Saturday, April 1, the entire city block of 4th street, the longest block in the city, is shut down from Poplar to Spring Street for the event. The band kicks into full swing and the craft beer flows as soon as the races get underway. In addition to Foothills, you will enjoy several amazing craft breweries as well! Keep reading to learn more.

Event Layout

Footnote Coffee & Cocktails will open at 8 AM with breakfast grab & go items. The bar will be open too!

Foothills Brewpub will open at 10 AM with food being served starting at 10:30 AM. 

Parking

Cherry Marshall Garage: 402 North Cherry Street, Winston Salem, NC 27101

Additional parking may be found on surrounding side streets near Foothills Brewpub

* Please note, the 650 W 4th Street Garage, located on 4th Street, will NOT have access in or out! 4th Street will be completely closed to traffic Spring to Poplar *

Cheer Stations

Mile (1/12) 202 S Liberty St, Winston-Salem, NC 27101 (Greenway)

Mile (2.5/11.5) Washington Park, 1490 S Broad St, Winston–Salem, NC 27127

Mile (5/11) Rams Dr. & Price St. (Parking lot adjacent to Greenway)

Mile (7/9) The Quarry at Grant Park, 1790 Quarry Rd, Winston-Salem, NC 27107 (Greenway)

Foothills Brewing

Fresh beer is always the best beer. We strive to not only make beer with top quality ingredients and time-honored methods, but to have it in your hands for you to enjoy within days of it leaving our brewery.

Beers being served: Festival Express Juicy IPA, Hoppyum IPA, Hazyum IPA, Happyum Imperial IPA, People’s Porter, Thousand Smiles Golden Ale

If you’re still wide awake after an early morning or day drinking is just your thing, our Brewpub is open until midnight and Footnote Coffee & Cocktails is open until 5 PM!

Partner Breweries

First-up, we’re getting ready to put in a brand-new canning line here at the Kimwell brewery in Winston-Salem. We’ve been canning for years, but this new line will massively increase our ability to offer your favorite Foothills beers in handy canned packages (more on that below.)  

Next (and maybe most importantly) we’re upgrading our brewhouse, so we can make even more of the delicious brews you’ve come to know and love. The new system—which is being custom-built for us as-we-speak—will increase our flexibility and efficiency which will make Hoppyum and Jade and all your other favorites that much easier to find.  

All this is preamble to the big news: your 2023 Foothills Brewing Brand Calendar. Read-on to see what we’ve got up-our-sleeves for the coming year. Of course, follow us on Instagram and Facebook to see what other surprises might pop-up. 

Foothills Brewing 2023 Brand Calendar 

The Highlights: 

Cans: 

As we mentioned above, we’re going to be putting a lot more of our beer in cans. Cans are the perfect vessel for getting beer to the places you want to be. Hoppyum at the beach? Yes, please. A fresh can of Jade in the mountains? Sign me up. Hazyum at the dentist’s office? Well, probably not that one, but you get the point.  

Thangs That Make You Go… Yum: 

Hoppyum. Our flagship, our foundation, and the beer we go-to the most. Hoppyum is getting an aluminum wardrobe upgrade and pivoting into more convenient canned 12-packs and 6-packs in the New year.  

Alongside Hoppyum is its chilled-out, hazy-heavy counterpart Hazyum. Hazyum launched in 2022, and we’re expanding the release across our total footprint.  

Brand new for 2023 is Happyum Hazy Imperial IPA moving into a year-round spot. As if the other two weren’t enough, Happyum is the beer for when you want to turn the party up a notch. At a whopping 8% ABV, Happyum may be the perfect delivery device for intense, tropical and juicy hop flavor. Come on, get Happy! 

Hoppyum, Happyum, and Hazyum are available year-round in 12-ounce cans, and 19.2-ounce cans.  

Grab A Snack: 

Love hops, but can’t choose a favorite? Why limit yourself. Grab a brand-new Beer Snacks Yum Pack with four cans each of: Hoppyum, Hazyum, and Happyum so you have the hop fix for wherever your mood takes you.  

Of course, we’ll also have all your returning favorites: Jade, People’s Porter, Torch, Festival Express, Pumpkin, Oktoberfest, and the silky Sexual Chocolate back for next year.  

