It’s not surprising that Birdsong Brewing Co. owners, Chris and Tara Goulet, were named two of 2019’s ‘Charlotteans of the Year’ a group selected for making the city of Charlotte, NC a better place to live. With a strong commitment to the environment and to giving back to the community, the two founders of Birdsong Brewing Co. do more than just brew great beer. Birdsong Brewing Co. was one of Charlotte’s first craft breweries and is the first in the Queen City to embrace solar power. Birdsong Brewing Co. is now Charlotte’s go-to destination for culinary-inspired, super-fresh, unfiltered American-style ales.
Spotlight on Business chatted with Tara and Chris Goulet, founders and co-owners of Birdsong Brewing Co. to talk about their commitment to the environment, local charities and really great beer.
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Tara and Chris Goulet came into the brewery business from different careers. Chris has been at Bank of America for almost 10 years while Tara had been managing a bread franchise, running ovens and managing staff in two different locations. Chris was ready for a break from the corporate grind and both begin thinking about a project of their own. “At that time, there weren’t any craft breweries in Charlotte at all. We visited friends and family in different parts of the country where they had these great little neighborhood breweries. We felt like Charlotte was missing that,” said Tara.
A friend who had started homebrewing sparked the idea for the Goulets. “Conor’s homebrew was a good catalyst because we realized just how good his beer was,” said Chris. Conor Robinson signed on as an early partner in the brewery.
Chris enjoys telling the story of naming the brewery while on a research trip to Asheville, NC. He, Tara and
Robinson had traveled to Asheville in 2010 to learn more about the brewery business.
“We visited about nine breweries that day and managed to get to talk to either a brewer or an owner at almost every place. I had booked us a room in a hostel that was one block away from Asheville Brewing because I figured one block was a good goal after nine breweries. We all ended up having to share the same room. It was a big room, but I heard what I swore was a sparrow trapped in the room. So, I got up and opened all the windows. Then I realized that there was no bird. It was just Conor snoring,” said Chris. Chris related the story over the next morning’s coffee and pitched the idea of calling the brewery Birdsong. It stuck.
Birdsong Brewing Co. opened December 9, 2011 with a friends and family night. “A lot of people who had been watching us along the way showed up for that night. We also had a lot of people who just happened to walk in who we didn’t know. A lot of those people have remained loyal customers to this day,” said Chris.
Birdsong began with just two full-time employees and has grown to 31 full time and 6 part time. The culture at Birdsong is laid-back, music oriented and flexible. “We try not to be overly structured or bureaucratic where we can avoid it. Sometimes you really can’t avoid it because America is very proud of bureaucracy. At nine years in, we’re a pretty close-knit group,” said Chris. Eight employees have been with the company six years or more.
After starting out with a ten-barrel system in their original space, Birdsong Brewing Co. purchased a 17,000 square
foot building in the Belmont neighborhood of Charlotte and expanded to a 30-barrel brewhouse with room for up to 1,200 barrels of fermentation capacity. The new facility opened in early 2015 and the new taproom opened in April of 2015. The unique taproom doesn’t have a TV, giving guests the chance to interact with each other without outside distractions.
The Goulets didn’t set out to become Charlotte’s first solar powered brewery, although they had contemplated implementing a solar array even while leasing space in 2012. After moving to the new facility, an opportunity arose to make it happen. Chris goes on to say, “We had the good fortune of releasing a beer that did incredibly well and sold more than double our expectations for that particular brand.”
The brewery used the windfall to pay for a solar installation and, in 2018, installed a 75 kilowatt array on the roof of the brewery. “We’ve always tried, from the very beginning, to reduce our footprint and be as sustainable as possible, even as basic as cardboard recycling which we’ve done from day one. On a sunny day in Charlotte, the panels power the entire brewery and during the middle of the day we’re actually net metering back to the grid. So, we power everything we use, and we get paid. It’s also a handy marketing tool, which is nice,” said Chris.
“As a mid-size distributing brewery, we consume a large amount of power for HVAC, walk-in coolers, glycol chillers, air compressors, etc. Our goal was to cut our power bill by 40%. So far, we’ve been successful. On top of that we’ve reduced carbon emissions substantially. It’s the equivalent of planting over 7,000 trees, project to date.”
