Tuesday, November 2, 2010

FRESH Opinions

Two weeks ago we were delighted to host Beach Organics, a local organic store, for a screening of the movie FRESH and the opportunity to meet local organic vendors. The fascinating and frightening topic of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) and their effects were also discussed. At the Weeping Radish, we are strong advocates for local food, knowing who your farmer is and how they raise their products, rather than only buying Certified USDA Organic, so an evening on USDA Organic was an interesting experience for us.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think organic growing practices are better for consumers and the environment, but I do not think USDA certification, or any certification from large corporations, guarantees these benefits. There are many people, however, who believe in the power of that seal as much as they believe in the benefits of truly organic products. It has been my experience that when blind faith in certification and buzzwords takes over the consumer ends up looking foolish and local farms get hurt.

That Sunday evening, for example, I was having an intelligent conversation about regulations in the food industry with a very nice lady when she asked about our products. She was practically heartbroken when I said they weren’t organic. My response to her “I only eat Certified Organic,” was to show her a bag of USDA Certified Organic frozen broccoli. Slightly to the left of the certification seal was written in small letters “Made in China.” It was definitely a shock to this lady to know that the organic standard she held dear was being given to products from a country that exported poisoned baby formula. How can a local farmer compete with products like that? More importantly why would they want to? Why would a farmer submit to an expensive and irrational inspection process when the integrity of the certification is questionable at best?

Another woman’s response to “organic” vegetables from China was that the really important certification was Non-GMO. The short film on GMOs was more thought provoking and inspired less cynicism in me than the longer FRESH movie; almost everything in FRESH was portrayed with more impact and detail in Food Inc. The other film described how easily GMOs could be spread from one field to another and the horrible mutations occurring in lab rats fed GMO foods. What they didn’t mention was that close to 80% of all corn, beans and cotton in the US is now GMO seed with the majority coming from one company (Monsanto). Some people might dare to call that a monopoly, but monopolies lobby very hard to keep their existence quiet. I have to wonder though, as concern over GMOs grows, and with a powerful monopoly already in place, how long before that certification process becomes just as unreliable as USDA Certified Organic and with much worse consequences?

Thursday, September 23, 2010

It's Official!


Our Christmas Bier has been brewed and is aging nicely in the tanks! A staff and customer favorite, the Christmas Bier is a doppelbock with a rich malty flavor. It was also the first beer we ever brewed that took advantage of the "Pop the Cap" movement - the group that repealed the 6% alcohol limit for beers. Now hovering comfortably around the 8.5% level the Christmas Bier is the perfect brew for the holidays! It hits the shelves Thanksgiving Week and if the finished product is anything like my early sample it's going to be a very Merry Christmas!

Friday, September 17, 2010

New Blog

Welcome to the new Weeping Radish blog! Technical issues plagued us with our old site so here we are! I've brought most of the older posts to this new address, but if you are feeling nostalgic you can hop over to www.weepingradish.blog.com to see all the posts in chronological order.

And now that I don't have computer and internet glitches as an excuse, perhaps there will be more posts about what's going on at the Radish!

"Oh Give Me a Home, Where the Buffalo Roam!"

Fun Fact: In America, the terms buffalo and bison are interchangeable. There are different more distinct varieties in Asia and Africa, but in North America the names refer to the same animal. And, while historians debate details, no one denies the vital role they played in life on the American grasslands.

Another Fun Fact: Ted Turner is the largest individual landowner in North America. Of his fifteen ranches spread over seven states, fourteen of them are used to raise bison. These bison herds supply his restaurants with fresh free-range bison meats.

Bison played a huge role in the early food chain of our country and today they’re just as valuable. But don’t be daunted by Ted Turner’s large-scale operation; you don’t have to have two million acres of land to be a successful bison farmer. We attend a brilliant farmer’s market in Virginia Beach (I may have mentioned it before!) and once a month Don Edmonds and his wife Kim bring their bison meat to Old Beach Farmer’s Market.

