Jared Welch, co-founder and production manager of Southern Grist Brewing Co., doesn’t like to back down from a “brewing challenge.” So when the Nashville brewery was approached by Franklin, Tennessee-headquartered Hardee’s to turn the fast food giant’s biscuits into beer, Welch was ready and willing.
“I saw it as a very technical brewing challenge,” Welch told Brewbound. “A lot of the ingredients like the grains and things that go into making beer have this subtle inherent biscuity flavor, but when you think about actual biscuits, they’re buttery and salty, [and] a lot made of buttermilk. To actually pull those flavors off, I thought it sounded really, really fun.”
After more than five months of testing and development, the companies are ready to unveil their collaboration: Strawberry Biscuit Ale. The limited-edition 5.2% ABV ale is “infused with 200 pounds of savory biscuits” with “hints of strawberry jam and buttermilk,” according to a press release. The offering will be available at Southern Grist’s Nashville taprooms, as well as direct-to-consumer, in 16 oz. 4-packs beginning September 1 – just in time for National Biscuit Month. The collaboration will also be available on draft in select locations around Tennessee, Welch said.
“When we came up with the idea for a Hardee’s Biscuit Beer, only one brewery came to mind to bring the idea to life – Southern Grist,” Owen Klein, VP of global culinary innovation at Hardee’s parent company, CKE Restaurants, said in the release. “They approach brewing with the same mad scientist mentality that we use for our new menu launches and know how to deliver on flavor. After a few rounds of testing, Southern Grist nailed it.”
The collaboration will be showcased at Nashville Brew Fest September 9, served alongside Hardee’s Made from Scratch Biscuits with strawberry jam. Southern Grist will also host a themed brunch at Lauter – the new restaurant concept at its East Nashville taproom – on September 10, featuring a “Hardee’s inspired menu” alongside the brewery’s beer offerings, Welch said.
Strawberry Biscuit Ale isn’t the first food-inspired beer from Southern Grist. The company has several foodie beer lines, including Upside Down Cake (Mango, Strawberry, Blueberry); Pie Gose (Strawberry Rhubarb, Key Lime, Coconut Cream); and Cobbler (Blackberry, Blueberry and Peach).
“We are always just trying to do experimental, really fun stuff,” Welch said. “We have this wide array of delicious and wildly flavored beers. … It only made sense to add a beverage to that line that was food inspired, with a local company, for people who love biscuits and Hardee’s.”
It’s been quite a food-themed year for Southern Grist. Lauter, its first restaurant concept, opened in December featuring an “internationally inspired menu” with “rotating locally sourced ingredients,” according to a blog post. The location also features 25 beers on tap behind a “spacious wraparound bar,” and two large patios.
“Opening the new restaurant was such a new venture for us,” Welch said. “We went into this year with a set of business goals and objectives, but we also had that color of ‘we don’t know what we don’t know,’ type of situation.
“As we’ve gone through this year and get a better understanding of what it looks like with this new variable to the business, things are getting a little clearer,” he continued. “We’re still learning as we go.”
To help navigate its new restaurant venture, Southern Grist hired executive chef Andrew Coins, and chef de cuisine Kenji Nakagawa, who both previously worked at Miel Restaurant in Nashville.
The restaurant and taproom replaced Southern Grist’s original taproom, which the brewery had outgrown since its opening in 2016, and shut down in late 2021. The company also operates a taproom in the Nations neighborhood of Nashville, opened in 2018, essentially book-ending the city with Southern Grist locations.
The Nations location houses all production for Southern Grist, with a 15-barrel brewhouse. The brewery has recorded double-digit volume growth nearly every year since its opening. Last year, the brewery increased production +9% to about 3,500 barrels, following a +45% increase in 2020, according to estimates by the Brewers Association.
Along with production growth, Southern Grist has also been expanding its offerings with a new line of non-alcoholic beers. Launched in December 2021 through a contract brewing partnership with Waunakee, Wisconsin-based Octopi Brewing, the non-alc offerings have been “blowing up.”
“That has been something that wasn’t necessarily a passion project of mine at the beginning,” Welch said. “We had the idea to do it from a business standpoint and thought ‘let’s give it go.’
“We’re kind of on the forefront of [non-alc] as a smaller craft brewery who started making alcoholic beer who has transitioned into this market,” he continued. “Being on the early side of that has been really, really cool, and the reception our non-alcoholic beers have had thus far is pretty awesome to see.”