The journey behind Durty Bull Brewing Company opening in Gastonia

After a multi-year renovation project, a former Coca-Cola building in Gastonia's FUSE District is now a brewery.

Durty Bull Brewing Company opened July 13 at 126 S. Trenton St., across from Gastonia's FUSE stadium. The brewery is the result of a partnership between developer Zach Boshamer of North of Fifth Investors and brewery owner Jordan Doctor, who first opened Durty Bull Brewing Company in Durham in 2016.

"What we like to do is kind of use the old world techniques to, you know, not only make some of those old world style beers, but to kind of update them to the tastes of what the market wants," Doctor said.

The brewery's best selling beer is their "extra crispy" pilsner, Doctor said.

"Pilsners are an old German style. We are not a German brewery, but when we decided we wanted to do a pilsner and that it would be good for the market, we worked really hard on getting that just right," Doctor said. "It's not necessarily the most traditional recipe, but it's the one that we thought that people would like the best that was rounded out and balanced the best, that we got the best feedback from people about."

At the same time, the brewery also specializes in drinks like "the amateur hour tropicolada," a smoothie seltzer.

"We've seen all walks of life come in here. Great diversity. It's a really eclectic kind of space where everybody's comfortable. There's something for everybody to do. There's something for everybody to eat. Everybody to drink," he said. "And what that is, is we make a dry, clear seltzer at about 10 or 11% alcohol, so it's very strong, but then we blend that down with a bunch of fruit purees and spices to make different flavors that are almost like, basically like cocktails."

Doctor plans to add a slushie machine to the brewery to make adult slushies. The brewery also sells a variety of beers, including lager, hazy IPAs, at least one stout or dark beer, as well as sour beer.

"We do like to kind of have some options that are still all made in-house," Doctor said.

For now, "in-house" means that it's brewed in Durham.

That will soon change.

The brewery already has the system necessary to brew beer in Gastonia, and they hope to be brewing locally by the end of the year.

The brewery also serves food such as flatbreads, salads, and chips with dips. The business, which includes an event space, is intended to be family friendly, Boshamer said. They want it to be a place where people can bring their children.

"The family friendliness of it all, it's huge," he said. "I remember back when we were kind of planning through all this. We always came back to that. And I'm like, OK, is it somewhere that we would take our families and somewhere that other families will feel comfortable going."

Doctor agreed.

"And I've already seen in our limited hours so far, it go both ways. Somebody came and had a drink, and said, 'I gotta go get the kids. This was nice.' Came back with two other families in a few hours and had a couple of drinks and food to eat," he said. "And then I saw it the other way where a family came in, they hung out a little bit. And then a little while later, the mom was back with her friend, and they hung out for a few hours."

There are tables right outside the brewery, so people who have dogs can bring them and sit outside, and there will be cornhole boards and Connect 4 set up outside, along with picnic tables.

"We have a little bit of something for everybody," Boshamer said.

Boshamer and Jordan have known one another for years, and Boshamer said that he immediately saw potential in the old Coca-Cola building, which most recently was a fleet garage.

"We just instantly kind of said, 'Hey, this is it,'" he said. "It's in the area that we wanted to be."

The building was "pretty much a shell," a filthy, 5,000 square-foot fleet garage with no plumbing or electrical power, when they started renovating it.

They started in 2020, right before the pandemic began, and the massive project was impacted by supply chain shortages.

"It was a labor of love I guess to kind of stick with it," Boshamer said.

Now, the building is clean and spacious, with large doors on either side that allow fresh air to circulate. Their goal was to create "somewhere that everybody can go," Boshamer said.

They also wanted to invest in a community that they love by creating a local destination that allows people to enjoy a drink and spend time with family and friends in Gastonia, rather than driving to Charlotte.

"We're both from here. Jordan is from Cramerton. I've lived five minutes away my entire life. To be able to do something positive here, and this is home for us, that means a lot," Boshamer said. "So there's more that goes into this than just us just trying to grow Durty Bull and sell a lot of beers. There's a pride aspect in it too that we're doing something beneficial for Gastonia, for this area."

This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Brewery opens in Gastonia's FUSE District