Bison or Beef, livestock farmers run into the same problem of what to do with non-primal cuts of meat. This is where we step in. Our Master Butcher takes meat destined for hamburger, which is hardly profitable for farmers, and turns it into sausages, pastrami, ham, etc., that the farmers can actually sell. Frank Meusel, our Master Butcher in Residence, was particularly excited to make bison sausages, the meat being exceptionally lean and flavorful, so we picked up several hundred pounds of meat and got ready to work. Or so we thought…

Did you know that according to the United States Department of Agriculture bison, an indigenous species, is “exotic” meat? Clearly the regulators failed their history classes because in reality bison were in America long before cows! We are already well aware that common sense does not apply to federal regulations, however we had no idea they were reaching a new low with this instance. In order to work on this meat we had to submit a form to the state office in Raleigh. Once “officials” approved this form, an inspector would be sent down to evaluate our facility and recipes. If he found our procedures (which are already USDA approved and inspected) acceptable then we would be able to process the “exotic” bison meat under the supervision of our regular inspector. The final insult was that we would have to pay for this supervision: $43.64 an hour!

What else could we do? The form was filled out and submitted to Raleigh and for nearly three weeks Frank and Mr. Edmonds wondered if we would be making Bison Brats or not. Not one for sitting still, Uli started making phone calls. He got in touch with the State Director of NCDA’s Meat and Poultry Inspection Division. Mr. Director was surprised we were jumping through all these hoops. He told us the inspector had a column on her time sheet where she could record hours spent on “exotic” meats and we would be sent a bill when she turned it in. And just like that we made bison brats! To this day we do not know where our inspector, who was just as confused as we were, got her list of requirements or why the State Director said we didn’t have to follow them.

The truly sad thing is that our goal of helping small farmers has taken quite a blow with this latest regulatory roadblock. How are we supposed to keep costs low for exotic meats when we have to pay an inspector a higher hourly rate than the Master Butcher. It is a sad state of affairs when our government considers inspector training more valuable than true artisan craftsmanship. That even makes labeling a native American species “exotic” seem rational.

Have A Cup of Coffee and Pray

(Originally posted March 2010)

No, that’s not what I did before starting this post – although it’s been so long since I’ve written I am hoping for a miracle. “Have A Cup of Coffee and Pray” is what the food production industry nicknamed the HACCP regulations when they first came out. The HACCP system, Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point, is what almost all food wholesalers must comply with and what I spent three days studying at NC State. It was definitely an eye opening experience. But first a little background information.

Since we began production under USDA inspection we’ve been following the HACCP plan I wrote with help from NCDA officials. However, no one was actually certified to approve this plan so I enrolled in the Introduction to HACCP Workshop hoping it would make life at the Radish just a little bit easier. For over two years we have been struggling with our federal meat inspectors, the Battle of the Unstamped Hogs is legendary and the Prosciutto Wars are ongoing, and the conclusion we’ve reached is this: the federal regulations are not written for small plants like ours. Living with this conclusion is not always easy or pleasant and if you visit our bar we’d be happy to regale you with war stories while you nurse your shock with a pint of our excellent beer!

I could have done with several pints before I even started my HACCP class (lovingly referred to as Meat School by friends and family). Being ridiculously anxious about arriving late on my first day, I was 40 minutes early for class. Thankfully I wasn’t the only one with first day jitters and I passed the time talking with a woman from a chicken processing plant near Fayetteville. That doesn’t sound too awful does it? Nothing to send me screaming for a pint of Black Radish? Wrong. HACCP is basically the list of steps to make a particular product with a Critical Control Point (CCP) where an infection/adulteration may occur. As the Weeping Radish Butchery is so small, the Butcher and I work together to create and monitor complete HACCP plans for nearly a dozen products. My new chicken friend spends her days monitoring one CCP! Their operation is so large that they have 12 inspectors that work full 8-hour shifts; our inspector normally finishes his assignments in a few hours. Upon hearing this, my first thought was “Why on earth are we taking the same course?” 

There is a massive difference between our artisan butcher and the meat hackers that need HACCP plans to tell them what to do. This point was hammered home again when the class divided into groups to write HACCP plans for fictitious products. I questioned the use of sodium nitrate in the product, pointing out that a growing number of people are unwilling to buy products that use nitrates as a curing salt (I don’t necessarily agree with this, but that is a blog for another day!). I think the look they gave me was close to pity, “Poor confused girl thinking about public opinion instead of mass production.” When I explained that our operation consisted of one Master Butcher who only worked with whole animals they looked at me like I had two heads! What is this strange creature doing in HACCP School with Perdue and ConAgra (makers of Slim Jim and Chef Boyardee)? Excellent question! Any answers USDA?

