Duck Rabbit The philosophy of a good brew Paul Philippon has been brewing beer for nearly 30 years and he’ll never forget the day he first heard the term “home brewing.” “I was a beer lover, like people are, and I was in college working in the summer at a research farm to make money. At the end of one day, my supervisor said he had to get home to bottle his latest batch of home brew,” Philippon said. “Bells went off in my head, so he told me to go to the Summer Meadow Herb Shop to get the ingredients, and I got started.” The first batch made by the dark-beer lover was a brown ale he described as nothing fancy, made with the hope he could just brew something that tasted like beer. “I was really happy with it,” he recalled. “I don’t know how I’d feel if I tried it today, but it was enough 30
Carolina Brew Scene
to keep me going and want to try to make more.” That was 1987 in Ithaca, N.Y., and Philippon soon started entering his brews into competitions. “My love of brewing was growing as I was getting more and more serious about it. I was enjoying it more and more, but at the same time, I saw opportunities becoming scarce in the career I was pursuing,” he said. “I felt like I saw people more talented and smarter than me struggling to get good jobs in that field, and I thought that if they were struggling, I’ve got little hope, so I took a hard, inward look at what else would make me happy.” He dove head first into brewing, attending conferences and working at other microbreweries. In 2004, Duck Rabbit was born, but the name actually came later. The brewery's Summer 2016
Rabid Duck, a Russian imperial stout, is one of the seasonal beers that takes its name from a story retold by an eavesdropping employee. “When we were brand new and hadn’t selected our name yet, we were invited to sell at the Farmville St. Patrick’s celebration,” Philippon said. “My one and only brewer at the time was in Greenville later, and someone said they tried a new beer named Rabid Duck or something.” With a laugh, he selected the name Duck Rabbit to pay homage to his past career in philosophy. The logo also has a philosophical background with a depiction of the two animals depending on the viewer’s perspective. The brewery sold about 200 barrels of beer in 2004 and has grown ever since, selling just under 8,000