We’re looking forward to 2023 and to sharing more great beers in the new year. Let us know what beers you’re most excited for, and what beer you’d love to see us bring back. As always, watch our social channels for any surprises and new developments coming down the line.  

The race is once again a sellout! If you’re registered for the race, we can’t wait to see you – if not, you can still show up and celebrate NC Beer Month with over a dozen of North Carolina’s best breweries. The event is a fundraiser for Yadkin Riverkeeper, who will be selling beer tickets good for every brewery in attendance.

Speaking of which, here’s a list of the breweries and beers that will be there:

• Foothills – Thousand Smiles Golden Ale, Hoppyum IPA, Festival Express Juicy IPA, People’s Porter
• Brown Truck – #10 Light Lager, #14 IPA, Amber Ale
• Bull City Cidery – Cherry Tart and Bludacris
• Fiddlin’ Fish – Buena Vista Blonde Ale, Steal Your Fish Pale Ale
• Four Saints – Flowers & Fog IPA, Omie Blonde Ale, Potter’s Clay Amber Ale
• Goose And The Monkey – TBA
• Gypsy Road – Gypsy Juice Hazy IPA, Mystical Child Fruited Sour
• Incendiary – Light Lager, IPA
• Legion – Juicy Jay East Coast IPA
• Radar – Reflection IPA, Domino Rice Lager or Tangerine Dream Wheat
• Southend – #Nofilter Hazy IPA, Dino DNA Amber Ale
• Wooden Robot – Overachiever Pale Ale, Space Magic IPA
• Wise Man – Mountain Calling IPA, Angelos Italian Pilsner

We’ll also have food, live music, fun stuff for the kids . . . see you Saturday!!

Pilot Mountain is getting some help – from Pilot Mountain Pale Ale.

In case you don’t know, our beloved Pilot Mountain, one of the most distinctive and popular landmarks in North Carolina, caught fire and burned for over a week in November and early December. The fire burned for over a week and ultimately consumed over a thousand acres of Pilot Mountain and the surrounding state park area.

If you’re familiar with us, then you probably recognize Pilot Mountain Pale Ale as one of Foothills’ original brews when we opened our doors in 2005. Also if you’re familiar with us, you know Foothills is always ready to help out in our community when needed (just look at our Craft Happiness Project).

So it didn’t take long for our owners to decide we needed to help Pilot Mountain come back from this disaster. Though we retired Pilot Mountain Pale Ale last year to focus on newer brands, we’re bringing it back for a special run, and will donate a portion of all proceeds of 12-pack sales to help Pilot Mountain recover. 

“Watching Pilot Mountain burn hit us all very hard here at Foothills”, said Jamie Bartholomaus, president and co-owner of Foothills Brewing. “Pilot Mountain Pale Ale was one of our original beers. The mountain is almost like a member of the Foothills family.”

It was Jamie’s idea to do something to help replant and restore the park that sees over a million visitors each year.

“When the fire happened, I knew we needed to make Pilot Mountain Pale Ale again to help restore one of North Carolina’s greatest landmarks.”

Foothills’ efforts have been noticed by those the proceeds will benefit. “The Pilot Mountain community extends beyond our great town near the base of our namesake landmark. This wildfire has shown us that we belong to a community that goes far beyond those boundaries,” said Pilot Mountain Mayor Evan Cockerham. “We are grateful for the support we have received across the nation and we welcome Foothills Brewing’s contributions to the restoration of our State Park.”

Adds Debbie Vaden, President of Friends of Saurtown Mountains, “We are excited to partner with Foothills Brewing as they bring back their popular Pilot Mountain Pale Ale. The proceeds they donate will be beneficial in helping us restore areas damaged by the Pilot Mountain Grindstone fire. Support like this from our community means so much and will go a long way in helping us return beauty and splendor to Pilot Mountain.”

Pilot Mountain Pale Ale will be released early in 2022 in 12-packs of 12-oz. bottles. Each box will have a QR code on it that will link to a website accepting donations to help with Pilot Mountain restoration.

Nothing says Autumn like football, falling leaves and drinking beer. OK the drinking beer thing is every season . . . but this is indeed a special time of year for craft beer.

Few beers accentuate that better than Oktoberfest Lager, which arrives at the end of the summer and heralds the onset of the biggest beer party on the planet (when it’s not canceled by coronavirus like it was this year and last).

Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany is attended annually by 6 million people who go through about 66,000 barrels of beer (it would take our brewery over a year and a half to brew that much beer). And even though it’s called Oktoberfest, it’s traditionally celebrated in September when the days are warmer — and a little longer. Germans are apparently big on day drinking.

So why are we holding a celebration in October? Because ours isn’t OKtoberfest — it’s HAWKtoberfest.

I feel your puzzled looks from here. Let me explain. You might be familiar with our Craft Happiness Project, which themes and brews beers based on needs in our community. In 2019 we created Raptorial IPA, brewed to help protect birds of prey (hawks, falcons, eagles, owls . . . even vultures). Our brilliant marketing department (full disclaimer: the ones writing this blog) came up with the bright idea of celebrating the release of the beer by releasing a rehabilitated hawk back into the wild. Fortunately North Carolina is home to one of the preeminent wild bird rehabilitation facilities on the planet, Carolina Raptor Center. They enthusiastically agreed to help us out, and the result was, well . . . majestic.

So we thought . . . well that was cool. Let’s do it again. Annually. And thus was born Hawktoberfest.

Obviously this isn’t your typical Oktoberfest celebration — no tuba bands or guys in lederhosen. What we will have is plenty of great beer (including our version of Oktoberfest Lager, and our just-brewed Stout and Frostbite Black IPA), specialty beer ‘flights’ (ha!), live music and food trucks, and a full interactive display from our friends at the Raptor Center. Then around 5pm or so, we’ll let our newly healed feathered friend fly free. It’s an amazing site – one you should be here to see.

“The Raptor Center is extremely grateful to have Foothills Brewing as a community partner,” says Jim Warren, Executive Director of Carolina Raptor Center. “Starting with Raptorial IPA in 2019 and now Hawktoberfest, the great folks at Foothills understand who we are and what it takes to help us achieve our mission. I appreciate their team’s generosity and willingness to give back. Also…we just love their beer!”

And we love your birds. Come help us set one free – at our free to attend, kid friendly Hawktoberfest – Saturday October 23rd.

Foothills Tasting Room

3800 Kimwell Drive

Winston-Salem, NC

Hey remember that awesome unforgettable 15^th anniversary bash we threw last March?

Yeah we don’t either. ‘Cause it never happened.

Instead we watched the world turn upside down thanks to the pandemic . . . and rather than celebrate Foothills’ decade-and-a-half in existence on March 17th, 2020, we closed our doors on the very day we opened them 15 years earlier.

Fast forward to 2021, and our planning meetings for this year’s anniversary. As we were lamenting last year’s landmark birthday celebration that never was, someone (I think it was an intern) told us that one time they were sick on their birthday so their mom and dad gave them a birthday do-over.

Nice, Intern Mom and Dad! We’re stealing your idea.

Last year’s 15^th-Anniversary-That-Never-Was has become this year’s Anniversary 15.1. As it happens our birthday falls on St. Patrick’s Day (which, as it turns out, is a REALLY good day to open a pub). We’ll be celebrating all day long — with double the fun on 15th Birthday Take Two, including hourly swag/gift card giveaways and lots of food and drink specials – like $1 off Seeing Double IPA, and $2 off other select drafts at all our locations.

Chef Shane has plenty to keep him busy, and you stuffed – choose from corned beef and cabbage, our Arnold burger (Swiss, Corned beef, sauerkraut, Thousand Island), fish and chip tacos and bangers and mash. PLUS: 20% off apps for loyalty members all day at the pub. And yes, we’ll have birthday cake. 

We’ve also made some new additions to our loyalty program, so it’s easier than ever to earn points you can use for anything we have – beer, food, gear, coffee . . . more beer . . . be sure and ask about the program WHEN (not if) you come see us on Wednesday March 17!

PLEASE NOTE: we still have COVID-19 protocols in place at all our locations; masks are required when not seated, and social distancing and hand washing regulations will continue to be observed. If you aren’t willing to abide by our protocols, perhaps you should save us both the hassle and skip this party.

That beer in your hand? It’s come a long way.

It made it to your pint glass from a keg, can, growler or bottle. Before that it sat in a fermentation tank, little yeast cells happily munching away at its sugars. And before that, it began with two simple ingredients – grain and water.

The moral of this little story? Great beer starts with great grain.

