EP-122 Jason Alexander of Free Range Brewing

Today’s breweries come in all shapes and sizes. Different tap lineups and
business models. Each has a unique ethos and purpose told through
individual stories and names.

Somewhere amongst all this, there is Free Range Brewing, a business based
on the ideas of agriculture and locality situated in one of the largest
cities in the United States. Just a couple miles from the literal downtown
marker of Charlotte, North Carolina, the almost-two-year-old brewery has
found its niche with a constantly changing, eclectic lineup of farmed and
foraged beers that includes Saisons with pine and juniper tips, IPA made
with a 200-year old sourdough culture, and a rotating collection of
Carolina Common—an in-state twist on the California Common.

Those kinds of beers may not be wholly unique in a country with more than
5,000 breweries, but they do stake a claim for a special niche in
Charlotte, a city often overlooked for its beer because of its proximity to
well-known Asheville, just a 90-minute drive away. The story of how
brothers Jeff and Jason Alexander decided to get to this point in their
personal and professional lives details how powerful the pull of good food
and drink can be, especially as a way to bring together family, friends
and, ultimately, drinkers.

With no professional experience, little training, and on something of a
whim, Jason Alexander has transferred a once-budding appreciation for ideas
of fresh and local into a tangible business plan. And he’s making a kind of
beer-based, farmers-market mentality work amongst one of the fastest
growing areas of Charlotte.