USA, NC: Lesser-Known Beer Co. set to open in Winston-Salem this spring

Winston-Salem is set to get a new craft brewery this spring. Lesser-Known Beer Co. is currently renovating an old service-station building at 901 S. Broad St., where it will put its brewery and a tasting room, the Journal Now reported on February 24.

Owners Will Loring and Ryan Gramlich moved here from Richmond, Va., to start their brewery, which will focus on traditional lagers and older styles of beer.

“We spent a weekend looking around North Carolina, and when we came to Winston-Salem, we just fell in love with it,” Loring said.

Gramlich has been a brewer in Virginia. Loring worked in craft-beer wholesale distribution. The two friends had met in college, then reconnected years later over a love of beer.

Loring said that Lesser-Known will have a 10-barrel system. It will have a custom three-vessel brewhouse to enable decoction, a traditional brewing technique in Germany and the Czech Republic.

“We just came back from a trip to Germany and the Czech Republic to meet with brewers and suppliers,” Loring said. “Two weeks ago we were in Moravia – it just so happens we’re two blocks away from Old Salem (which was settled by Moravians).”

Loring said that Lesser Known also will do open fermentation, an early, traditional method used in brewing.

Loring said that the building is about 4,000 square feet and will include a pass-through window from the brewery side to the tasting-room side to allow them to serve beer as soon as it’s made. Lesser-Known also plans to have outdoor seating in front.

Loring said that the brewery will offer at least one hoppy beer, but that it would like to introduce people to lesser-known styles, such as kellerbier, as the brewery’s name implies.

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