A loss of local flavor: Hillsborough brewery closes its doors

Today, Mystery Brewing Company of Hillsborough is closing its doors after nearly seven years in business.

Amanda MacLaren, a Durham resident and UNC graduate who frequented the brewery and its distributors, was surprised to hear about the closing when it was announced over social media last Thursday.

“I just saw the announcement on social media, and I mean, I never would have anticipated that they would be closing,” she said. “I never heard of them having any problems.” 

Bart Watson, the chief economist at the Brewers Association, said Mystery Brewing Company’s closing comes in a year of transition in the beer industry.

“We are likely to see more brewery openings and closings this year than any year during the craft brewing era,” he said in an email.

MacLaren said Mystery Brewing was one of the first of many breweries to open in Orange County.

“They decided just to throw their hat in the ring, and they did a really good job of it," she said. "I’m sad to see them go when they were, in my opinion, one of the main highlights of the brewing scene and kind of one of the forerunners of breweries opening in rapid succession."

Hillsborough residents still have access to one brewery of their own, Regulator Brewing Company.

Nearby breweries include Fullsteam in Durham, Top of the Hill in Chapel Hill and Vecino Brewing Co. in Carrboro. Mystery Brewing was the only Hillsborough-based brewery that served the public in addition to distributing its products to other vendors.

Erik Lars Myers, the founder and CEO of Mystery Brewing, said House Bill 392, also known as the “Pop the Cap” law, helped prompt this expansion of North Carolina’s craft beer industry by increasing the maximum percentage of alcohol by volume in malt beverages from six to 15 percent.

He said the passing of the law coincided with an influx of people moving to the Triangle from areas that had already embraced the craft beer industry.

“I think for a really long time North Carolina was really behind the rest of the country in beer, and not only did we catch up really fast, I think we’re one of the leaders in the country now, and I think it has a lot to do with the timing of that law and getting so much excitement into the state at one time,” he said.

Myers said the expansion of the industry presented some problems for Mystery Brewing.

“I think that what we really had go wrong for us can be summed up glibly as a matter of bad timing,” he said.

As more breweries opened, he said, the market became tighter and distribution became more difficult as the retail sphere didn’t keep up with production.

On top of that, natural disasters such as Hurricane Florence and the blizzard in January influenced the number of customers at Mystery Brewing and its distributors.

Myers said permitting delays also played a role.

“I don’t know a whole lot about the permitting office, but it seems to me that they have a fairly small staff that goes and manages an enormous number of projects and so I’m not sure how well that works in terms of really promoting new business in Orange County and really keeping it forward at a good pace,” he said.

The Mystery community, though, mattered most to Myers.

“We’ve just got incredibly wonderful people that spend time in our place,” he said. “Our staff is very invested in those people and very invested in each other, and it all feels like a really nice big happy family," he said. "We’re going to miss it a lot.”

The Daily Tar Heel reached out to Orange County Inspections Services but did not hear back.

@Slesnewski

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