Brewing in North Carolina

This article regards brewing in North Carolina.

History
The earliest documented commercial brewery in North Carolina was in the Moravian town of Bethabara in Wachovia. According to the Moravian Diaries, a log house was constructed for a distillery and brewery in 1756. The May, 1764 brewery and distillery inventory listed 270 gallons of brandy, 40 gallons of rye whisky, and 90 gallons of beer on hand. The Bethabara brewery and distillery continued operating until the last brewer moved away in 1814. The Bethabara brewery operated longer than the Single Brother's Brewery in nearby Salem, NC

In 1985, Uli Bennewitz pushed a change in the North Carolina law books. This change made it legal for a brewpub to exist under state laws. The next year (1986) Bennewitz opened NC's first brewpub, Weeping Radish Bavarian Restaurant.

On August 13, 2005, House Bill 392 from the NC General Assembly was signed by then-Governor Mike Easley. HB 392 (commonly known as the "Pop The Cap" Bill ) defined a "malt beverage" as any "beer, lager, malt liquor, ale, porter, and any other brewed or fermented beverage" that contained between .5% and 16% alcohol by volume. This represented an increase from the previous limit of 6%. As of 2021, there were more than 340 active breweries in North Carolina.