AVRFuses

Josh Quigley, David Fowlkes, Jamie Bartholomaus, Frank Hughes, Dave Merritt Vista Brewing & Bistro Columbia, South Carolina

Barton Dumas, in the scenic Vista area of Columbia, South Carolina opened Vista Brewing & Bistro in 1997.  The concept was French cuisine with fresh micro-brewed beers.  The food was excellent as the original Chef was from France, and the beers equally as fabulous.  Unfortunately the bars focus was on mixed drinks and Bud/Miller/Coors and the beers never were the highlighted or promoted by management.

The original brewer was Josh Quigley, who was running a home brew store in Charleston, SC called Charleston Beer Works, and brewing at the original T-Bonz Brewery in Mt. Pleasant, S.C.  Josh would travel once every other week or so to the brewery to maintain the brews, serving tanks, and to do general upkeep and brewery maintenance.  The brewery was composed of a small seven-barrel Specific Mechanical brew house system with three seven-barrel fermenters.  Josh had installed similar system in Mt. Pleasant at his T-Bonz brewery and he was to leave his brewing equipment mark on Columbia as well.   Grundy tanks were utilized as serving tanks, and they were located in a walk-in cooler in the basement of the old brick building.  That walk-in also housed all of the food for the restaurant so working in that space had its challenges!

Water would be heated by the restaurant staff the night before a brew day in the kettle, and when Josh would arrive he would mash-in using pre-crushed Briess malts and then scramble to re-fill the kettle and boil the water needed to sparge the mash.  That hot water was transferred to the fermenter to be used later in the brew day, and that would serve to act as additional sanitation on that tank.  It was not uncommon to arrive and the water to be used for the mash-in to be cold, adding to the length of the brew day.  Once mash and the sparge began the kettle would be filled and the small Bistro would fill with the sweet smell of hot wort!  After the beers had fermented and been conditioned, all of the beers would be filtered using plate and frame filtration.

The standard beers were Tanny Ale – golden ale named after the USC Quarterback, Scottish Ale, Raspberry Wheat, and Pale Ale.  A fifth tap was offered up as the “Brewers Choice” and these were usually the best beers on tap.

Josh began to work on new projects for T-Bonz, like planning the opening of Liberty Steakhouse & Brewery in Myrtle Beach at Broadway at the Beach and he needed to pass on the torch as part-time brewer for Barton and the Vista.  He found David Fowlkes in Athens, GA awaiting the chance to run his first brewery solo.

David’s professional brewing career began in his hometown of Athens, Georgia in 1994 where he worked as an administrator for now-deceased Double Barrel Brewing Company. But it wasn’t until his next employment opportunity, a two-year stay as an assistant brewer for Marthasville Brewing, that Fowlkes experienced hands-on, large scale brewing.  David left Marthasville before the microbrewery, one of Georgia’s first, folded.  He headed to Columbia, S.C. to take over for Josh.