Here at Foothills, we source grain from all over. A good portion comes from Canada (ay) where wheat is the #1 crop grown. We also import grain from Germany, and get a healthy amount from right here in the U.S. as well – mostly from Breiss Malt (who incidentally also make a mean malted milk ball).

That said, we’re always committed to buying local whenever possible. Whether it’s beer packaging, beer equipment or beer merchandise, we’ve a long list of local suppliers.

Beer ingredients, however, has been another story.

North Carolina, while blessed with abundant annual crops of tobacco, corn and sweet potatoes (we’re the #1 state for producing those sweet spuds), ingredients for beer – mainly grains and hops – have traditionally been in short supply in our state.

But that’s changing . . . thanks in large part to pioneering entrepreneurs like Carolina Malt House. Nestled on 60 pastoral acres right in the middle of North Carolina’s grain belt, CMH is quickly making a name for themselves with NC breweries. Why? Well, just like wine, the soil that ingredients grow in plays a big role in the ultimate flavor profile. And North Carolina’s central region of gentle, hilly grasslands has the ideal soil and weather for growing top-quality grains. In fact all of Carolina Malt House’s grains come from a tight 30-mile radius surrounding their operation.

So why not incorporate those native North Carolina flavors into a beer brewed in North Carolina?

That’s the question our brewmaster wanted to answer when he reached out to Carolina Malt House to help with our newest seasonal, Good Ship Wit. Witbiers, as you can probably guess from the name, are heavily reliant on wheat for their flavor.  The style dates back to 14^th century monasteries, where monks used a blend of herbs and spices with their fermentable grains (mostly wheat). Good Ship Wit stays close to that monastic tradition, using lime, orange, ginger, turmeric, coriander and lots of wheat – all 100% grown and malted right here in North Carolina by Carolina Malt House.

The short local supply chain allows us to use the malt at its absolute peak flavor.  Instead of traveling thousands of miles from somewhere like Germany, the wheat malt in Good Ship Wit travels less than 50 miles from field to brewery, changing hands only from farmer to maltster to brewer.

And, like Foothills, Carolina Malt House is dedicated to environmentally responsible practices. Most of their farmers employ no-till farming practices, preventing the topsoil erosion common in other grain-growing regions. Their wastewater is used for irrigation, and grains too small for malting go to feed local livestock.

Good Ship Wit is the perfect marriage of homegrown ingredients from Carolina Malt House and local craft brewing from your friends here at Foothills. Give it a try and let us know what you think! And look for more potential partnerships with local beer ingredient growers in the future from Foothills.

Good Ship Wit is available in 12-oz. bottle 6-packs and 12-oz. can 12-packs. Look for it where craft beer is sold in North Carolina.

That’s what the label copy implores you to do on Jade IPA, one of Foothills’ most popular beers.

In what we feel is the formidable lineup of Foothills’ brands, Jade has more than held its own over the course of its short lifetime. Since it introduction Super Bowl weekend 2011, it’s been one of our best-selling and most talked-about beers. It has indeed come a long way — from its humble and auspicious birth amongst the sights (and scents) of the 2007 Craft Brewer’s Conference in Austin, Texas.

It was there that Jamie Bartholomaus, brewmaster of then-barely-two-years-old Foothills Brewing, and T.L. Adkisson, head brewer for Ham’s in Greenville, NC, were wandering through the Conference Expo, looking at equipment and raw materials and dreaming of bigger and better days for their respective breweries. As is usually the case, the hops growers (Hop Union, in this case) had several bales of hops broken open, to allow brewers to taste and smell their newest wares. Jamie picked up a handful of a new varietal called New Zealand Pacific Jade and took a deep whiff.

Turning to T.L. he said, “Man I could make a pillow out of this stuff.”

T.L. was equally enamored. As he remembers, “It was definitely unique. Instead of having the citrusy qualities of Pacific Northwest hops, I smelled mango, guava — Jade had all these tropical fruit notes going on.”

Back home, both Jamie and T.L. followed up with Hop Union, trying to get their hands on some Jade hops. Both were told the same thing . . . what they’d seen (and smelled) in Austin were only samples — the initial big harvest wasn’t due for another few years.

Fast forward to 2010 . . . T.L. had become head brewer at Foothills, and one day his brewmaster (Jamie) walked up to him and said, “Guess what? Remember those hops we fell in love with in Austin? I just bought 440 pounds of ’em.” He paused, then added “I’m just not sure what we’re gonna do with ’em.”

