Alternative Beverage

My name is Jess Faucette. Don Baker and I opened the doors of Alternative Beverage in November of 1973 as a "beverage store" in a converted gas station with an investment of $4K. Besides gas, we sold everything from Budweiser to Chateau Lafite Rothschild. When the gas crisis of '73-'74 happened, we had gas lines over a mile long. We were so success... ful at marketing our business model that we became one of the 10 largest retailers of wine and beer in North Carolina in less than a years. On our first July 4th in business, we were given the keys to two (2) delivery trucks and a van full of beer. When they picked the trucks up, we had sold all the beer except for 1 bay of Old Milwaukee. We were the source for beer in Charlotte. In 1975, we lost our lease on our first location. While we were looking for a new location, I was able to buy out Dons stake in the business and relocate to South Blvd. In 1977, after getting about 3-4 calls asking about beer making supplies, we started stocking ingredients just before Christmas. Nothing sold during that holiday season so I had learn how to make beer in order to be able to sell the stuff. I hired an Englishman by the name of Mike Waker, who had been brewing in England before coming to the states. He taught me everything he knew and we started designing recipes and changing how beer making was being done. Beer making had consisted of a can of hopped malt and two (2) to five (5) of sugar. No hops were added at any time. The results would have been a cidery beer that lacked any hops detection besides bitterness. We substituted three (3) of Dried Malt Extract (DME) for the sugar, adding cracked specialty malts to enhance the flavor, aroma and color of the beer and adding aroma hops at knockout for hop character. The quality of the beer improved immensely and so did out kit recipe sells. By '79, we had closed our "beverage store" and moved into a warehouse off Minuet Lane where we could concentrate on beer and wine making exclusively. We ran full page ads in Zymurgy and our mail ...Read More