Editor’s Note: Beer 101 is a series about craft beer in conjunction with the Aug. 21 Beerfest that will be held at the James Brown Arena. The Aug. 15 story highlights the Beerfest. Aug. 17 – Meet area brewers Aug. 19 What’s in a Name? Learn the differences between an ale, an IPA, a lager and others. Aug. 22 – Beerfest Coverage. Aug. 23 – Where To Get Craft Beer in the Area./sep
Augusta is home to two craft breweries, Riverwatch Brewery and Savannah River Brewing Co., whose owners and brewers bring high levels of creativity and expertise to their craft.
Both breweries have taprooms where patrons can relax and enjoy a brew, conversation, music. food from time to time and special events like beer yoga and trivia night.
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Each has its standard brews that are always on tap and a rotation of others that are usually seasonal but occasionally experimental. Neither is more than 5 years old.
Riverwatch was the first on the scene in 2016, Augusta’s first brewery since Prohibition. Savannah River followed a year later, and both have their loyal followers—who are often patrons of both.
The craft, or microbrewery movement, is an outgrowth of the homebrewing movement, according to Brey Sloan, owner of Riverwatch Brewery.
Anne, left, and Brey Sloan of Riverwatch Brewery. Photo courtesy Brey Sloan 
From left, Anne and Brey Sloan. Brey Sloan owns Riverwatch Brewery. Photo courtesy Riverwatch Brewery website.
Sloan started homebrewing while serving as an attaché in the U.S. Army stationed in Burma.
“Burma was a military dictatorship then,” she said. “That meant it had sanctions, and we couldn’t import beer. There were only two local brands, Myanmar, which was like Bud, and Tiger.”
Sloan pondered how to describe Tiger beer for a long minute and finally admitted that it defied description.
As an attaché, Sloan had to do a good deal of entertaining, and while she couldn’t import beer, she could import the ingredients. So, she and her husband Rick embarked on a homebrewing adventure. They gained a reputation for brewing the best beer in Burma.
In 2011, Burma got a new constitution, and its type of government changed to a semi-democratic parliamentary system. With the local economy opening up, a couple of local businessmen approached Sloan and her husband about starting a commercial brewery in Rangoon.
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“I called the Army and told them I wanted to retire,” Sloan said, “and they sent me to Japan. There weren’t a lot of Asian specialists around.”
But the idea of starting a brewery stayed with the couple. Once she did retire, the family moved to Augusta, and she headed off to commercial brewing school in Chicago and Munich. Only 40 days after she retired and while she was in Munich, Rick Sloan died suddenly. With the help of her children, James and Anne, she soldiered on, getting the brewery up and running.
Unlike Sloan, Jim Christian, taproom manager at Savannah River Brewing Co., didn’t get into the craft beer business via homebrewing. He got into it by being a consumer. He said he’d been a beer aficionado since college, though he primarily drank Budweiser back then.
Savannah River Brewery’s taproom, located at 813 5th St. in Augusta. Photo courtesy Savannah River Brewin Co. website 
Jim Christian is taproom manager at Savannah River Brewery. Staff photo by Debbie Reddin van Tuyll.
After college, though, he decided he needed to expand his beer knowledge, starting with Mexican lagers and developing a connoisseur’s palate for those. His interest in craft beers began when a friend introduced him to a Sierra Nevada IPA.
“I spent 25 years as a consumer, but I didn’t know a lot about beer,” he said.
When he and his wife moved to Augusta, he stopped in at Riverwatch.
That stop resulted in him going to work for the brewery and eventually achieving his cicerone certificate. A cicerone is an expert in beer, similar to a sommelier. He joined Savannah River as a bartender a few years later. Now, he’s the taproom manager and part owner.
Both Sloan and Christian say they decide what kinds of beer to make based on what they think customers want and what they like to brew. Any brewery will have at least one IPA and probably several, Christian said, because that’s one of the more popular styles.
