Brewmaster

One might not think that Louis Pasteur, President Jimmy Carter, Maytag washers and dryers and Harrisonburg native Eric Plowman have anything in common, but they do.

Beer.

The chain of events goes something like this:

Louis Pasteur invented pasteurization — the process of heating something above 180 degrees, thus killing microbes that could destroy beer, and then allowing it to cool down. President Jimmy Carter legalized home brewing in 1978, and Fritz Maytag, the great-grandson of Maytag Corporation founder F.L. Maytag, bought the Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco in 1965, which played a large role in the growth of microbreweries in the U.S.

And that’s where Eric Plowman enters the picture — from a corner brewpub located in Court Square in downtown Harrisonburg. The 35-year-old award-winning brewmaster has been living his dream and brewing beer at Calhoun’s Restaurant and Brewing Co. since its opening in 1998.

On any given day of the week, Plowman can be found in his brewery preparing his next batch of beers. The brewery, visible from the inside of the restaurant, is filled with the smell of hops and barley and the sound of classic rock blaring above the noise of the machines that grind and rinse the grain during the brewing process. This is where the magic happens, Plowman says. And in recent years, Calhoun’s has experienced a growing amount of success.

Before the days of Calhoun’s Restaurant and Brewing Co., it was simply a restaurant. Plowman’s partnership with co-owner Mike Comfort made the idea of the brewery a reality. After studying business at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., and Radford University, Plowman immersed himself in what he has called a “grassroots effort.” While he is mostly self- and book-taught, Plowman studied brewing at the Seibel Institute of Technology & World Brewing Academy in Illinois. He then came back to Harrisonburg to head up an effort that has turned into a nationally recognized, award-winning microbrewery right in the heart of “The Friendly City.”

calhouns Recently, Calhoun’s purchased the building it has been leasing for eight years for about $2 million.

“It’s a big investment for the holding company,” investor Larry Derrer says. “It’s a good investment, and we’re excited.”

Derrer and his wife Linda are retired, and decided to invest in Calhoun’s with four others. However, it was Plowman who pitched the microbrewery aspect of the restaurant.

“The concept evolved basically out of me wanting to brew beers,” Plowman says. “It was during the peak of microbreweries in the ’90s, and I had a college degree and knew the brewery angle.”

Plowman says he’s always been involved with brewing, but his love of brewing simply comes from the fact that he just likes drinking beer.

“I saw brewing as a lifestyle that coincided well with my personality,” Plowman says. “I make beers that I like, and we try to make them as authentic as we possibly can and hope others will like them as well. The angle we wanted to take here was to give people a place to enjoy good beer and good food.”

And the brews from Calhoun’s have been well-received by locals, as well as people from all corners of the world. In 2004, Plowman and his brewing assistant, Tim Brady, were recognized with a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, Colo., for their “Smokin’ Scottish.”

The festival is one of the largest in the world, and Plowman’s beer competed against brews from all over the country in the Scottish ales category. He said entering the festival was “playing with the big boys,” and while Calhoun’s may be only a small-scale local brewpub, Plowman has been creating some big taste.

In addition to his Scottish ale, his Nutbrown ale won a blue ribbon in the Microfestivus in Roanoke. Both the medal and ribbon are proudly displayed behind the bar at Calhoun’s.
However, Plowman doesn’t do all of this brewing on his own.

For the past two years, he has been working with his brewing assistant, Tim Brady. Brady worked for Calhoun’s before becoming the assistant brewer, and has been learning the ins and outs of brewing ever since.

“I had home-brewed before, but Eric has taught me pretty much everything I know,” Brady says. “It’s a fun job and it’s the kind of job I wanted.”

Plowman’s extensive brewing experience has made him a good teacher. He has taught beer appreciation classes at Blue Ridge Community College and has been a mentor to two other assistant brewers. Plowman says that because brewers all have their own way of doing things, it’s important to find someone who is willing to learn.

“Every brewer has their own little voodoo,” Plowman says. “If you want someone to learn your voodoo, you want to train them from the ground up.”

Plowman and Brady generally brew beer twice a week, and always try to have four to five beers on tap. The brewing process takes about seven hours from the time the grain is crushed until the beer is transferred to the fermentation tanks. And the entire grain-to-glass process can take two and a half to three weeks for an ale and up to eight weeks for a lager. A recently brewed batch of the award-winning Nutbrown ale consisted of 600 pounds of grain and five pounds of hops. When the brewing process was complete, the end product was nearly 2,500 pints of beer.

The equipment used in the brewery was custom-designed in Oregon to fit the space of Calhoun’s. Plowman also chose to create a cold room to store the tanks instead of having insulated tanks. The cold room is situated behind the bar, and the tanks are directly connected to the taps.

These taps get a lot of use during Calhouns’ busiest times of year, which happen around James Madison University’s family weekend and graduation, and on holidays. During St. Patrick’s Day this year, Calhoun’s offered the festive Irish Red ale and sold more than 500 pints between Friday and Monday of that weekend.

Pints of the specialty brews are a big hit, but nearly 20 percent of the beer at Calhoun’s is served in German-imported “growlers.” The growler holds nearly the equivalent to a six-pack of beer and can be filled with any of the available brews for $5.50 during Happy Hour.

Happy Hour at Calhoun’s takes place from 4:30-6:30 p.m. on weekdays and 3-9 p.m. on Sundays. Regulars buzz in and out to fill their growlers and hang out with friends. During the busy hours at Calhoun’s, Plowman can be found enjoying a drink with his customers, hanging out behind the bar or monitoring his beers.

“This is a fun industry if you enjoy other people — and the social aspect of it is very fun,” Plowman says.

And although brewing is a lot of hard work, Plowman’s laid-back attitude is exemplified in the easy going nature of the restaurant and brewery. He prides himself on brewing beers that are as authentic as possible and imports his ingredients from all over the world.

“Drinking a White Belgian here is about as close as you can come to drinking a good Belgian beer without being in Brussels,” Plowman says.

However, customers at Calhoun’s don’t need to travel abroad to enjoy European brews. They can simply stop by the locally owned and operated brewpub for a little taste of authentic Europe.