A one-time carpentry shop in Stumpy Point is now home to Lost Colony Brewery
While small businesses make up only 11 percent of Tideland’s 22,600 electric accounts, they are critically important to both the co-op and the communities we serve. Local support can make all the difference in small business success.
One of our newest member businesses is a brewery located in Stumpy Point.
It must be true love when you let your husband take over your pottery studio so he can pursue his beer making hobby. Better yet when the hobby leads to a highly successful business to compliment an already thriving restaurant. And when brewery sales continue to expand, where else to go but to an abandoned carpentry shop in Stumpy Point of course!
Lost Colony Brewery and Cafe is owned by Paul Charron and wife, Sharon Enoch. In 1995, they opened in Manteo as Full Moon Cafe. In 2002, after Charron tried out a home brewing kit that was actually someone else’s Christmas present, he was hooked. And soon the batches got bigger and bigger and bigger. And by 2011, the pottery was out and the brew pots were in. And as the pots grew so did the tasting audience...from friends and family to diners at their popular cafe. The brown ale was getting serious attention from other restaurant owners in the area and thus the hobby required a new employee: brew master Cory Minton.
Before long, more than 30 locations on the Outer Banks carried Lost Colony products on tap and demand outpaced their Manteo confines. A solution was found 25 miles south on the Dare County mainland. Overlooking picturesque Stumpy Point Bay stood a vacant, 10,000-square-foot shop once used to build cabinetry for yachts. After removing copious amounts of sawdust, Charron and crew transformed it into what he refers to as “Malt Disneyland.” And the batches are larger than ever: 1,000 gallons at a time. In honor of the new facility, Lost Colony concocted a new brew, Stumpy Point Pale Ale.
One thing brew masters seem to have in common: they’re pretty sociable. Seems like a necessary prerequisite. And you just don’t get much more sociable than Charron. He’s a regular focal point of brewery memes and has starred in a few videos that spoof other popular characters like bottling buddies Laverne and Shirley.
He and Enoch are also socially responsible. They reuse some spent grains to make dog biscuits marketed as Brew Chews. A dollar from every sale of the canine treats goes to the local SPCA. The rest of the spent grains, about 11 tons annually, are given away for livestock and agricultural needs to reduce landfill waste. Empty grain bags go to local fishermen for oysters. Kegs, no longer passing muster, have been repurposed into dog beds. Soon they hope to install rooftop solar panels and a cistern to collect rainwater. Even their tap handles are made of reclaimed wood from old tobacco barns.
Today the Manteo eatery has been rebranded the Lost Colony Brewery and Cafe. Occassional tours of the Stumpy Point facility are also available. Oh and about those tours...well, that led to a new tasting room that seems to keep growing as well. Funny how one thing leads to another. We’ll drink to that!
Follow Lost Colony Brewery and Cafe on Facebook and be sure to check out their videos!
