only find in the history books at most breweries for a taste you won't find anywhere else. Such a rare bird is one of Greenville's top hangouts. Like many breweries in Greenville, SC, the Birds Fly South Ale Project is a young'un, but this brew baby burst onto the beer scene in a big way when it claimed awards from the Great American Beer Festival, U.S. Open, and World Beer Championship during its infancy. Such awards do not come easy, nor does brewing the type of beer that earns those accolades.

Owners Shawn and Lindsay Johnson opened Birds Fly South in 2016 in a 6,500 square-foot renovated cotton warehouse in an area now known as Hampton Station. The story of how they got here is a winding one, but the couple spent more than 22 years serving in the Coast Guard and living all over the country before deciding it was time for something different. Shawn's final station during his service was in Greenville and it was in Greenville they stayed.

His love story with beer is similar to other brewers but Shawn's approach feels unique for these days. Birds Fly South is putting "funk first" with farmhouse ales, sours, and saisons. From brewing methods you won't find at many other breweries in the country to hand-bottling their own beer, Birds Fly South truly harkens back to days gone by with a serious approach to what they're pouring in your pint glass. Don't let that scare you if you're a more casual beer enthusiast. Birds Fly South is approachable in every way for every beer fan, meaning birds of a different feather (like the aficionado and the rookie hobbyist), can flock together and each find something to love here.

Birds Fly South and Hampton Station feature an expansive outdoor hangout area with lots of tables, games, and space. More and more businesses are opening at Hampton Station, so grab a bite at White Duck Taco or a creative charcuterie masterpiece from Chadcuterie, now serving right in Birds Fly South. Maybe throw some axes at Craft Axe Throwing. Definitely take a close look at the "Be a Voice, Not an Echo" mural along the outside of the building that promotes unity with the likes of Albert Einstein and Biggie Smalls, among others, designed by Greenville artist Adam C. Schrimmer and painted by members of the community.

Liability Brewing Co.

Northside – 109 W. Stone Ave. (Westone)

Pour-sona: THE FUN-LOVING NERD

The High-Lites

Let's imagine for a moment that Bill S. Preston, Esq. and "Ted" Theodore Logan (of Bill and Ted movie trilogy fame) were packing up the phone booth and, once again, they'd be traveling through wormholes to points in spacetime that would most certainly lead to as fun and irreverent a voyage as their previous trips—only this time, the point of all this quantum travel would be for Bill to educate Ted on the world of craft beer, in-between deep conversations and debates about Star Wars and comic books. That's kind of how Liability Brewing Co. came to be, except it was Dustin educating neighbor Terry about craft beer and there were far fewer wormholes involved from what we understand. The Star Wars and comic book conversations were rampant, though.

This is the exact vibe you can expect coming into Liability Brewing Co. At first glance, you might see Dustin and Terry standing together in deep conversation over something beer or comic book related, but then you might notice the clean, crisp ambiance of a modern brewery that's serious about beer despite the fun-loving nerd culture experts running the place. Liability sets out to make you feel something about craft beer—in their own fun, quirky way. We point to the fact that flights are served in a sticker-covered lunchbox as all the evidence we need to back that up. Per Liability themselves, this is the brewery that wants to drink and laugh along with you. It wants to hear your passive-aggressive playful snark while connecting you with its creativity, all to evoke an emotion within you about the experience that lasts long after you've returned home.

It's also just a downright cool spot to hang out. Tucked within a bank of businesses in a complex called Westone, Liability has a large outdoor area with comfortable patio furniture and plenty of space. Have a seat and order a flight to sample several of Liability's best and let your eyes light up as it arrives to your table in an old-school lunch box. Perhaps its most popular feature is the large, detailed mural inside that depicts LL Cool J as a Stormtrooper from Star Wars, designed and painted by Greenville artist Chad Patterson, so be sure to snag a pic in front of that—and choose a pal to take it who has better aim than a Stormtrooper (Pew Pew!). The building features lots of doors of all shapes and sizes that, when open, blends inside with outside. Whether it's now or in the future, you can be sure a visit to Liability Brewing Co. will be an Excellent Adventure and not a Bogus Journey.

Tetrad Brewing Company

Northside – 603 E. Stone Ave

Pour-sona: THE FAMILY

The High-Lites

From top to bottom, left to right, everything you see, taste, and experience at Tetrad Brewing Company is a product of family. In fact, the motto here is: "Family comes first—and a close second is good beer." Tetrad is the brainchild of brothers-in-law—who truly just refer to, and view, themselves as brothers—Chad Tydings and John Bucher who, after both living in the four corners of the country—as far north as Alaska, as far east as New York and Vermont, as far west as Oregon and Utah—found themselves in Greenville, SC and settled in. If you've noticed the theme so far—top, bottom, left, right; north, south, east, west; four corners, etc.—the two brothers are fans of fantastic fours, which is where the brewery got its name. A "tetrad" is a group or arrangement of four. At Tetrad, those are grain, hops, yeast, and water, for obvious reasons.

Tetrad's main arrangement of four may have to do with the brewing process, but if we were to create a tetrad to describe the experience here, we're going with: family, flavor, outdoor fun, and cheese balls. We'll explain in a moment.

Tetrad shares a building with Half-Moon Outfitters, an independent chain of outdoors stores that serves South Carolina and Georgia, so it should be no surprise that the outdoors is a common theme at Tetrad. Tetrad swung its doors open in late September 2019, so it's one of the newer brewers on the block, but it's in no rush to catch up with the crowd. Tetrad's focus is on small-batch, handcrafted artisanal ales and lagers, so every step of the process gets looked after with love and care from Chad and John so that the final product is lip-smackingly refreshing. You'll normally find around a dozen or so beers on tap here, with Tetrad originals making up the vast majority, which is impressive for such a young brewery with such a small operation, but Chad and John are pulling it off to rave reviews online.

With family so core to its mission, Tetrad welcomes your whole brood at the brewery—brothers, sisters, weird uncles, distant cousins, and, of course, kids and dogs alike. It doesn't have a full-service kitchen, but Tetrad does feature food trucks seemingly every day. Check Tetrad's Facebook page for the latest on those, plus a plethora of events hosted there. Topping the tetrad is cheese balls, and we promised an explanation. If you find yourself at Tetrad and you're not hungry enough for food truck fare but you're wanting to peckishly pop some small noshes, ask your beertender for some complimentary cheese balls. Sure, pretzels and peanuts have been synonymous with beer for ages, but beer, cheese dust, air-puffed carbs and orange fingers is an arrangement worthy of being the next big tetrad at Tetrad.