Pilot Brewing Company: Taking it Back to Small Batch

Pilot Brewing Company:
Taking it Back to Small Batch

Malteurop Celebrates Craft Breweries During American Craft Beer Week

The annual nationwide event of American Craft Beer Week, May 16-22, 2022, celebrates small and independent craft breweries throughout the U.S. Malteurop (MMC) is proud to highlight just a few of these remarkable breweries through their stories behind the beer. Let’s raise a glass to salute the resilient and extraordinary community that is craft beer!

About Pilot Brewing Company

Pilot Brewing Company was born out of a passion for entrepreneurship and beer. Meet Rachael Hudson, owner and brewer at Pilot Brewing Company in Charlotte, North Carolina. Always knowing that she wanted to open a business, but not knowing that it would be a brewery until she started brewing herself, this is Rachel’s story as much as it is Pilot’s.

“So much of me is my brewery.”

At 19, Rachael found her way into the beer industry as a beer server at a local restaurant that served a lot of different beers. Knowing nothing about craft beer at the time, she used her five years spent there as an opportunity to learn all about beer styles and service.

Wanting more, she jumped on the opportunity to work at Richmond, Virginia’s newest brewery back in 2010. Knowing that she just had to get her foot in the door at Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, she approached them with offers of doing anything, even sweeping the floors.

Her enthusiasm for both beer and education paid off, and she was onboard from day one when they opened. Spending the next two and a half years there, she learned the brewing side of things and did everything including bottling and kegging.

With serving and brewing skills under her belt, she took a leap, and she and her husband moved to Longmont, Colorado, where she brewed on a much larger scale at Left Hand Brewing Company. But Colorado was never meant to be home. Jeff, her husband and current business partner at Pilot, is a pilot, and commuting from his home base of Philadelphia to Longmont on his days off was taking a toll.

But around this same time an idea for owning a business together was taking shape. Making their way back east, the two moved to Charlotte, North Carolina with plans for Pilot Brewing Company finally coming to fruition. But being an entrepreneur, let alone a brewery owner, is not easy. So Rachael took on a job at NoDa Brewing Company in Charlotte for two years while working on opening up Pilot.

And in 2018, Racheal’s entrepreneurial spirit and perseverance was finally rewarded. Pilot Brewing Company opened its doors as a small three barrel nano brewery.

“We wanted to have fun, keep it fresh, keep it small!”

The Story Behind the Name

Names behind the beers usually have stories, and it’s no different when it comes to the names behind breweries. Pilot Brewing may seem obvious, since one of the owners is a professional pilot. However, there’s more to it than that.

In the brewing world, a pilot system is a small batch system allowing brewers to get a bit funky, a bit quirky, and a bit creative with their beers. Rachael knew she always wanted to be innovative with her beers. Always wanted to have new beers on tap, so the pilot system works well in both practice and in name.

A Passion for Brewing

“I have that entrepreneurial will in me so when I got into beer I knew it was going to be a brewery.”

Rachael has a passion for beer and brewing, but her passion doesn’t stop there. It continues on with her strive for excellence through continued education in the Cicerone Certification Program.

Currently studying to become one of less than 30 people in the world to hold a Master Cicerone status, she already holds her Advanced Cicerone Certification making her one of less than 200 that have earned that high honor.

And once she obtains her Master Cicerone, she’s still only just begun.

“Gaining a Masters is just the beginning. There’s so much more to dive into even afterwards. That’s how I thrive in my beer world life. I keep studying. I keep learning more. It really is a lifestyle. There’s no end to learning.”

A Brewery…and a Podcast

Rachael said it, “There’s no end to learning.” And on the opposite side of that, there’s no end to teaching, and there’s no end to community. That’s where her podcast comes into play. It’s a place where she can gather her community, provide them with a space to learn about the beer world, and to laugh while doing so.

False Bottomed Girls is titled in honor of what sits on the bottom of the mash tun and allows the wort to separate from the spent grains. Racheal and her podcast partner, Jen Blair, use it as a pun. Their goal being to help separate their listeners through this crazy world of beer knowledge and figure it out.

Jen and Rachael talk about all things beer in a casual style, making complicated beer terminology relatable. “It’s just Jen and me being Jen and me.”

There’s Always Something New Being Piloted

You can’t have a pilot without a co-pilot. And the same holds true for Pilot Brewing’s Pilot System. Continuing with the play on words, Pilot Brewing’s Co-Pilot system creates small batch brews. It’s those experimental brews and continuously rotating batches that Pilot is becoming well known for.

Because of their small size, they can brew special beers at a moment’s notice, and Rachael loves the ingenuity behind their ability to do so. While they do have three flagship beers, they have plenty of room for their ever-changing tap list of at least 15 beers, with a new release almost every Friday.

