It's the Brew
podcast.
The drive, Brew
Linda Heras, of course, here, an international
food judge and beer judge. And we also
have someone calling in from North Carolina. And,
actually, she's on the line here, so
let's bring her onto the show. She is
Lisa Parker, executive director of the North Carolina
Brewers Guild. Then I'll turn it over to
Linda. Hi, Lisa. How are you? Hi. I'm
doing well. Thank you so much for letting
me join you this evening. Yeah. Well, I'm
glad you guys have power and phone to
be able to call in.
Erin Gore and I had talked about this
before, and I just wanted to let you
guys get a chance to
start assessing the damage and hopefully drying,
up a little bit there. And so you
went into action really quickly there in Asheville.
So
and started the pouring for neighbors and some
other fundraisers. But tell us, how are things
in Asheville right now? I know that there's
so one of the, Sierra Nevada Brewing Companies
is there. New Belgium, I saw pictures of
underwater. Yeah. A couple other things too. So
tell us what's what's going on there.
Yeah. So, really, the majority of Western North
Carolina
is it's
like a war zone and I'm not exaggerating.
There is so much devastation
all across
the counties of Western North Carolina, including Asheville.
We've got a 120
breweries
in the counties designated by,
for FEMA relief.
And
it is,
it's just heart wrenching to
to see everyone,
struggling, but but also heartwarming
because
this community is truly pulling together.
And it's amazing
what
everybody from the breweries to the neighbors are
are all doing together.
So okay. So,
I mean, how are people as far as
well, obviously,
you know, there's people's jobs at the breweries.
I've seen the cute little downtown. I I
never got to make it there. I'm so
bummed.
My parents have,
and,
and it just always looked like just what
an idyllic spot, and this was really unexpected.
You people keep going, oh, it was a
flood zone. I don't believe you're in a
flood zone. Right?
No. Most most of the area,
was not considered a flood zone or or,
you know, a 100 year flood zone or
even a 1000 year flood zone.
And so
what we're finding is a lot of the
residents of Western North Carolina
didn't have flood insurance
and so that's also very complicating.
But,
right now,
power is being restored, and we are so
grateful for all the alignment
working round the clock right now to get
power restored. But
but
we
we found that, most of the bridges
got so many bridges got washed out. Roads
got destroyed by the floodwaters
and beyond just mud going over, like, the
road itself was washed out.
There were landslides
covering
so
so much of,
these these mountain communities.
So okay. So
now we are looking at how to help.
And so
you you probably know here in Santa Rosa
where the radio station is, Noma County, we
had the toughest fire in 2017,
and then boom, another fire, Kincaid and all
these others. And of course,
and people helped us and people did beers
to help support us,
around the world. And
so I have seen this. So there's a
pouring for neighbors. Tell us about that, and
then I wanna hear about the one that's
more,
local for, the Helene donate and volunteer as
well.
Yeah. So Pouring for Neighbors is the initiative
that we launched right off the bat,
to to try to just generate,
lifesaving
funding coming into the relief organizations that were
working on the ground. And the great thing
about this program
is that anyone with a TAP can participate.
It's a TAP designation program.
So
any brewery
or tap room or bar or restaurant
that wants to help support the relief efforts
can designate a tap in their brewery or
in their business
and pros and donate at least a dollar
from the sales of that tap
back to one of
the relief organizations
of their choice.
Additionally, we've now posted,
the various GoFundMe
that our breweries have created.
We've posted those on our website and are
encouraging,
you know, those as an option as well
for donating these funds. And then there's the
Helene,
and then then okay. How do people get
a hold of help you with the Pouring
for Neighbors, and then we'll go to the
next one. Helene Sure.
Sure. So Yeah. Sure. For neighbors, if you
go to drink n c beer
dot org,
in the top part of the the website,
you'll see a menu bar. And there are
3 options
related to hurricane Helene relief.
There's going to be relief and support. That
is
resources
for our impacted communities of Western North Carolina.
And then there is
donate and volunteer,
and there's Pouring for Neighbors is the 3rd.
So click on that Pouring for Neighbors. There'll
be a button link to click on to
sign up for the program.
We have over 200 participants now in over
30 countries and territories, including the Virgin Islands.
Wow. So what else are some of the
immediate needs? How can we help
otherwise? I mean I mean so I've heard
about these mules
coming and bringing supplies because you're cut off
between the roads and and the and the
bridges. Right?
Yeah. So a lot of the communities in
in the hollers, in the the more, rural
areas of Western North Carolina up in the
high country
are not accessible
right now. And so pack mules are going
out there. Folks are going out by horseback
and ATV to try to reach these these
very isolated communities that were also,
just devastated.
And I wanna address the there's some, you
know, misinformation
myths out there also that
saying that
that FEMA is not helping and the Red
Cross isn't helping and I mean, are you
guys getting help?
False news. False news.
We we have been out there on the
ground. So we have a coalition of breweries
that have been collecting supplies.
We've been helping to organize transport
and and get those supplies
up into the communities where they're needed. And
we've seen
firsthand,
the the,
National Guard,
FEMA, they are all on the ground doing
a great job. That is a
we we we hoped so, and I'm glad
to hear it from somebody who's literally got
boots, as in brewers boots on the ground.
Tell us a little bit about the North
Carolina Brewers Guild that you're the executive director
of. Obviously, you're able to pivot quickly.
Yeah. So we are the trade association for
North Carolina's
independent craft breweries. We have 420,
craft breweries across the state, mountains to coast,
and
and it's about a quarter of them that
are located in Western North Carolina.
Yeah.
Well,
we're gonna post these links on the Bruhaha
Facebook page, and then you can also go
on to our podcast if you wanna rehear
any of this information
and the usual suspects like iTunes, etcetera.
And we'll we'll have those links up so
you can click on there and donate
and hopefully be able, you know, to help
in some way. And then there's also if
you're able to go volunteer, I don't know
when that is
a hindrance or help.
Yeah. Right now, for anyone who wants to
volunteer on the ground, we are asking that
they find an organization
to work with
and to make sure to wear
appropriate TBE. We've got,
there's a lot of
biohazard,
issues right now in in the cleanup,
and so you need to make sure that
you're doing this in an organized manner
with an organization
and wearing appropriate
protection. Lisa Parker, executive director of the North
Carolina,
Brewers
Guild. Thank you for taking the time. Best
of luck to you. Everybody stay cool and,
move,
forward
positively.
Thank you so much for having me on
this evening. We absolutely appreciate the support. Okay.
We appreciate you, and thank you very much.