On Saturday, February 11, through the awesomeness of Skype I
interviewed Chip Jones and Lucas Simmons, two of the fine folks from Lucky Town Brewing Company, a new craft brewery getting on their feet in Jackson,
Mississippi. They currently have a Kickstarter project underway to help them acquire
a bit more capital. Chip leads Lucky Town’s sales, marketing, and distribution
efforts, while Lucas is the brewmaster looking to redefine the Mississippi beer
scene.
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| These folks are pioneers for awesome Mississippi beer. (From left to right, Angela Aiello, Brandon Blacklidge, Lucas Simmons, Chip Jones) |
Tell us a little bit
about yourself, how did you get started in brewing beer?
Lucas: I started
brewing back when I graduated college and I was working at Nissan’s Canton
Plant here in Mississippi. And a fellow engineer who worked alongside me for a
couple of years, we both started talking about it. He actually grew up in
Germany and he thought our beer selection was deplorable and he lived in
Tennessee for a very long time. He decided we should just make our own. I
asked, “You know how to do that?” He said, yeah. So we started brewing in his
garage and within a month I was building my own equipment, I built a kegarator
and it kind of exploded from there and has been going on about nine years now.
I’m just getting better equipment, doing a lot more styles.
Chip: I come from
a design oriented background, earned my degree in architecture from Mississippi
State University. That is where Lucas and I met in college, we were both
members of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity and growing up in Mississippi I
wasn’t even aware that you could make your own beer until I learned from Lucas
that he had been doing it for years, so I got interested in it and started
learning a little bit through him and doing my own research so that is how I
got into it.
Tell me a bit about
the Mississippi region where you plan on starting?
Lucas: The
Jackson metro area, but that depends on a few things. We call ourselves Lucky
Town because that is the rough translation of Gluckstadt where I have been
brewing for the last nine years. We are going to end up somewhere in this
region.
What advantages does
it bring?
Chip: Jackson is
the largest metro area in Mississippi, it runs about 620,000 residents in a
five county area and there are a lot of statistics that back up our decision to
locate here. Mississippi consistently ranks in the top 15 states for beer
consumption per capita, even though we have some of the strictest beer laws in
the nation which is kind of ironic. Mississippi ranks last in breweries per
capita. Currently there is only one brewery in Mississippi [ed. Lazy Magnolia] and that brewery is 150 miles away from Jackson.
That is the nearest brewery. A lot of people talk about how there are so many
breweries in America that anybody lives within 10 to 20 miles from one. Well
that is definitely not the case in Mississippi.
There has been a push
for southern brewing styles incorporating southern culture and elements into
their beer, how are you planning on working that into your brewery and your
beer?
Lucas: We like to
use anything we can local. We believe the same thing and we want to use
southern styles. It is like our Stout of the Rising Sun that we have done which
is completely southern pit barbeque beer. We are going to do as much as we can
to keep it that way. The South is very proud of itself and they like to see
things that represent it.
Chip: I think one
advantage is that the southeast US is not as saturated with breweries as most
regions of the country are so it lends itself to more opportunities for unique
beers and experimentation with regional ingredients and local techniques that
you won’t find in other areas.
What has been the
most challenging part of launching Lucky Town Brewery?
Chip: I would say
being in Mississippi, kind of like how I didn’t know you could make your own
beer, it would be the education part. Many people here don’t realize how far
behind we are not just in craft beer, but the beer industry. We are trying to
get people to realize that this is something that we can all get behind, it is
something we can support, it is a very natural process, we can locate anywhere,
it is not as harsh an industry as chemicals or textiles or what have you. I
think once we get people to realize that you can have your own local brewery we
will get people behind it.
Mississippi is known
for its restrictive, and some might argue draconian alcohol laws. How are you
negotiating that?
Lucas: We are
restricted at the moment to session beers and that is ok, it doesn’t really
bother us to much, we would like to see that change eventually, but we can
still make great beer. I know the trend right now is to make big body, extreme,
high gravity beer and hopefully we will get to make some of those in small
batches when these laws eventually get changed, but right now we can make some
amazing session beers and that is a good starting point for us. We feel that
with the Raise Your Pints movement and Lazy Magnolia pushing on a few things
that if it doesn’t get changed this year eventually it will, so we can start
with small stuff and then hopefully by the time we are fully up and running we
will have the opportunity to do what we want.
How do you feel you
can differentiate yourselves from other beer across the south?
Lucas: They all
make great beer and so we find ourselves doing styles that they haven’t hit yet
and we try to do things a little more extreme, we add unique stuff. It is kind
of hard with as many breweries that are out there to be original these days,
but I think you still can.
Chip: Our motto
is to be bold and rediscover beer. We take that outlook in all aspects of the
business. Anytime we make a decision we look back at that and does it met the
criteria of being bold. That is how we have come up with the styles and goes
with everything from the kind of pint glasses we choose to the type of designs
we choose with our graphics and labels. We apply it to everything. Our biggest
competitor is not other craft breweries; it is Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors.
We are just trying to get people to try something outside of the box. You don’t
have to buy the same beer day in and day out.
Sometimes imposed
limits, particularly the alcohol restrictions, force you to innovate in other
ways, how is Lucky Town approaching that?
Lucas: We are trying
to get more creative with it. Take an imperial stout, you can add so much
flavor to it and you are not really messing with the style. You can do the same
thing with a low-bodied stout, you just have to be a lot more careful. You have
your extreme beers now and all of them are high gravity, I think eventually you
will see people getting a little more creative with normal session beers. It is
going right now where everybody is drinking these huge high gravity beers, but
eventually I think you will see people get creative with small bodied beers
just the same.
.........................................
That’s it for Part 1, but stay tuned folks there will be more tomorrow in Part 2 where Chip
and Lucas go into detail about Lucky Town's beer, why they chose Kickstarter, and what they have planned for the future. In the meantime, check out their Kickstarter project and chip in a few bucks
to help make a better beer world.
For more information on Lucky Town Brewing check out their
website, facebook page, follow them on twitter, or see what they are drinking on Untappd.
Want to help change the beer laws in Mississippi? Go check
out the efforts of Raise Your Pints.
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