Myrtle Beach, SC craft breweries find fun in beer making

Brewer Tiffany Deemer checks on Bashful at Grand Strand Brewing in Myrtle Beach on Thursday, May 25, 2023. The tanks were named after Snow White characters because the men who installed the tanks were small and busy reminding the brewery owners of the cartoon characters, said Christophe Perdu, the director of brewing operations. Photo by Janet Morgan / [email protected]

Grand Strand Brewing Company's Head Brewer Christophe Perdu is constantly experimenting with new brewing techniques, striving to answer the question: How do you make the perfect beer?

Several folks at Grand Strand Brewing expanded their families and have a beer named Fertile Myrtle in Myrtle Beach on Thursday, May 25, 2023. Photo by Janet Morgan / [email protected]

The company's most recent experiment - the Fertile Myrtle - hits soft as a feather while simultaneously being the heaviest brew released by the brewery. It's the bar's first and most-asked-for double IPA brew, named after all of the spring and summer babies born to Grand Strand Brewing Company workers this year.

"Myself and our CEO, Clayton, just had a kid," Perdu said. "He had his about two weeks ago, my wife had hers about a week and a half ago. And then we have our brewer who is having a baby at the end of June and our bartender who is here who is having their baby in June as well."

Brewer Andrew Hinson monitors the tanks and makes beer at Grand Strand Brewing in Myrtle Beach on Thursday, May 25, 2023. Photo by Janet Morgan / [email protected]

Across the Grand Strand, breweries tinker and tweak with grain fermentation to craft the perfect brews. And coming up with new names for the new products is part of the fun.

"Beer should be fun," Christophe Perdu said at Grand Strand Brewing in Myrtle Beach on Thursday, May 25, 2023. Photo by Janet Morgan / [email protected]

"Beer is meant to be fun," Perdu said. "Unlike, say, wine, which kind of has a higher class connotation. Beer is drunk by everyone around the world and is meant to be fun, so all the beers we brew we want to make sure are approachable and that, maybe not everybody, but almost everybody can have a good time sipping and enjoying it."

The Prince Charming is the smallest and tucked away from the others at Grand Strand Brewing in Myrtle Beach on Thursday, May 25, 2023. The tanks were named after Snow White characters because the men who installed the tanks were small and busy reminding the brewery owners of the cartoon characters, said Christophe Perdu, the director of brewing operations. Photo by Janet Morgan / [email protected]

Perdu said Grand Strand Brewing has twelve different flavors of beers, all produced in house in one of the brewery's nine kegs tanks.

"Our flagship is our Airbrush Hazy IPA," Perdu said. "It's gonna be a poppy beer, but not very bitter. The haziness in an IPA tends to lend more towards a juicier, creamier feel for the beer. We like to have as much fun as possible here, so we also have our Sandy Cheeks IPA, which has a guy with a bit of sand up his bum, because that tends to happen a lot at the beach."

Brewer Andrew Hinson monitors the tanks and makes beer at Grand Strand Brewing in Myrtle Beach on Thursday, May 25, 2023. Photo by Janet Morgan / [email protected]

In the back of the brewery, the magic happens inside one of the distillery's nine keg tanks. Brewers mix hot water with grain and it ferments over a long period of time, while mixing with hops, a flower or herb that embitters and preserves the beer.

"Beer is really just sugary water that's been fermented, and that fermentation is what creates the alcohol," he said. "If we didn't add any hops, it would spoil really fast, so we add hops to help preserve that beer."

Brewer Andrew Hinson monitors the tanks and makes beer at Grand Strand Brewing in Myrtle Beach on Thursday, May 25, 2023. Photo by Janet Morgan / [email protected]

Each of the brewery's nine kegs are named after characters from the story of Snow White, Perdu said, due to the men who rigged the original eight kegs looking like the dwarves from Snow White.

"The men who helped us rig up these tanks were these short, stout little men who made us think of Snow White and the seven dwarfs," Perdu said.

Each of the tanks have a special meaning that correlates with the type of beer that is produced inside.

"Dopey is our little tank on the end," Perdu said. "We have Happy, which is our bright tank, which is where the beer is clarified, carbonated and ready to drink. We have a Grumpy tank because there's a light on top of it we have to hit every time we go on top of it. We have Snow White - she's the hot one. And our newest one is Prince Charming, which is a tiny little tank that hides behind the barrels because he's shy… I can't emphasize enough how much we love dad jokes."

