And so it begins, rightly so, right next door to the Bella Magazine Studio, in downtown Aiken, South Carolina — the first brewery on my beer journey. I moved to Aiken in 2001 from Golden, Colorado. I distinctly remember that The Aiken Brewing Company was one of the first places I stopped into and ate at, well, because it was a brewery. It’s a whole different experience to sit down and drink the beer when you know more about who is making it, how it is made, and how the business came about.
Georgia passed the brewpub law right before the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in ’93 — it allowed you to produce and tap beer and serve food within the same facility. South Carolina adopted the same law the following year. Dan Beavers, the original owner of The Aiken Brewing Company, started working on the brewery in 1996, when he bought the building and started refurbishing it. The brewing equipment showed up in January of 1997. The Aiken Brewing Company opened its doors and taps to the public on St. Patrick’s Day in 1997.
Randy Doucet, one of the founding members of the CSRA Home Brew Club, visited the brewery so he could write an article for the club’s newsletter. With a desire to see how to expand on home brewing, Randy volunteered to work in the brewery in May of 1997. At the time, Mark Finley was Dan Beavers’ business partner and the brewer, but he was laid off from the Savannah River Site (SRS) in June of 1997 and moved to Wisconsin. Randy was officially hired by the brewery on August 23, 1997, his sister’s birthday. Randy’s goal was to ensure the success of the brewpub in Aiken, South Carolina.
Randy’s passion for making beer led him to become involved in other home brew clubs and competitions; eventually he became a judge. He entered his Grand Cru into competition and won a silver medal in 2003. Under Randy’s management, Dan Garman, Vice President of Operations at Aiken Electric Cooperative at the time, brewed a silver medal Thoroughbred Red in 2001, and Tom Brokaw, a chemical engineer at SRS at the time, won a gold medal for his Thoroughbred Red in 2003.
Other brewers to come through The Aiken Brewing Company have included Herb Brasselman, John Wholstetter, Rob Doughton, and Bob Olinic. Bob was a Master Sergeant for the United States Army Special Forces in charge of security; he retired and brewed for several years, and then went back to the Army, under contract to train operators.
Michael Day, an Army officer in Vietnam, took an online course in brewing with the American Brewer’s Guild. Wanting more hands-on experience, he went to the brewery to watch the process and ended up going through Randy’s training course. It was a great opportunity for the brewery, as Randy asked Michael to benchmark every phase of the brewing process against the recommendations of the American Brewer’s Guild. This led to some changes, and the brewery got better.
Bob Houck works for the Department of Energy at SRS as Chief Classifying Officer for information security, with oversight for the Sentra protective forces. He facilitates the Aiken Home Brew Forum that meets every 3rd Tuesday of the month at the brewpub. His two daughters brew the root beer served at the pub. Jonny Grunnet, a United States Navy submariner, ran the Palmetto State Brewers home brew club when Randy first met him. Jonny graduated with a Masters in Chemical Engineering and was hired by SRS in 2001. Randy brought him on as a brewer; Jonny has been a brewer at the company longer than anyone else except Randy himself.
Randy’s son Joseph Doucet did all the brewing and transfers from 2017 – 2019. He has been working as a brewer’s assistant in the brewery since he was 9 years old, brewing beer, washing kegs, washing the sidewalk, etc. He is qualified as a stand-alone brewer. He started home brewing kombucha a few years ago and is currently studying software development.
Adam Fulmer and Randy met through the Augusta home brew club while Adam was running it. Adam worked with Randy at the brewery for two years and is now Master Brewer at Savannah River Brewing Co. Adam says, “Randy has always had a mind for safety. Always asking each time I walked through the brewhouse doors, ‘What are the things we need to be aware of? How can we stay safe?’ Staying on task while looking ahead to the next step were invaluable lessons for any brewer.”
Andrew Phifer showed up a year ago and is currently doing the bulk of the brewing. Andrew shared, “They say the perfect job is doing something you love, are really good at, and people will pay you for it. For me, that happens to be brewing beer. The Aiken Brewing Company gave me the opportunity to dabble in the industry and now I can’t get enough! In continual pursuit of the love of beer I will be opening Aiken’s second craft brewery in the fall of 2021. Cheers!”
Randy brews a new beer every centennial (100th) batch. The latest just came out in February and was the brewery’s first sour beer, a Gose, one of Andrew’s recipes. He named it Gose Down Easy — it is currently on tap at the brewery. When I asked Randy what’s next, he responded with, “Who the hell knows?” The brewery brews 30 batches a year. The Gose is batch 1400 — it will be another 3 years before he has to determine the next centennial batch.
Randy reflects on the brewers that he has trained and worked with. He says that most of them had more education and experience than he did, but “when you surround yourself with people more qualified than you, you can knock down barriers to success, learn together, and then let them go on to the next stage.”
The Aiken Brewery Set-Up
When you enter, you will see 3 vessels for product production on the left. The first is the hot liquor tank that holds about 300 gallons. This is basically a steam-fired water heater that provides hot water to support brewery operations. The second vessel is the kettle, about 260 gallons, also steam-fired. It is used to boil the wort and for the addition of hops. The third vessel is the mash tun, about 300 gallons. It is used to combine the malted barley with hot water to produce the wort.
In the back of the brewery are three fermenters; 2 of them are 7 barrels (217 gallons), and one is 14 barrels (434 gallons). These are used to ferment the beer.
The serving tank room on the right contains four 7-barrel serving tanks and one 14-barrel tank. These tanks are used to dispense the finished and carbonated beer to the taps downstairs and upstairs.
