5 minute read
Tarboro Brewing Company
The joke around the craft brewing scene is that it takes a village to raise a pint.
Although it certainly rings true for most breweries, it hits particularly close to home at Tarboro Brewing Co. e brewery, which opened in April, possesses the fingerprints of the Tarboro community on everything from the plumbing and electrical work to the beer itself. at was the deliberate plan of Inez and Stephen Ribustello, the owners of the Tarboro Brewery Co., who also own a popular restaurant, On e Square.
“ e reason it’s called Tarboro Brewing Company is because it was made by the people of Tarboro,” said Inez Ribustello, a Tarboro native herself.
“Our general contractor lives a couple of houses away from us,” Stephen added. “We used a local plumber, a local electrician, we tried to use as many local entities as we could, even in the construction and then onto the employees.”
With three Edgecombe County natives among the core group of four at the center of the operation, that vision for a community-feeling has permeated into the staff as well.
Brewmaster Price Miller, another Tarboro High School graduate, said he had a dream once that a bakery opened up next to the brewery on Main Street and that the brewery was going to sell locally made pretzels with the beer. at is the type of vision that everyone involved in the Tarboro Brewing Co. hopes to create around Tarboro.
“It feels good to say ‘I’m from here, we’re all local and we’re here to serve our locals,’” Miller said. “We wouldn’t be here at all working without the local people who invested their time and money into this idea.” e idea for a craft brewery in Tarboro was not unique to the Ribustellos. Franklin Winslow was walking down Main Street when he passed an old car dealership building that became the future home of Tarboro Brewing Co.
“I was walking down Main Street one evening and seeing this building that I hadn’t noticed the entire time I was growing up,” Winslow recalled while talking on the phone from Pennsylvania, where he works for a brewery in Philadelphia.
“I stopped to look in the windows and I saw this wonderful space in the front area and thought to myself … I bet that would be great for a brewpub or something. I took a few more steps and remembered it’s got this whole area in the back and I realized this isn’t a brewpub anymore, it’s a full brewery with a taproom.”
With the craft brewing market growing steadily in Eastern North Carolina, the industry is giving new life to various communities. e success of Mother Earth in Kinston and Duck Rabbit in Farmville has given the Ribustellos hope they can resurrect the image of the town.
“At one time, Tarboro was a flourishing town,” Inez said. “When my grandparents were doing business here, it was a place to stop along the way. People were coming to visit this gorgeous old historic town. I just feel like this is an opportunity to create something that makes people want to come and see (the town).”
Part of that vision includes beers that are representative of the area – a blue-collar, hard-working, tight-knit town.
Some craft breweries across the country are focused on artisanal ingredients and introducing the consumer to new and unique flavors. But then there is the segment that sticks to the traditions of an industry built upon making a product that was meant to be shared with the rest of the community.
Each has its merits, but it was very clear from the start it made sense for this venture to lean toward tradition.
“Stephen and I tended to lean toward approachable, good-
drinking “beers that had interesting flavor and stood up on their own character but good enough that you wanted to come back for another one,” Winslow said. “In all of our conversations, we kept talking about these beer styles and beers we enjoy sitting down and having a couple of because they were interesting and still had flavor without leaving your mouth tasting like shag carpeting from the hops.”
When an Indiegogo page for Tarboro Brewing Co. was created in 2013, the goal was for the taproom to open in September 2014. Yet the project ended up 20 months late.
It would be easy for the Ribustellos to point fingers at people or complain about the hardships they faced. Instead it made them realize just how big of a project they took on and motivated them more to see it through.
Unlike On e Square, which was already an existing restaurant when the couple bought it in 2002, they had to create a space for Tarboro Brewing Co. from a building that was a good template, but needed to be renovated to fit the needs of a microbrewery.
“It has been easily the hardest thing we’ve ever done in our entire lives,” Inez said. “But once you do something like this and it actually comes to fruition, you feel like you know a lot more than when you started.”
“I now know a lot more construction than I ever intended to,” Stephen quipped.
But the biggest issue might have been the one thing that jumpstarted the project in October 2014 – a grant from the N.C. Main Street Solutions program. e $200,000 was just what the brewery needed to procure the investors necessary to open, but with it came the bureaucratic red tape of a state program. e conditions of the grant made the process that much more difficult for Tarboro Brewing Co. to finally open its doors to the public.
Yet with that perseverance comes the sweet tastes of success that have slowly been pouring into the company. e taproom opened in April with fresh red paint and stainless steel fixtures highlighting the family-friendly area that includes plenty of games in addition to the bar area. And the buzz can only grow stronger as more people come in contact with the product now that the brewery is open for business on both fronts.
And if the early returns are any indication, Tarboro might be back on the map sooner rather than later.