Rachel is never done learning nor brewing. While she enjoys the experimental, she also likes to brew within style guidelines, staying true to traditions. Pilot is the only brewery in Charlotte to have a pub ale (an ESB), which is quite popular.

And their taproom is just as quaint and intimate as their Pilot and Co-Pilot Brew Systems. Combine that with the fact that everyone at Pilot knows both bartending and brewing, and they are all at the very least Beer Server Certified, sitting at the bar here, you might just feel like a brewer yourself.

“For the most part, everyone has their hands on both sides (bartending and brewing). And being so small we can do that. So when you come in you can sit at the bar and you can talk to the bartender about brewing and ask any questions.”

Brewing Up Community

Known for their constantly rotating taps and small batch brews, Pilot is also well known as a community brewery. A “Cheers” style place where everybody knows your name, and everybody can brew.

And this means everyone, from homebrewers, to collab brew days with other breweries, to Joe Schmoe off the street who just won a brew day at Pilot from one of their many community sponsored events supporting local non-profits.

“I just can’t wait for the day when random people in Charlotte say, ‘Oh yeah I’ve brewed a beer at Pilot.’”

Pilot’s Charity of the Month program is another way they have embedded themselves firmly in the community. Every month, Pilot sponsors a charity program, and this doesn’t just mean giving proceeds from a beer off the board. This means they actually brew a beer specifically for that charity, and they get the proceeds from their beer. It’s full circle when a nonprofit gets the funds they need and Pilot welcomes more people into their community.

“When you invite the community to brew, it’s a great way to get community support, along with unique and fun recipes. And people love it.”

Moving Forward with Malteurop Malting Company

As a brewery that is continuously seeking out new recipes and releasing new beers every week, they need a malting company that can keep up with their ever changing malt needs. Malteurop is that company. Known for their malt efficiency, consistency, and innovative products to give brewers exactly what they need and when they need it, it was no surprise when Pilot signed on to brew a beer with MMC’s newest malt, Munich 5L.

Munich 5L provides a rich malty, slightly bready flavor alongside a nutty aroma with golden yellow to light amber hues. The optimum malt for a Munich Helles.

Which is why Rachael decided to showcase Malteurop’s Munich 5L by brewing a Munich Helles (95% Munich 5L and 5% Dextrin for head retention) as a collaboration with Gilde 1546, also from Charlotte.

“This is the first beer I’ve done with this high of a percentage of Munich Malt. This is going to have more toasted bread crust character and a deeper golden color compared to most Munich Helles’ you’ve ever seen. I’m really looking forward to this.”

Brewing for American Craft Beer Week

Releasing new beers weekly and hosting community events are nothing new for Pilot Brewing. So when American Craft Beer Week comes around, you should expect the same, new beer releases and fun community events. That’s just how they roll. Or should I say, fly! American Craft Beer Week is an everyday occurrence at Pilot.

Getting Personal with Beer

Asking Rachael who she is outside of beer proved to be a tough question for her. “So much of me is my brewery.”

But everyone needs a break every once in a while. And for her, it’s a chance to get out of town with her dogs. A day away. But then her words circled back around to the community at Pilot. While much of her is the brewery, a lot of her is also the community.

“I’m always having a conversation about what beer we can brew with the next person, or what’s our next collab with a local shop or non profit or other brewery. I’m always thinking, ‘I want to brew a beer for this person.’”

Being so attached to the brewing life, we had to ask how Rachael would describe herself through a beer. In other words, “If you were a beer, what beer would you be and why?”

Only hesitating for a moment, her answer was quick and concise.

“I would be a Belgian beer because that is where I want to live. I went there for my honeymoon and it’s so laissez-faire. They do what they want and maybe (the business) we’re open and maybe we’re not. If I could live my life like that, it would be great.”

Thank You!

Rachael has ingrained herself in Pilot. So much of herself is Pilot and the community it embodies.

“So much of my time is spent here (Pilot Brewing). And that’s ok. I love it.”

Galen Smith, MMC’s Southeast Craft Sales Manager understands this connection, too.

“I’m thankful for the relationships built while brewing.”

Both Rachael and Galen strive to make sure great beer is available to consumers. But on a deeper level, they both know that beer is more about the community and the relationships built. And that’s precisely what MMC stives for, relationships and community.

“Malteurop has been awesome to work with because Galen is so great at checking in and staying in touch. They’ve been really great to work with and their malt is great.”

Thanks, Rachael, for pushing boundaries with new malts, brewing with your community, and for keeping the beer flowing. We can only hope that here at Malteurop we are doing the same for you.