Deborah Holt Noel Visits Olde Meck, Charlotte’s Oldest Brewery.

Old Mecklenburg Brewing Beer Garden and Brauhaus truly sets itself apart from other institutions. Here on this eight acre property you can enjoy beer with friends and family in a stunning park-like oasis. Take a tour of their award-winning brewery and sample traditional German fare like brats and pretzels in the Brauhaus. I spoke with founder and beer master John Marino who shared more. John how did you come up with the concept for Old Mecklenburg? Were you inspired by the city of Charlotte or maybe Germany itself? Well a couple things came together that resulted in OMB. One started a long time ago when I was 23 and I went to work for a German manufacturing company. They asked me to go to Germany and I ended up spending five years in Europe and I just fell in love with German beer and the whole culture surrounding it. Fast forward to 2004 I was here in Charlotte the largest city in the US without a brewery at the time and so boom lightbulb moment I decided to open a brewery and make the beer that I missed. So that's it. And a lot of people are really glad that you did. So tell me about the purity law. Is it easier or harder to make a beer with just four ingredients? Well I wouldn't say it's harder or easier but what I will tell you is that you can't hide defects in pure beer. So it's very important that your quality is perfect if you're making beer with just four ingredients. The four ingredients are water, malt, hops and yeast. And the other thing that I like about the purity law is that it's a testament to the skill of the brewery when you can produce such a wide variety of wonderful beers all of which are very different from just for all natural ingredients and that's what makes me excited. John tell me about some of the traditional German dishes that are on the menu. Well you can't really get through a German meal without having potatoes, pork or cabbage and usually all three. But here at OMB we have a wide variety of American fare and healthy salads as well. Though of course we have the German staples. We have a number of sausages on the menu bratwurst, bauernwurst, knockwurst, weisswurst. We also have schnitzel which our customers love. If you want to try the sauerkraut I would recommend it in our Reuben sandwich which is fantastic. And then we also have all the German sides. And then finally of course is the Bavarian pretzel and that's our number one selling item and everybody wants to have a pretzel with a beer. What's unique about a Bavarian pretzel? They're soft on the inside and crisp on the outside and it just goes so well with beer and we make a beer cheese with our copper beer which is fantastic so people love them. Tell me about Old Mecklenburg's role in the community. I think our job is to bring people together. OMB is a social gathering place. It's really a family friendly environment. We have people of all ages you know from one year old to 70 year old. People love it here. I think there's nothing left to do but go grab a beer. Okay let's go. The Old Mecklenburg brewery and beer garden is at 4150 Yancey Road in Charlotte and they're open every day at 11 a.m. Visit them online at oldmeckbrew.com or give them a call at 704-525-5644.