A new agriculture heritage
Every batch of beer we’ve ever brewed contains locally farmed ingredients.
That’s been our mission since July 2010, when we launched Batch #1 — a little farmhouse ale brewed with North Carolina wheat and freshly cut basil.
We brew local to celebrate the farm and food traditions of the American South. But more than that, we believe working with indigenous ingredients connects people — to the land, to the seasons, and to one another.
When you drink a Fullsteam beer — whether it’s Paycheck Pilsner or a foraged Chickasaw plum wild ale — you’re doing more than enjoying a pint. You’re directly supporting farmers and fostering agricultural entrepreneurship.
We call it the Southern Beer Economy.
Fifteen years ago, we took a chance on pioneering a new agricultural heritage in a post-tobacco South. We were the first brewery in the American South to commit to this vision. We just were.
And we’ve never looked back.
Today, brewing with local ingredients is commonplace. Breweries across the region support North Carolina’s three malt houses. That’s the beauty of the Southern Beer Economy: if it were just Fullsteam, it’d be a Southern Beer Business. Together, we’re building something much bigger — a resilient, sustainable, and truly local economy.
Fullsteam alone has invested nearly $1,000,000 in local ingredients — from tons of malted grain to a dash of Outer Banks sea salt.
And now we’re digging even deeper.
In 2025, Fullsteam became the world’s first Certified Regenified™ brewery. Select beers now rely on grains from certified regenerative farms and malt houses — with everyone in the supply chain committed to building soil health, restoring biodiversity, reducing chemical inputs, and capturing carbon.
Because this is about more than beer. It’s about helping people know what a paw paw is. How to spot a black walnut tree. What a wild persimmon tastes like — ripe and unripe. What “malt” actually means. The more we connect to the land, the more we connect with one another.
It started with a handful of wheat and a brown paper bag of basil.
Fifteen years in, and it’s still just the beginning.
We are, after all, Fullsteam.