Other green initiatives include partnering with local farmers to use spent grain and peanut shells as supplemental feed for livestock, an onsite nitrogen generator to reduce CO2, LED lighting, and a tracking system to monitor and reduce water consumption. As a Bicycle Benefits business, the brewery also rewards customers who choose to ride a bicycle to the brewery.
But it’s really about the beer:
Birdsong produces five core beers. “The Jalapeño Pale Ale is the most unique of the five. It has a cult following. We had been to a beer festival where one brewery brought a pale ale and they were pushing it through an inline water filter that they had filled with cut up peppers – really hot peppers. The aroma was really great, the flavor was good, but it was so spicy that you couldn’t really drink more than a couple sips,” said Tara.
The brewery decided to try something similar, removing most of the seeds to create the aroma and flavor without the heat. “We didn’t have it available every day because it was a pain to set up the inline filter and cut up the peppers every day,” said Tara. However, the ale’s popularity grew so quickly the brewery figured out how to produce it on a larger scale.
The brewery’s Higher Ground IPA, a West Coast style IPA named after the song by Stevie Wonder, is their number 
one seller. “That recipe just does not lend itself to being in a can, so we keep it draft only. It’s a heavily dry-hopped West coast style IPA. We get a lot of social media hits when we have a flood warning in Charlotte and we tell people to seek Higher Ground,” according to Chris.
The Lazy Bird Brown Ale is Tara’s go to beer. Tara goes on to say, “It has lots of good roasted character from the malt, but without being too heavy. It’s light to medium bodied and doesn’t have a lingering sweetness.”
Paradise City Session IPA was the next to be added to the year-round lineup. Tara adds, “We wanted to have an IPA that we could put in a can. It’s a 4.8% IPA and it’s a little more of the grassy, dank quality for the hops. We add oats to the mash which adds body, so the mouthfeel is more like a regular IPA.”
Last is the Rewind Lager. “Conor always wanted to make a Pilsner style. The water profile in Charlotte is almost exactly the same as Western Czech Republic. Once he learned that, he was hell bent on figuring out how to make a Pilsner. Until two years ago, we didn’t really have enough fermentation space to do it because it’s so much slower. So, we’re excited to finally have it,” said Chris.
Experimenting with different beers and series of beers is part of the fun for the brewers. The brewery offers five seasonal beers, taking advantage of Charlotte’s long summers to add an extra summer beer. The brewery also creates a set of series beers, alternating between an IPA series and a Sour with a few others thrown in for fun. Birdsong celebrates this creativity with a new, weekly limited release in the taproom every “Thursty Thursday.”
The company walks the walk when it comes to giving back to the local community. Chris explains, “We made a 
conscious decision several years back that we would intentionally focus on small non-profits that don’t have large corporate sponsors. A couple of cases of beer or a keg for a fundraiser makes a big difference.”
It’s clear they do make a big difference. In 2018, Birdsong supported over 165 organizations and neighbors benefiting animals, clean water, bicycling, LGBT rights, human health, arts & music and education. In addition to financial contributions, the brewery donated over 6900 beers and 100 gift baskets. Their list of formal sponsorships includes Birdsong Cyclocross Team, CharMeck Adopt-A-Stream – Little Sugar Creek, Charlotte Pride, Charlotte Visitors Bureau, Charlotte Knights Baseball Team, Sustain Charlotte and WNCW.
The brewery also hosts a bi-annual clean-up of Little Sugar Creek which runs beside the brewery and offers a prize for the most unique items found in the creek. So far, the winners have included a purple toilet and a coyote skull.
Birdsong beers are available across all of the Carolinas, both North and South Carolina. “We do our own distribution in the greater Charlotte Metro area. Outside of that, we partner with six wholesale partners who help distribute our product in the surrounding large markets like Greensboro, Raleigh, Asheville, Columbia, etc. We haven’t gotten full distribution yet to the coast of North Carolina, we hope to do that within the next year,” said Chris.
The brewery has no plans to expand beyond the Carolinas, noting that the quality of the beer can suffer when it 
travels long distances. Tara goes on to say, “We’ve seen firsthand how beer, when it travels far, does not always hold up well. We’re very interested in keeping a close eye on quality. We made the decision that we really like being a local Carolina brewery.”
For local beer lovers, as well as the whole city of Charlotte, that’s a very good thing.
by Anita Flowers