Just down the road at Tidal Creek Brewhouse in the Market Common area, brewmaster Patrick Gibson is toiling every week to create new drafts - sometimes making multiple fresh recipes a week.

New brews are created and released every week at Tidal Creek Brewhouse, said brewmaster Patrick Gibson. Photo by Emilie Smith, Tidal Creek Marketing Assistant.

"...[We] typically have around 17 unique house-made brews available in our taproom," Gibson said. "Sometimes these beers are completely new recipes featuring a new ingredient or process, and sometimes they’re a return to some fan favorite brews that people keep asking for."

Gibson said he likes to keep his brews clean, classic and food friendly, but is always trying to innovate and craft new styles with different techniques. He said he focuses on quality in his malts, which are milled in house just before brewing.

"All of our brewing water is treated with reverse osmosis filtration for purity and consistency, and we have a pretty rigorous quality assurance program for a brewery our size that ensures our beers are always excellent and as intended," Gibson said.

The Tidal Creek brewmaster recommended the Breezy Blonde Ale for first time customers. He describes it as a simple and refreshing blonde ale with citrus and floral notes that is popular among both new and experienced craft beer consumers.

Tidal Creek Brewhouse uses reverse osmosis filtration in it's brewing water for purity and consistency, says Brewmaster Patrick Gibson. Photo by Emilie Smith, Tidal Creek Marketing Assistant.

"For the more experienced drinker, I like to recommend our Liberatore Italian-style Pils," Gibson said. "This is a hoppy lager that checks all the boxes – a bright, complex nose, a rich malt backbone that drinks light and clean and carries a nuanced hop profile with lemon, floral, and herbal notes, all finishing with a bracing hop bitterness and a sturdy 6.4% alcohol. This beer appeals most to those who know the craft beer canon and isn't looking for something extreme or gimmicky, but just wants a well-crafted, unique and satisfying beer. This is what I reach for at the end of most days."

For Gibson, a beer is a composition that crafts several tastes into a balanced concoction of flavor and sensation - something that adds feeling or experience to its drinker.

"A quality beer is a composition, well-crafted so that all the pieces come together into something cohesive, graceful, and balanced," Gibson said. "There are a lot of craft breweries out there that are just throwing in excessive amounts of hops, or fruit and flavors, or making overly sweet trendy beers that lack any grace or balance. These beers may be popular, but that doesn't mean they’re quality. To me, the challenge of making a quality beer isn't about thinking what can I add to a beer, but more about what can I take away."

New South Brewery is another Myrtle Beach brewery that experiments with new beer batches weekly. This week's unique flavor is Peach Gobbler, a play on peach cobbler with a vanilla, lactose, cinnamon and peach taste to it that has been a hit with customers in the past, said owner David Epstein.

"It's an interesting beer, it actually tastes like you’re drinking a pie itself," New South Brewmaster Jilly Gardener said.

Gardener said the process of making a beer begins with him having a thought or a certain taste in his head for a grain brew, and then he begins to work his way backwards to creating a delicious final draft.

"Dave and I work together to kind of bring a recipe to life," Gardener said. "We may do a small batch and see where that gets us. We’ve had a lot of success, but we’ve also had a lot of beers that we’ve shot for and we still haven't hit that we need to go back to and revisit. It's trial and error, it's like being in the kitchen."

All of the breweries featured thus far and then some are part of Visit Myrtle Beach's new beer trail, a multimedia guide and list of 10 craft breweries and several beer-themed attractions located across the Myrtle Beach area.

"The Myrtle Beach area is emerging as a destination filled with unique culinary and cultural experiences that include diverse microbreweries serving locally inspired, artisanal beers but also provide flavorful menus, trendy atmospheres and lively entertainment that welcome the entire family," said Karen Riordan, Visit Myrtle Beach President and CEO. "We’re very pleased to partner with our community's brewmasters and showcase their diverse talents and venues within the new Myrtle Beach Beer Trail."

Wayward followers of the Myrtle Beach Beer Trail can utilize a digital passport using their mobile devices to check-in at various locations along the trail and unlock exciting prize opportunities, or chart the trail the old fashioned way using a printed guide, Riordan said.

Like the ebbing tide of the Atlantic Ocean shore, the Grand Strand continues to pull in new, talented brewers and flavor artisan ready to create new combinations of beer, down to the very grain as well as nomadic taste-hunters searching for a special new draft.

Reach out to Chase Duncan at [email protected].

"To us, it's all. That's what we pour our lives into."

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