Written by Alison Johnson
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Founder of Norfolk’s Smartmouth Brewery traded a career in business law to follow his passion for creating craft beer
[dropcap]As a lawyer specializing in business and real estate, Porter Hardy IV knew he was helping people. Yet all he was creating was big piles of paper. [/dropcap]Hardy wanted to produce something more substantial, something that people could enjoy. At his desk, he daydreamed about having his own business—one that tapped into his love of cooking and beer, along with a growing movement toward locally-produced specialty brews. In spring 2012, after three years of planning and fundraising, Hardy officially stopped being a lawyer and launched Smartmouth Brewing Co., in Norfolk, Va., where he is now president.
The hours can be long, the work is often physically demanding and the money isn’t as good, but Hardy, 38, has zero regrets. Seeing customers enjoying his company’s brews is the perfect buzz.
“It’s a fun place to work because everyone here really has a passion for this,” he says. “People do think, ‘Oh, you must sit around and drink beer all day,’ when actually it’s like any other small business: you’re making payroll, scrubbing floors, doing heavy lifting, bookkeeping, trying to get tap handles in restaurants. But we’re making a fun product and at day’s end, we have a beer together.”
With four full-time and six part-time employees, Smartmouth makes four types of beers at a time, one a rotating special. Once water, malt, hops and yeasts are mixed in tanks, each batch has to ferment for two to three weeks. The microbrewery produces about 2,000 barrels a year—a barrel is roughly 31 gallons—and sells to distributors who work with restaurants and to individuals in its tasting room.
Head brewer Greg Papp, who connected with Hardy online, has 10-plus years of experience and, like Hardy, took a roundabout path to his job: he has a college degree in political science, considered a career as a translator and played professional rugby overseas. Papp also embraces beer-making’s combination of art, science and attention to detail, including examining brews under a microscope to check for any contaminants: “Making really good, simple, clean beers is hard but very rewarding.”
The craft beer movement took off on the West Coast, spread to the South in recent years and is especially popular with younger customers, Papp says. As with local foods, people want fresher products that are made with less environmental impact. Beer, Hardy says, is “a living thing. It doesn’t have a great shelf life when it comes to the best taste and smell.” To connect with the Hampton Roads community, Smartmouth offers free brewery tours, donates spent grains to a local farmer for pig feed and, given that beer is 90 percent water, has raised money to help clean up the Elizabeth River.
Hardy, a Virginia Beach native with degrees in history and economics, began making home brews when his wife, Kim, gave him an at-home kit after his 2004 graduation from Washington and Lee University School of Law. He shared five-gallon batches with family and friends and in 2009 took a class on starting a brewery at the Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago, America’s oldest brewing school.
Back home, Hardy gathered 13 investors, including his partner Chris Neikirk, who still works in finance at Norfolk Southern but has brewed since 1989 and wrote a business plan for a brewery in college. Hardy picked a company name after hearing comedian Kathy Griffin recall that her mother called her a “smart mouth” as a child. “It’s something fun, and it’s about having an intelligent palate for good beer,” he says.
A father of 8-year-old Porter, or “Po”, and 6-year-old Sarah, Hardy says one challenge of his new career is avoiding a beer gut. He keeps fit with running, cross-training, yoga and surfing—and lifting big stacks of grain and 15-gallon kegs. His favorite beer, he says, depends on the weather and what he’s eating.
“Choosing between them is like choosing between your children,” he says. “I love them all.”