Beer lobbyist group disbands

Founder Sean Wilson has built network of brewers, will open his own brewery

After 5 1/2 years heading a beer industry advocacy group called Pop the Cap, Sean Wilson of Chapel Hill is disbanding the nonprofit group and moving on to a new beer-related venture.

Wilson started Pop the Cap in February 2003 to lobby the state legislature to drop the law capping the alcohol content of beer at 6 percent.

In August 2005, the group succeeded, when new legislation went into effect and cleared the way for craft beers -- speciality beers brewed in small batches -- to have higher alcohol content.

Since then, Wilson, 37, shifted the group's focus to improving the state's beer culture and raising awareness of craft beer, dubbing his new effort Pop the Cap 2.0.

But, "it turned into a hobby, and I'm not a hobby kind of guy," he says.

Besides changing the state law and offering North Carolina brewers more flexibility, Wilson and Pop the Cap connected the state's brewers into a network that didn't exist before, said Robert Poitras, owner of the Carolina Brewery, with locations in Chapel Hill and Pittsboro.

"He was really our quarterback," Poitras said. "It's been good for the whole North Carolina beer scene."

Now Wilson will help out with the newly founded N.C. Brewers Guild and is working on opening his own brewery in Durham.

Wilson's establishment, called Fullsteam Brewery, will focus on "Southern agricultural brewing," using local ingredients and grains.

Though a specific site has not yet been selected, Wilson said the brewery could open within nine months.

"There's still a lot of work to do [for the beer industry in North Carolina], but we need to be more politically organized, and I can't do that," he said. "I'm just a beer fan. It's time to move on."