Kinney Baughman is an American homebrew entrepreneur, nationally awarded craft brewer, and former head craft brewer at the Tumbleweed Grille in Boone North, Carolina who is best known for helping pioneer the craft beer revolution of the 1980s - 1990s.
Baughman was born on July 6th, 1953 in Columbia, South Carolina, but grew up in Wagner, South Carolina, which he has often described as a "one horse town." Baughman attended Appalachian State University in 1971, and graduated with a degree in philosophy and psychology in 1975. Baughman was recruited to Appalachian State to play college basketball, and would go on to play professional basketball in Europe in 1978 after briefly attending architecture school at Virginia Tech. Baughman initially joined an international team out of Oudenaarde, Belgium, but ended up playing for another team in Namur, Belgium. While in Belgium, Baughman traveled with other American basketball players, staying with local families and in hostels. It was during his adventures in Belgium that Baughman was first exposed to artisanal or sour beer in the late 1970s, and was immediately impressed and intrigued by the unique taste.
After playing basketball in Belgium for a year Baughman returned home to Boone, North Carolina for the summer and then started his masters of philosophy in the fall at The University of Georgia. One day by chance Baughman happened to see an advertisement in Mother Earth News offering a money back guarantee on an at home beer brewing kit. Feeling curious about whether he could really brew beer himself, Baughman ordered the kit. Baughman used that kit to brew his first beer, but he was unsatisfied with the equipment and the final product. As beer brewing equipment was not readily available at the time, Baughman went down to his local coffee shop and got some better supplies and brewed his first real beer in 1980. There were very few books to reference written about brewing beer in the US at that time, with some exceptions being the work of authors Fred Eckhardt and Dave Line.
Brewing beer only became legal in North Carolina in 1978, after President Jimmy Carter passed a law making homebrewing legal, which was the first time since prohibition. However, each state was also subject to the three tier distribution system law, which meant that if you made the beer you could not sell it. Products had to be taken to a distributor who then sold them to restaurants and bars. To change the law it had to be challenged on a state to state basis. In North Carolina, Uli Bennewitz, owner of the Weeping Radish, spearheaded getting the laws changed in the 1980s. Due to his work, brewers could create and sell beer at the same time, which allowed for the craft brewing revolution to really begin.
While in Athens, Baughman quickly discovered that the process of brewing beer was laborious and that cleaning out 5 gallon beer batches single handedly was causing a lot of strain on his back. Baughman knew that the most difficult part of brewing beer was getting the beer away from the yeast, and thought to himself, why not make an upside down fermenter that takes the yeast away from the beer? This is how Baughman’s first product, the brew cap, came into existence. Working periodically with his good friend Mike Morrisey, Baughman started a company called BrewCo in 1985, which he ran out of his basement for over a decade. BrewCo would eventually offer several other products, including a brew chiller and a brew heat. By the late 1980s Baughman had finished his masters at The University of Georgia and was invited back to Boone to help build the Profile Trail on Grandfather Mountain. Baughman, who was missing the Carolina mountains, was eager to get back to Boone and start working.
Baughman had built a reputation in Boone for his home brewing operation and knowledge, and was soon approached by Bart Conway of Tumbleweed Grille (later renamed Cottonwood due to a copyright dispute), to take over the brewery at his restaurant. Baughman had finished building the Profile Trail on Grandfather Mountain by that time, and was excited by the opportunity to do what he loved professionally. Baughman went to work for Conway at Tumbleweed in 1992. At that time Tumbleweed was only the second brewery in the state of North Carolina and Baughman was only the sixth brewer. During his time at Tumbleweed, Baughman continued to run BrewCo out of his home and he also taught at Appalachian State as an adjunct professor in philosophy. To craft recipes Baughman would use resources like Home Brewers Digest, available books on brewing, and inspiration from his time in Belgium and traveling the United States. Baughman is also a long time member and supporter of the American Homebrewers Association and The Great American Beer Festival, which allowed him to connect and share ideas with some of the best brewers in the country.
One day while working at Tumbleweed Baughman noticed that several of his kegs of beer had gone sour. After some investigating he discovered that all the kegs that went sour had been brought over from his home, and had contained some leftover beer and CO2 inside that had been fermenting for several years. Not sure what to do with this beer that was way too sour, Baughman remembered that in Belgium they had added fruit to sour beers to make them more palatable. Inspired by lambic and gueuze style beers, Baughman also started experimenting with blending his sour beers with regular beer to regulate the taste. He would then add fruit concentrate until he got the tartness level right. After working through this system and perfecting it, Baughman started really brewing sour beers on purpose and the people of Boone loved them. Baughman often used fresh hops, spices, and fruit concentrate in his recipes, and never filtered his beer, fully embracing the “cloudy beer” look. Baughman’s own records notes that he brewed his first sour beer in 1993, not in 1995 like some other brewing scholarship has suggested.
While working at Cottonwood Baughman was one of the first craft brewers in the United States to brew a sour stout beer and a pumpkin spice beer, and was the first person to brew a wheat beer, IPA, dubbel, or Chimay style beer in Boone, and potentially all of North Carolina. It was important to Baughman that he produced good beer, but he was equally determined to educate the people of Boone about what craft beer could really offer. One of the highlights of Baughman’s professional brewing career was winning a bronze medal at the Great American Beer Festival for his Amber Framboise recipe. Not only was his beer the first sour beer to place at the festival, but it placed when there was no sour beer category, so Baughman had been forced to enter the Amber Framboise under a general Belgian beer category. After receiving this award, Baughman, Conway, and the Cottonwood received a lot of positive press, and they were soon hired to consult on the installation of a major brewing operation at Huske Hardware House in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Baughman and Conway eventually parted ways professionally, and Baughman finished out installing the brewery at Husk Hardware House by himself, while still running BrewCo, and teaching at Appalachian State. Baughman brewed his last beer as a full time craft brewer in 1997.
Within the past few years Baughman has become known in Boone as “Bubbleman'' because he often brings a bubble gun to events he is participating in and blows bubbles for everyone there, especially at the High Country Beer Festival. Baughman does not brew frequently anymore, but he is still considered by many to be the grandfather of craft brewing in Boone. He does the occasional guest brew at the local pubs in Boone, like at Lost Province Brewing Company. To keep busy, he serves on the board of the High Country Beer Festival, is an active member of the North Carolina senior games, enjoys making his own brandy, and offers desktop support at Appalachian State. Baughman’s substantial contributions to the development of the beer brewing industries in North Carolina and in the United States pioneered the way for others like him to continue the tradition of cultivating quality craft beer into the present day.
Researched and authored by Arden Craft, 2022.