Everything you need to know about Salud Cerveceria’s new head brewer
A lot has been going on at Salud Beer Shop and Salud Cerveceria over the past few months, so let’s start with a quick recap:
First, FuD at Salud announced they would be closing Feb. 5. Owner Jeff McElwee, will be running the food menu and kitchen at Uptown’s newest coffee shop, Queen City Grounds. He is also working toward mobilizing a food truck.
Then Salud Cerveceria, owned by Jason and Dairelyn Glunt, announced their plans now that FuD at Salud was closing.
“We’re going to take over the FuD kitchen,” said Glunt. “Basically, our business is going to be a brew pub.”
The main piece of equipment in this new kitchen will be a wood-fired pizza oven. Glunt said patrons can expect to dine on Neapolitan style wood-fired pizza, charcuterie, salads, open-faced sandwiches, and more.
And now, the latest update (other than Salud Beer Shop being named #5 on USA Today’s list of the Top 10 Beer Bars in America on Friday):
Two weeks ago, Glunt hired Dustin Di Lorenzo, former head brewer at Newgrass Brewing Co., to take on the role of head brewer at Salud Cerveceria.
“We love his passion for creating unique beers, and his work ethic is impeccable,” said Glunt. “All the employees love having him around, and we cannot wait to have his beers on tap.”
We sat down with Di Lorenzo to learn more about his experience as a brewer, and what types of beers he plans to brew in his new role at Salud.
A post shared by Salud Cerveceria (@saludcerveceria) on Mar 6, 2018 at 2:41pm PST
In his previous role at Newgrass Brewing Co., Di Lorenzo concentrated primarily on brewing hazy IPAs, American sours, kettle sours and saisons. The brewery didn’t focus much on darker beers — just a dessert stout or a Russian Imperial stout here and there. The goal was to brew dry, easy-drinking beers.
Now that he has moved to Charlotte to take on the head brewer role at Salud Cerveceria, Dustin says the beer offerings he’s brewing will be along the same lines in terms of style, but the flavors will be totally unique.
“There will be a lot of sours, funky saisons, mixed culture fermentation. I’m working with local farmers to get some exotic fruits, maybe some vegetables,” Di Lorenzo explained. “My brewing style is pretty expressive. I like throwing food and cakes and stuff like that into my beers — really messing around with a lot of fruits and adjuncts.”
Di Lorenzo said that the Newgrass audience wasn’t quite ready for the beers he was brewing. “It was a small town out there, and they weren’t so receptive to craft beer,” he said. “We were the first brewery in Cleveland County, and there were only a few bars in a town of around 40,000 people. Whereas here in Charlotte, everyone’s familiar with craft beer.”
One of the biggest differences between his experience at Newgrass and his new gig at Salud? Newgrass focused more in distributing its product, while Salud’s focus is more in-house.
“Getting my beer to a wider audience, and not necessarily concentrating on distributing beer as much as being a local taproom — that’s one of the things that really drove me forward to moving here so I could work at Salud,” he said.
A post shared by Trade and Lore (@tradeandloreclt) on Mar 24, 2018 at 5:18am PDT
Of course, there are some challenges ahead. Salud Cerveceria still doesn’t have its own brewery space, per se.
“We’re trying to find ourselves a space and get our system in there, and find a place to call our home,” Di Lorenzo said.
But Di Lorenzo is still excited to be using Salud’s ferementer, and about one beer in particular that he brewed last week. “It’s a lactose IPA that’s got coconut, lime zest and vanilla bean in it, and it’s also dry hopped with Mosaic, Simcoe and Citra,” he told us. “It will be out in the next week or two.”
We asked Di Lorenzo which Charlotte breweries and beers he’s found and enjoyed since moving to the city last month.
“I’m stoked about Resident Culture and Divine Barrel,” he said. “And Heist has some great IPAs, like Citraquench’l, that I really like.”
Di Lorenzo is looking forward to experiencing more of — and adding his own beers to — the Charlotte beer scene in the months to come.
This story was originally published March 26, 2018 at 9:00 PM with the headline "Everything you need to know about Salud Cerveceria’s new head brewer."