Rivals

(Originally posted January 2010)

Prologue (Sort of)

Two cities, both alike in breweries
In fair Germany, where we lay our scene
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny
Where civil beer makes civil tankards unclean
From forth the angry breweries of these two foes
The Weeping Radish Kolsch and Alt Bier arise
And by neutrally prospering in North Carolina
Do with their quality bury their parents’ strife.

Not many people outside Germany know that there is a passionate rivalry between the cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf. Not many people outside Germany know where these two cities are located. (They’re in the northwestern part of the country and Cologne is about twenty-five miles south of Düsseldorf. I had to look it up too!) One of the main reasons for their discord is that both cities produce a distinct style of beer and neither one will admit the merits of the other. Düsseldorf is famous for its Alt Bier while Cologne invented Kolsch beer. However, in the spirit of neutrality, the Weeping Radish Brewery produces both styles to the delight of its patrons.

The Weeping Radish Kolsch beer is extremely popular and pays homage to its German roots by displaying the famous Cologne Cathedral on its label. It was this label that caught the eye of a German radio reporter based in Washington DC. Nina Magoley is from Cologne and made a special trip to the Weeping Radish to speak with Uli Bennewitz about his brewery and his experiences on both sides of the Atlantic. The result was a story on www.wdr.de and a live radio show. At the end of the article Uli couldn’t resist a little jab at the cities’ rivalry. “We had a customer from Düsseldorf come by and try the Kolsch,” Uli said. “He told me there was something wrong with the Kolsch. It tasted good!”
This article, the last line in particular, caught the attention of Bildzeitung, the largest daily German newspaper with a large office in Düsseldorf. With true German efficiency, they did their research and discovered that the Weeping Radish also brewed an Alt Bier. A reporter was on the phone to Uli within minutes and Weeping Radish Alt Bier labels and other information began buzzing through cyberspace. Their article on the Weeping Radish Brewery will be published in the next few days and, big surprise, promises to focus heavily on the Alt Bier. 

As amusing as this rivalry may seem to us, and we are having a wonderful time poking fun at both cities, there is a positive outcome: Cologne and Düsseldorf will continue to produce outstanding beers if only to spite their rival. Prost!

Labeling

(Originally posted December 2009)

Once again I am using this blog to complain about the Federal Government. I don’t want to appear fixated, but they keep giving me lemons so I am going to make lemonade.

Our saga begins with the Food Safety Inspection Service’s (FSIS) remarkable silly labeling procedures. Every product we make for wholesale must have an approved label on file that complies with federal regulations. That doesn’t sound so terrible does it? Would it sound worse if I told you that a copy of the label and corresponding form must be sent in duplicate to the Label and Program Delivery Division for approval and that until they mail the approved label and form back you cannot sell the product in question? Anyone who has had the misfortune of working with a government agency knows that an efficient response time is a foreign concept and anyone expecting such a service is being discretely measured for a straightjacket. Back in the days of our innocence we did what our inspectors told us: submit the labels for federal approval and then sweat bullets until we heard back three to six weeks later whether or not we could label and sell our products. One day, in desperate frustration, I called the FSIS office in Washington to see what else I could do to speed this approval process along, as it was slowly killing the butchery and driving me towards the door of a padded cell. The woman I eventually reached on the phone was an angel; seriously, if I knew her name I would nominate her for a Nobel Prize. She cut through the official jargon and told me plainly that there was a miraculous alternative called Generic Approval. As long as we met all of the requirements listed on the FSIS Labeling website, we could attach a copy of the label to its form, stick it in the filing cabinet and call it a day. No waiting more waiting on Washington to allow us to sell sausages. The only snag with this brilliant proposal was that if we made any special claims such as “No Nitrates Added” or “Gluten Free” these labels would have to be approved by a man on Uncle Sam’s payroll. Well at least we’d have something to sell while we waited. The next day I walked up to our inspector with a file of Generically Approved Labels and I’d swear she almost seemed disappointed we’d discovered the loophole.

Fast forward to this November. We have been working with Henderson’s Best Produce to make our Apple Bratwursts using their apples in their markets. This is a fantastic opportunity for us and we are anxious to start working on it. Everything has been ready for weeks except the labels. We sent in our application and about two weeks after mailing it (they absolutely will not answer your phone call before those two weeks are up) called the Status Hotline for an update. They had no idea what I was talking about. It must have been lost in the mail, the woman on the other end of the phone said in a tone of voice that totally made it sound like it was my fault. She supposed I could fax it over, so I faxed all afternoon until they had a draft they could inspect in minute detail. Two more weeks of nail biting and it was still being processed. Enough. Last Straw. Absolute Limit.

