Legion Brewing head brewer Alexa Long is moving on to her next adventure. Here’s who will take her place.

Since Legion Brewing opened in 2015 as Plaza Midwood’s first brewery, Alexa Long has been its head brewer. She’s worked hard to craft recipes and manage production for beers Charlotte knows and loves, like Juicy Jay and Carolina Sparkle Party.

But at the end of June 2018, Long will be leaving Legion. She won’t be moving into a brewing role anywhere else in Charlotte, but instead, she will be pursuing one of her greatest passions: rock climbing.

After living in Charlotte for the past 20 years and brewing for the last seven, Long will pack up her SUV for a three-month rock climbing road trip to Kentucky, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. She’ll then move to Chattanooga, where she hopes to find another role in Tennessee’s still-growing brewery scene.

While Legion Brewing owner Phil Buchy is sad to see Long go, he’s also excited for her. “She loves Legion and all the people here that have become like family, but she is ready for a new chapter of her life outside of Charlotte,” Buchy wrote in an email. “We are looking forward to following her journey and anticipate her visits back home from time to time!”

Before she leaves, Long will transition her role as head brewer to Scott Griffin, who has brewed alongside her since Legion first opened in 2015. She will also transition her role as head of operations to Daniel Mitchem.

Read on to learn more about Griffin and Mitchem, and what you can look forward to from them as they take on these new roles at this staple Plaza Midwood (and soon-to-be SouthPark) brewery.

Scott Griffin, Head Brewer

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Scott Griffin started his brewing career at Ass Clown Brewing Company up in Cornelius. He volunteered there for three months before coming aboard the team, where he worked for 10 more months before joining the Legion Brewing team in December of 2015.

Legion’s brew staff started off with only three members: Long, Griffin, and assistant brewer Patty Lodge. In the three years since, the staff has grown substantially, with Griffin working alongside Long every step of the way.

Griffin grew up in the Carolinas, in a farming community not far from Charlotte  — and he’s excited for the chance to work with regional farmers and use locally grown ingredients in the brewing process.

“It’s a chance to bring my own unique perspective to the beers we brew,” he said. “Alexa had her own phenomenal style and did an incredible job of getting us started and growing us to where we are today. But I’d like to draw on my own background.”

But don’t worry — Legion Brewing’s staple beers aren’t going anywhere. You can expect your favorite year-round and seasonal brews on Legion’s tap list to remain unchanged.

“We’re going to keep brewing them the same way we have been, on roughly the same schedule,” Griffin said. “If you’re a Legion regular, you know what to expect from our beer. We’re keeping that same high standard.”

That being said, you can also look forward to some exciting new styles as Griffin begins creating his own recipes for the beers Legion brews.

“I’m a hophead, and I love hops. But honestly, I’m a lot more versatile than that,” Griffin said. “At Ass Clown, we did a lot of experimental beers with some strange, unique ingredients. I think I’ll get a chance to take Legion’s beers in some interesting directions. Particularly pepper beers. I really like hot peppers and I’d like to do a little bit more with that.”

Before we let him get back to the brewhouse, we asked Griffin his favorite Legion Brewing beer. “On tap at the brewery right now, Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em,” he said. “That we’ve ever released? Naughty by Nectar.”

Daniel Mitchem, Head of Operations

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While everyone knew Long as Legion Brewing’s head brewer, she has also been the brewery’s head of operations since day one. Though Griffin will take on the head brewer half of Long’s position, the operations side of things will be managed by Daniel Mitchem.

Mitchem (a Certified Cicerone) began his brewery career with Crafty Beer Guys, a premier commercial draft beer and wine installation and maintenance company in North Carolina, as a draft technician. He worked there for two years before joining Legion Brewing’s team as the delivery and warehouse manager, a role he’s held for a little more than a year now.

In his new role as head of operations, one of Mitchem’s responsibilities will be directly overseeing the two people who will take over his current position at Legion: one as delivery manager, one as warehouse manager.

Mitchem will also be overseeing Legion Brewing’s quality program.

“Quality is a multi-faceted term,” Mitchem explained. “It’s the lab work on the beer, where we check for dissolved oxygen or different microbes that might be in there. I’ll be overseeing that. It’s double checking quantitative data, like the ABV or IBU.”

The term also encompasses the qualitative data about the beer, Mitchem said. “It’s sensory, too,” he said. “The subjective side of beer quality is in how it tastes. Once we’ve made sure the numbers are right, we also want to make sure the beer tastes and smells and looks right.”

Additionally, Mitchem will be overseeing Legion’s barrel aging program, particularly as the brewery expands to its new SouthPark location with three new 40-barrel foeders.

[RELATED: Here’s everything we know about Legion Brewing’s new SouthPark location, coming this fall]

“[Lodge] is over our barrel aging program,” Mitchem said. “He does the physical work for the barrel aging, and then I’ll be overseeing the whole process and the logistics on that side. It’s getting ready to be a big part of what we do here.”

The barrel aging program will be one of Legion’s primary focuses as the new SouthPark location opens, said Mitchem. “I would say the most representative beer we’ve done so far would be Fuzzy Lover, a barrel aged peach sour,” he added. “A lot more of that kind of thing will be coming out of Legion, for sure.”

Mitchem explained that Fuzzy Lover was made with actual, whole peaches  — not with a puree, as some breweries do with their fruit beers. “That’s a big thing for us, local agriculture,” he said. “We try to keep things as local as we can.”

We asked Mitchem what his favorite Legion Brewing beer would be, if he had to choose. “Overall, it would probably be Fuzzy Lover,” he said. “But on tap right now? Juan Direction.”

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“While we are sad not to be working alongside Alexa, we couldn’t be more thankful and appreciative of all of her hard work in helping Legion Brewing become what it is today,” Buchy said.

Long will certainly be missed, but we look forward to seeing what Griffin and Mitchem bring to Charlotte’s beer scene in the months to come.

This story was originally published April 29, 2018 at 10:00 PM with the headline "Legion Brewing head brewer Alexa Long is moving on to her next adventure. Here’s who will take her place.."