T.L. smiled and replied simply, “I know what we’re gonna do with ’em.”

Within an hour he had written out a recipe for Jade IPA — the same recipe that, with a few minor tweaks, we’re still using today.

More than a third of that first batch disappeared that Super Bowl weekend, and the love affair was kindled. North Carolina craft beer drinkers spent the next three years downing pint after pint, longing for the day they could take this magic elixir home with them.

So toward the end of December 2013, on a whim, our marketing department posted on Facebook that, if we could get to 15,000 likes by the end of January 2014, we’d bottle Jade. (At the time we had a little over 10,000 likes).

It took less than a month.

So we got busy. Our artist Kyle Webster came up with the iconic brand logo; his vision was so spot-on that almost no changes were made to the original drawing (we did add the little logo hair lock).

Further, instead of trumpeting the coming arrival of Jade bombers, we kept it a secret from everybody but employees and distributors, not releasing the info until
the day bottles were actually on shelves.

The result? Demand for Jade skyrocketed, and we spent most of 2014 trying to keep up. In fact, after the initial two bottling runs, demand for draft remained so high we didn’t bottle it again for 10 months.

Since then we’ve installed four massive 300 BBL fermenters, so keeping up with the insatiable thirst for Jade has become a lot more manageable – to the point we introduced 6-packs in 2016.

In 2019 we decided to start canning some of our beers, beginning with our flagship Hoppyum IPA. Those cans had barely hit the shelves when the social media clamorings began — ‘when are you gonna can Jade?” it took us awhile to get a plan in place for that, but this week Jade cans are hitting shelves all over North Carolina. Try our to track them down? Try our handy dandy Find Foothills Beer Finder on our website — it’ll help you find Jade cans as they roll out in the marketplace.

And by all means — feel free to get Jaded.

We’ve missed you.

We miss you at our pub, our tasting room, our cafe, our events . . . we miss talking with you about beer, food, the weather, your kids, our kids . . . the reason we do what we do is largely because of you, our customers. And not being able to see you every day, especially during the year of our 15th anniversary . . . well, it’s just part of the reason life hasn’t been the same.

It’s also part of the reason we’re happy to announce that our downtown brewpub will take part in the phased re-opening of North Carolina restaurants this week; on Friday May 22 at 5pm, limited dining and service operations will resume at the pub AND our tasting room. (Footnote will remain temporarily closed.) The pub’s current hours will be Sun-Thu 11am-10pm, Fri-Sat 11am-11pm. (We will continue to offer curbside pickup from the pub as well.)

Unfortunately resuming business is not as simple as flipping the switch on our OPEN sign. As an industry craft beer wants to set the example for how to operate and keep our customers and employees safe. We’ve adapted your service model to safeguard customer and employee health, and have implemented practices designed to mitigate potential exposure. These measures, taken together and taken seriously, will help keep everyone safe.

our socially distanced dining room

Here’s what we’ll be doing for you, and asking of you:

We’ll also be asking you to observe ‘the three W’s’, as outlined by the North Carolina Brewer’s Guild:

Yes, these are new rules, restrictions, and “inconveniences”.  Nevertheless we’re asking for diligent adherence to the protocols outlined above (including encouraging use of face coverings until you are seated). There are good reasons behind these protocols, ALL of them having to do with the safety and wellbeing of ALL our customers and employees.

We’re grateful for your overwhelming support as we have navigated the last couple of months. Your patience with our changing operations and your concern for our staff have been both humbling and incredibly welcome. So please be patient with us. Respect our staff and support our efforts. Managers will be on hand should you desire immediate resolution to any matter or would like to offer feedback. Our staff is here to serve you to the very best of their ability given the rules by which we must all abide.

Some good news: our menu will have new items on it when you return! Chef Shane has added some really cool dishes, including Crab Cakes, Buffaloaf (buffalo meatloaf), RanchHouse Chicken Sandwich, Vegetarian Stir Fry, Roasted Shallot and White Bean Hummus, Southern Caesar Salad, and Mediterranean Pasta Salad.

Thank you for your loyalty to Foothills, for your understanding and for your patience as we navigate a safe, thoughtful and respectful path forward.

For the complete guide to the NCDHHS requirements and recommendations for re-opening restaurants, go here