Coastie, wife open AVDET Brewing microbrewery

from U.S. Coast Guard Edition - 2022

Manning helps public affairs unit respond after emergencies

BY PAUL NIELSEN Staff Writer

Senior Chief Mark Napolitano is burning the candle at both ends. By day, Napolitano serves at Air Station Elizabeth City. The rest of the time Napolitano and his wife, Jennifer, are at AVDET Brewing in the city, a craft beer microbrewery the couple opened on May 21 after more than a year of planning.

Being a Coast Guard family, coming up with the brewery’s name was the easy part of starting the business. AVDET is short for a military “aviation detachment.” Napolitano is assigned to the H-60 helicopter division at the base, dealing mainly with training responsibilities.

Mark Napolitano not only owns the brewery along with his wife but he is started to master at home in 1994. The couple also pour beer for customers, clean the kegs and do everything else associated with owning a small business.

“We spend a lot of our off time there,” Napolitano said. “I spend about 50 to 60 hours at the brewery when I am not the here (at Coast Guard base).’’

Jennifer doesn’t spend as much time at the brewery as she also works for Sentara Healthcare and at the Chesapeake Regional Breast Center in Virginia. “Even when we are closed on Monday and Tuesday, we are at the brewery doing this or that. There really is no off time.”

The couple’s workload is less now that the brewery is open. They both helped with renovations to the brew house, taproom and patio.

“It is a whole lot nicer now not having all that build out,” Napolitano said. “It’s more fun to brew beer and out. I’m glad I am not making 12 trips to Lowe’s every day.’’

AVDET — Elizabeth City’s third craft brewery— in located in a portion of the Kenyon Bailey Supply building at 407 McArthur Drive. they don’t mind the work. Mark Napolitano will begin his 28th year in the Coast Guard early next month and has been stationed in Elizabeth City for two years.

“We have one employee who opens up until I get done with my day job (with the Coast Guard),” Napolitano said.

Napolitano said business has been good and that customers have enjoyed the eight beers that usually are on tap.

“So far so good,” he said. “Everybody is digging what we are brewing. I haven’t had any negative reviews. People seem to really like the space, it is comfortable.”

Napolitano said that a lot of Coasties have been enjoying the beer but that a lot of “civilians” also frequent the taproom.

The couple settled on the location because it needed less renovation work and it allows the brewery to have an outside patio.

AVDET has a 3½-barrel production system that is capable of producing 450 barrels of craft beer a year. Most of that equipment was bought and paid for well over a year before the brewery opened and was stored in the Napolitanos’ garage waiting for a new home.

Mark Napolitano poses next to the taps in the new brewery, AVDET Brewing Company, he and his wife Jennifer are opening in Elizabeth City. Napolitano is also an active duty Coastie at the Elizabeth City Coast Guard base. Submitted photo

process of opening AVDET in February 2021 when they asked the city to allow microbreweries outside of the Central Business District. They said at the time that locating downtown was not an option because they couldn’t

City Council approved amending its zoning rules to allow microbreweries outside the Central Business District. That change now allows microbreweries in General Business, Highway Business, Light Industrial and Planned Unit Development-Mixed Use districts across the city.

The brewery submitted its special use permit application with the city last September and the city’s Board of brewery last December.

Napolitano is eligible for retirement from the Coast Guard but he has no immediate plans to make AVDET his only full-time job.