Bringing Home the Brew
Back Forty Beer Company braves Alabama’s uncharted waters with charm, local support and a surprisingly highbrow approach to beer.
BY ASHLEY RIDDLE | PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARIK SOKOL

Jason Wilson had a dream: a dream of launching a career in his home state of Alabama, providing jobs for other locals and elevating the reputation of that redheaded-step-child of wine, beer, to a whole new level. Generally relegated to the world of guy’s poker nights, college fraternity parties and weekend fishing trips, the seemingly less sophisticated alcoholic beverage gets a gourmet makeover at the hands of Jason and his partner Zach Folmar, founders of Back Forty Beer Company.
     Just last year, Jason’s dream would have been an impossibility. Alabama limited beverages to 6% alcohol by volume (ABV), which, according to Jason, made approximately 75 percent of the world’s beer unavailable—and discouraged entrepreneurs from practicing a profession that was once considered an art form. Thankfully, Free the Hops, a grassroots non-profit organization devoted to bringing the best of beer to Alabama, stepped in. In a 2009 legislative session, Free the Hops, led by president Stuart Carter, proposed and successfully passed the Gourmet Beer Bill, which raised the state’s ABV allowance to 13.9%.
     The newfound freedom for beer has not only brought a much wider variety to grocery retailers and restaurants, but also encouraged a few local entrepreneurs like Jason and Zach to bring microbreweries back to a state that hasn’t seen any since before the 1920s prohibition era. The duo gave the first public offering of the Back Forty Beer Company’s debut brew, Naked Pig Ale, at the Magic City Brewfest this past year. “We quickly ran out of the 11 kegs we brought,” Jason recalls. “We had to go to J. Clydes (a Birmingham pub that serves the beer) to get more from the tap.”
     Although the recent pass of the Gourmet Beer Bill was great timing for the launch of his company, Jason had been brewing the idea for Back Forty Beer Company for quite some time. After college, he moved to Baton Rogue to find work and quickly realized that he wanted to return to Alabama to make a living. Seeing that jobs in his field were limited here, he knew he had to create an opportunity for himself, and hoped that in his endeavor to do so, he would also create jobs for others. This gave way to the idea of Back Forty, which gets its name from an old agricultural term referring to the back 40 acres on farming land. Located farthest from the barn and the most difficult to irrigate and manage, the neglected, and thus fertile, soil yielded the best crops. Fitting, considering Alabama is the equivalent of the back 40 on the beer front and Jason and Zach aim to yield some of the best beers on the market.
     As Jason originally envisioned, the company is supporting local businesses, using graphic design company, MindVolt, out of Athens for logos and labels, and attorney David Carne of Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, P.C. for legal needs. They also aim to have at least one Alabama-grown ingredient in each product they put out. The Back Forty crew gives the different brews rural lifestyle-inspired names, like Naked Pig Ale, which is currently sold throughout the state, and Truck Stop Honey Brown, which is next to hit the market. What’s in the works? Jason and Zach are presently experimenting with a peach ale made from Chilton County’s famous peaches.
     In Birmingham, you can find Back Forty beer at a wide range of eateries, from white-tablecloth restaurant Daniel George to Jason’s favorite match for Naked Pig Ale, Moe’s Original Bar B Que. In the future, they hope to work with local chefs to create meals that go specifically with their variety of beers. Until then, Jason and Zach plan to offer food pairings on the their labels to maximize enjoyment.
     Thanks largely to the Free the Hops organization, Alabama residents now have the luxury of embracing the world of boutique beers without leaving their state for supply.  Cheers to that! And cheers to beer enthusiasts-turned-brew producers like Jason and Zach, who are pioneering the way for Birminghamians. Even for those indifferent to beer and its many unique versions, the recent movement of Free The Hops has opened up opportunities that everyone can enjoy, like promoting the generation of a new type of business and employment in the state. At long last, Alabama is on the beer map. As they say, the best is saved for last. And in the farmland of Alabama, the best comes from the Back Forty.

For a complete list of restaurants and stores where you can find Naked Pig Ale,visit backfortybeer.com.