[F&BT] Which festivals excite you guys?

[Jaime] The Brewgrass Festival in Asheville is probably our favorite. Of course it’s nice to be in the mountains but it is the combination of people who have a ton of respect for beer and the breweries who make it, great music, a nice outdoor setting and just a good overall vibe. We’d eventually like to do a real beer fest here in Charleston just as soon as I have some free time to plan it.

[F&BT] What awards are you striving for?

[Jaime] We have not entered any competitions as of yet but winning a GABF medal is usually a highlight to a brewer’s career.

[F&BT] How do you source locally and why?

[Jaime] Sourcing brewing ingredients locally is very hard. There are no malt houses in the south (they’re in the Midwest) SO even if it was grown here it would have to be shipped there to malted.

Hops don’t grow that well in this climate either (though we do want to plant some rhizomes again (by a real farmer this time, not us) and see what we get. That is one of the reasons we went organic. We’d prefer local and organic but that’s just not a reality right now, at least with organic we feel like we are doing our part.

Therefore we try to locally source other ingredients like honey, flowers, etc… We’d like to do a beer with local peaches, rice, grits, tea and coffee sometime this year. Ideally I would like to see regional malt houses open up that we can grow it and malt it regionally, that would be ideal.

[F&BT] Explain what it means to you guys to be sustainable?

[Jaime] In my mind, there are 2 ways to be sustainable. One is environmentally, reduce, reuse and recycle and all of that. We do everything physically possible that will help both the environment and our wallet. Our spent grain goes to Legare Farms for his cattle. We divert and reuse any waste water, hot water, cleaning water that we can instead of just dumping it- this takes planning and a lot of labor! Our boiler has run on biodiesel since day one but with Southeast Biodiesel recently shutting down we are reevaluating all of that and possibly switching to waste veggie oil. We renovated both bathrooms completely with items from Habitat for Humanity. Somebody pointed out recently that we don’t have a dumpster at the brewery, I had never thought about it. We have such little trash we just wind up taking a bag home once a month. And just a lot of little things that maximize energy and product use- we’re all about efficiency.

[F&BT] How often do you change your featured brew?

[Jaime] Whenever we feel like it. No honestly, making seasonal beers is the most fun because that’s when you really get to experiment and try new things. It’s usually every 2 months or so.

Editor's Note: Want to learn more about Coast Brewing Company? Check their site out here coastbrewing.com