'Beer evangelist' Jason Wilson shares Back Forty Beer story with Hoover chamber

When Jason Wilson started Back Forty Beer Co. in 2009, it was one of only two craft breweries in Alabama. Ten years later, there are 53 licensed operators in the state and another half a dozen planning to open, he said.

Wilson shared his story of helping build a new industry from the ground up with the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce today at the Hoover Country Club.

It’s a story of a man who found his passion and followed it and who wasn’t afraid to experience failure on the road to success.

Wilson is a fifth-generation Alabamian from Gadsden who went on to Auburn University and then became a supply chain analyst for the Georgia-Pacific pulp and paper company.

In the late 1990s, he was visiting his brother in Crested Butte, Colorado, when his brother took him to a craft brewery there. Wilson was enthralled with the authenticity and craftsmanship and fell in love with the industry.

Later, after he had visited about 200 breweries across the country, he was giving a presentation in front of Georgia-Pacific’s CEO in Atlanta when he made numerous references to breweries as he described the design for a new Georgia-Pacific facility.

FOLLOWING DREAMS

The CEO took him aside after the meeting, told him he was still young and suggested he follow his dreams as it relates to breweries. That afternoon, Wilson called the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and told the assistant director he wanted a license to manufacture beer in Alabama. The official told him they hadn’t given out that kind of license in Alabama since Prohibition.

But Wilson spent the next year developing a concept. He raised $36,000 from five family members and friends and found a brewery in Mississippi that would let him make his beer there until he could build his own place.

For 18 months, on the weekends, he would drive from Atlanta to Kiln, Mississippi, and brew beer all day Saturday and half a day Sunday. Then in 2009, he started Back Back Forty Beer Co. in Gadsden.

To make the craft beer industry successful, Wilson and other brewers over time lobbied and got seven “sweeping pieces of legislation” passed through the Alabama Legislature that changed the dynamics for the brewing industry in the state, he said.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

The industry now employs hundreds of people in Alabama and has revitalized some rural communities that depend heavily on those jobs, he said. Breweries in Alabama now have almost a $1 billion economic impact on the state, according to the Brewers Association of America.

He and other brewers had to overcome some stereotypes about alcohol in Alabama, but they have slowly gained acceptance, he said.“Those same little, old ladies that weren’t excited about us opening our operation in downtown Gadsden are the same ones that pinch me on the butt walking down Broad Street now and tell me how proud they are of us,” Wilson said. “It takes a while, but they come around.”

Even his mother, who had wanted him to go into the ministry, now is able to joke and tell everybody he is a “beer evangelist,” he said.

The Back Forty Beer Co. has had much success. Its first beer brand, called Truck Stop Honey, won a silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver and was the first beer from Alabama to ever win there. “That’s the Academy Awards of beers,” Wilson said.

The company makes about 6 million bottles of beer at its 27,000-square-foot facility in Gadsden and sells to 37 Budweiser wholesalers in seven states and exports beer to China, Mexico, Canada, Malaysia and Holland, he said.

ACCOLADES

Food & Wine Magazine said Back Forty Beer Co. makes one of the best beers in America. Men’s Journal called it one of the 50 best breweries in America, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce named Back Forty Beer one of the top 100 small businesses in the country.

A franchise location across from Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, owned and run by Doug Brown, also is finding success, he said.

Wilson recently stepped down as CEO and brought in Hatton Smith, the former CEO of Royal Cup Coffee in Birmingham, to take over that role. Smith brings a ton of experience and a steady hand to guide the business operations, and “I get to go out and sell beer, which is what I’m good at.”

Wilson said one of the secrets to his success has been surrounding himself with smart people and learning to delegate. He also preaches that people in his company can’t be afraid of failure.

“We fail a lot. Failure is a good thing. It’s not only necessary to survival. It’s inevitable,” he said.

To find success, you have to be willing to push yourself, learn, innovate and be creative, he said.

But you also have to realize that “there is a right way and wrong way to fail,” he said. “Fail fast and fail cheap.”

When something isn’t working, you have to be willing to squash it and move on, he said.

CREATIVITY

But creativity also can pay off in a big way, he said. Four years ago, he had a batch of beer that became infected with a random, wild yeast. Instead of pouring 2,000 gallons of beer down the drain, he challenged his staff to come up with a way to reclaim value from it.

One employee had an idea to convert the bad beer into gourmet malt vinegar. They tried it and sent it off to big-time Birmingham chefs such as Frank Stitt and Chris Hastings, and they loved it, he said.

Somehow, Southern Living magazine got hold of it and included the malt vinegar as one of the best brands of the South for beer vinegar. Garden & Gun magazine also gave the recipe kudos, but Back Forty Beer Co. really wasn’t producing it.

That is, until, Whole Foods called and wanted to carry the beer vinegar in its stores. Wilson sharpened his pencil and made it happen, and Whole Foods is paying $96 a case for the beer vinegar, compared to the $20 per case Back Forty gets for a case of beer sold to Budweiser, Wilson said.

Stouffer’s even called and wanted to use the beer vinegar in a new dish of beer-glazed meatballs.

Wilson encouraged people at today’s luncheon to pursue their dreams and the opportunities in their various industries without being afraid of the potential outcome. “Don’t give up on your dream.”

Hoover Councilman John Lyda asked Wilson what Hoover can do to lure a craft brewery.

Wilson said the Alabama Alcohol Code currently limits brewers to one location, but some are eager to see that law changed so that breweries can add more locations. “If that happens, you’re going to have several breweries that would be actively in the market to come to Hoover,” he said.

April Stone, executive director of the Hoover chamber, said those are the types of things that would work in Hoover.