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Savannah River tries to have something on tap that will appeal to all palates, Christian said. But there’s a seasonal element, too, that determines what will be available at stores or at the taproom.
“High gravity stouts don’t sell well in the summer,” Christian said.
Sloan agrees. Consequently, she said, “We won’t be brewing one of those in the spring to sell in June and July. We’d do IPAs, sours and lighter beers for the summer.”
That said, Christian said the best beer at the Savannah River taproom right now is a milk stout. He used the word “exquisite” to describe it.
“It’s like drinking a cold-brewed mocha,” he said. “You get flavors of coffee and chocolate.”
The two breweries both have two paths for making beer. They have the standard large-batch commercial beers that are distributed to stores, bars and restaurants, and they have the more experimental, small batch beers that customers can usually only get at the taproom.
Neither Christian nor Sloan have a favorite kind of been to make, mostly because the brewing process is the same for virtually all kinds of beer. It amounts to cooking grain.
“Beer is a cooked food,” Christian said. “You expose grain to hot water. And you don’t get beer until you add yeast to it.”
Sloan said while she doesn’t have a favorite beer to make, she does have a least favorite—anything with oatmeal in it.
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“Oatmeal clogs the holes you use to separate the sweet liquid from the grain. Cleaning it is awful,” she said. “Oats and rye are the worst.”
She does, though, like “playing with hops. IPAs are fun,” Sloan said. She’s test brewing one right now for the Veteran’s Day brew from Yakima Chief Hops, a hops provider that sponsors a Veteran’s Day beer each year.
The brew she’s experimenting with right now is called “Semper Paratus,” named for the Coast Guard motto because they started the brew on the day that service was founded. Sloan thinks they’ll end up making a beer for each branch of the military before they’re done. The brewery staff has also worked on a beer for the Air Force, but it’s ended up with more bitterness than expected, so that recipe may get a bit more tweaking.
Each beer has its own recipe, and that’s where brewing gets creative. Oats, rye, barley, hops, wheat, all can be used to make beer. The proportions of grain, the type of yeast, the duration and location of fermentation can all influence what a beer tastes like.
Developing new recipes, especially for experimental beers, is one of Sloan’s favorite brewing activities. She recalled developing a snickerdoodle beer.
“Someone brought in an oatmeal raisin beer,” she said, “and I got to thinking, if I was going to make a beer that tastes like a cookie, what cookie would it be?”
She said she decided on snickerdoodle because that’s her favorite cookie.
“You get to think about what grain is going to give you the flavor you want,” she said.
Both Sloan and Christian will be at the Aug. 21 Beerfest at the James Brown Arena.
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Sloan said she’s bringing three beers to Beerfest, and all three are outside the brewery’s core beers such as Cautionary Tale, an IPA, Route 104, a pale ale, and Scenic Overlook, a blonde ale.
Instead, she’ll have Caddywampus, a milkshake IPA, and Fizz, a Berlinerweisse. She’s still undecided on the third offering, though the brewery’s brown ale is likely to make the lineup.
The brewery developed Caddywampus during the COVID-19 lockdown, Sloan said, and it was a popular option during the weeks they closed the taproom and only offered beer for carryout. They’ll be serving Fizz the traditional German way, with a side of raspberry syrup that can be added.
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Napoléon (yes, that Napoléon) considered Berlinerweisse to be the “champagne of the North,” Sloan said. It’s a lighter beer that’s a lot like a wine cooler and is good for summer sipping, she added.
The folks at Savannah River are still deciding which of their beers to take to Beerfest, Christian said. Uncle Festbier, an Oktoberfest beer, will probably be one.
Beerfest runs from 3 p.m. until 6 p.m. Tickets are $35 in advance, $45 the day of Beerfest. VIP tickets are available for $75, and include early entry at 2 p.m., Mellow Mushroom pizza and specialty beer options. Designated driver tickets will be available at the James Brown Arena box office.
Debbie Reddin van Tuyll is a writer for The Augusta Press. Reach her at debbie@theaugustapress.com.
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