When Edward Westbrook was in college, his girlfriend, Morgan—now his wife and business partner—teased him for drinking cocktails. “I challenged him to make beer instead, and that was when homebrewing became our ‘thing’,” Morgan says. “It was pretty amazing to be able to brew a keg of beer (141 pints) for about $20. If you threw a kegger and charged $5 per cup, you could pay tuition. …I threw many keggers.”
Morgan decided after college that if beer could pay her tuition, it might as well pay her bills. “And I refused to date a lawyer,” she jokes. “That was another option for Edward, but that’s a whole different kind of work environment. So brewing is where we landed. It felt like home.”
The beery couple opened Westbrook Brewing on December 20, 2010, in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, to be close to their families—not to mention that the area had only a couple of breweries then. Five months later, they were married, and Edward brewed Mexican Cake for the wedding reception. The beer was a 10 percent ABV imperial stout with habaneros, cinnamon, vanilla, and cocoa nibs added during conditioning. “I tried to make the flavors apparent but not overwhelming,” Edward says.
“I remember when he described Mexican Cake—I thought he was a little crazy,” Morgan remembers. “But he has a gift for understanding how to mix and match flavors, so I was into it.”
The newlywed Westbrooks gave their wedding guests bottles of Mexican Cake as party favors. “It was such a huge hit that we decided to make it Westbrook Brewing’s first anniversary beer,” Morgan says. “My sweet, romantic man brews it every year in May or June for our wedding anniversary now.”
Edward’s deep understanding of flavors and passion for brewing are apparent in all of the beers at Westbrook. The company offers two year-round flagship ales: India Pale Ale, brewed with four American hops varieties; and White Thai, Westbrook’s rendition of a Belgian witbier that is inspired by Southeast Asian cuisine (it includes lemongrass and ginger root instead of the traditional coriander and orange peel). “Because we distribute in South Carolina and other southeastern states, we want to brew beers not only that we want to drink, but that also complement the weather,” Morgan says.
In addition to their flagship ales, Morgan and Edward are always experimenting with new beer styles and brewing techniques. They brew what they’re craving or what they’re inspired by.
“My Oma [paternal grandmother] is very old school, so we decided to do a few old-school German styles,” Morgan says. As a result, Westbrook has brewed Grätzer, a traditional German-style smoked wheat beer that’s hard to come by in the United States. It was a beer loaded with hops and 90 percent oak-smoked wheat malt for a smoky yet refreshing flavor.
Other German styles that Westbrook brews are an easy-drinking Märzenbier with Vienna, Munich, and Caramunich malts that is lightly hopped with German Perle hops, as well as Lichtenhainer, the brewery’s take on the traditional German Lichtenhainer Weisse—a pale, sour, and smoky wheat ale brewed with beechwood-smoked malt. They also made a barrel-aged version of Lichtenhainer that was fermented with _Brettanomyces. _
“Brewing is a lot like cooking,” says Morgan. “Deciding what styles we make is a lot like deciding what you’re going to make for dinner.”
Since Westbrook Brewing opened, Morgan and Edward have cooked up many German-style, barrel-aged, and farmhouse-style ales, among others, that are available on a rotating basis. They have created collaboration beers with the itinerant brewer, Evil Twin Brewing, and with their local craft-beer store, The Charleston Beer Exchange, whose owners have also opened what Morgan calls “a brew pub/ house of amazingness/ this-is-what-dreams-are-made-of place” called Edmunds Oast, named after an English-born brewer who came to Charleston and began brewing in the 1760s.
Morgan and Edward are in the thick of a brewing boom in the southeastern United States. “The scene in both South Carolina and the Southeast seems to be exploding. There are a lot of people opening breweries, and no one seems to mind,” says Morgan. “We are rocking a 30-barrel system and brewing twice a day. We recently extended our brewhouse with two more vessels to make things a little more efficient.”
What a way to pay the bills!