Brewery's sales soar

FUQUAY-VARINA -- Mark Doble's business venture, Aviator Brewing, started with a simple premise: People like beer. People like airplanes. Putting the two together seemed like a good idea -- even though the economy was in a tailspin.

He launched his craft brewery in November. A detailed plan, a thrifty mind and some engineering know-how have helped the venture thrive.

Doble, an electrical engineer, spent about $75 on parts to design a system that would likely cost another brewery thousands.

He patched together equipment that he gathered from all over the country. He built the controls that monitor temperature, and the system that feeds the data to his iPhone, which uses software he created.

Today, his beer is swigged in some of the most popular bars in the Triangle: The Flying Saucer, Tir Na Nog and The Hibernian.

And on Sept. 26, Aviator expanded with its own taproom in downtown Fuquay.

Doble started collecting brewing parts from all around the country and applying for permits last summer. By November, he was in full operation -- meaning 12 barrels, himself and two volunteers, brewing, kegging and selling beer.

In December, they sold two barrels. In May, they were up to 40. Last month, they did about 60.

But the barrel sales weren't the only part of the business gaining in numbers. Crowds of people started showing up to the brewery for free tastings on Saturday afternoons.

They wanted to stay past 8 p.m. and keep drinking.

Doble knew it was time to open a tap room.

He leased a spot at 600 E. Broad St. -- a long, rectangular room built in the early 1900s, perfect for a tavern. He built the bar too, out of African mahogany, and all the tables with the help of a couple of friends. He plans on hanging donated airplane parts on the walls for decoration.

He's keeping the concept simple, just like his brewery. No food, except for maybe some snacks. Volunteers will tend bar, hopefully earning enough to become regular, full-time employees. He'll have bands on the weekends who want exposure, not cash.

He's trying to think of ways to set himself apart from the other breweries in a state that has had a 20-year love affair with craft beers.

For example, he's buying a limousine from a used-car-dealer friend, wrapping it with the bar's logo and offering free pickups and drop-offs. Since the 1980s, when Weeping Radish in Currituck County became the first brewer allowed to sell directly in the state, more than 40 breweries and brew pubs have sprouted.

More people became interested in darker, deeply flavored beers. The boom was aided in 2005 by a grass-roots group called Pop the Cap, which lobbied to change a state law that limited beer to 6 percent alcohol. Doble's brews go to 9 percent. "The higher the alcohol, the better the taste," Doble said.

That interest hasn't waned, even in the economic downturn. About 121 craft breweries opened nationally last year -- the most in any year since at least 2000, according to the Brewers Association, a Boulder, Colo., trade group. Meanwhile, only 55 breweries closed -- the fewest in any year since 2000.

Aviator is the latest brewery to sprout in western Wake, where it is competing with breweries that have several more years and thousands more barrels under their belts.

John Shuck, co-owner of Carolina Brewing in Holly Springs, opened in 1995 with brother Greg Shuck and partner Joe Zonin.

Fourteen years later, Shuck said turning a profit is still difficult to measure, when you factor in loans to pay off and investors to repay. But the brewery is up to 4,000 barrels and distributes to six counties. "If you can pay everyone's salaries, you're profitable," he said.

Doble thinks the pint sales from the tap room will bolster Aviator and perhaps earn him enough to expand with a second brewery and tap room in the area.

Right now, it doesn't bring in enough to support him, his wife and four children, so he keeps his day job as an engineer, juggling his new life as brew master and cubicle dweller, rising at 2 a.m., sleeping an average of three to four hours a night.

He's been working on landing Raleigh Durham International Airport as a client, and if the airport accepts, he already knows how he'll deliver his kegs. "We're going to fly them in," he said.