I spent the weekend in Washington, DC visiting friends and on Monday morning I presented myself at the security desk of the USDA George Washington Carver Center to bang a fist and get my label. Clearly no one just pops in for a visit at the USDA because my arrival was greeted with unrestrained wonder by the friendly security staff. They were sympathetic to my plight and perfectly willing to give me a pass to the right office; the problem was that I didn’t have a specific office. All I knew was the voice on the other end of the Labeling and Program Delivery Division Status phone who had never mentioned her name and she was inconveniently away from her phone. Not to worry, I said, I’d call the Radish and have them look up the name on a federally approved label and then Security could tell that person I wanted to speak to them. I got the name, but Security shook his head. That was just a worker who came in and out; I needed to give them the name of a supervisor. Stunned and beginning to get desperate I called our wonderful Area Supervisor for help. He was on the road inspecting facilities, but put me in touch with a helpful woman at his office in Raleigh who started searching and promised to call me back soon. Somewhere in the middle of all of these phone calls, the remarkably kind security lady went up to the FSIS office to explain what was going on. Mr. Security did his part by looking at me with pity and continuing to call Label Status. Finally he struck gold and Status came on the line. She was shocked I was there in person and was extremely reluctant to speak to me in person. Eventually, after realizing I wasn’t leaving until I spoke to someone face to face, she promised to send someone to escort me to the FSIS office. Mr. Security was beaming as he took my ID and got me a visitor’s pass and I’d like to think he was awfully impressed by my determination. As I passed through the metal detectors, the inspired security lady who went to the FSIS office came back with the Department Director. Madam Director listened to my plight, apologized profusely for the department’s losing our application, promised they would make things right and then went to lunch.

After this things moved along rather quickly. My escort arrived and led me through the gleaming new building and a maze of cubicles to the FSIS wing while I told her my story. She looked at me strangely and said “Well that’s your problem. You shouldn’t have made the special claims of ‘Gluten Free’ and ‘No Nitrates Added.’” This floored me. I would like to think that anyone connected with the food industry, like the Food Safety and Inspection Service, would know that these are the industry buzz words and huge selling points for products. I thought about explaining all this too her, but we were out of hallway and I had been crusading for 45 minutes to get to this office and I was tired. Within minutes of arriving at her cubicle I had my approved label in hand and was being politely escorted back to the front door. And just like that the battle was finished. Over a month of arguing, stressing, talking to the Status Line about processing culminated in two minutes of polite conversation with a lady in Beltsville, Maryland.

During the five-hour drive home my initial triumph and relief about the label approval was replaced with frustration for the Labeling Program’s ignorance and nonchalance for the products they are validating. Walking through those rows of cubicles I can see how easy it is for workers to lose touch with the real world; the Internet must be their only relief from mind-numbing boredom. However, the Internet offers more than Hulu and Facebook and perhaps FSIS workers could spend less time on these sites and more time learning about the industry they are regulating. I assure you small businesses everywhere would appreciate it. In the mean time we’ll just keep drinking our lemonade and check our pigs for wings.

Beer Fests

(Originally posted November 2009)

I love beer fests. You wouldn’t think standing behind a table and pouring beer for six to eight hours would be that much fun, but it really is. Everyone is there because they love beer or they’ve been dragged along by someone else who loves beer and are waiting for you to impress them, which I love doing. (Normally all this entails is pointing to Uli as the man who created the law that allowed brewpubs in North Carolina and people in line stare in awe and ask to shake his hand.) Festivals are always cheerful, filled with people and, due largely in part to bizarre and stringent alcohol laws, miraculously well organized. Most of these are spring and summer events held outside in sunny parks or even stadiums so I had stoically resolved to wait until April before I started scanning the calendar and filling out festival applications. Imagine my surprise when I was told that on November 14th we would be loading up the truck and heading out to Danville, Virginia for a beer fest!

After my initial glee had subsided, I began to wonder why this festival was in the fall. What were the organizers thinking going against tradition like this? When we got to Danville I realized that the organizers were geniuses. The middle of November is the perfect time to have an event because there is nothing else going on. People flocked to the building like they hadn’t been out of the house in weeks (which, given the size of the nor’easter that just blown through, they probably hadn’t). Everyone loved our beer and many people asked where they could get it locally. Normally we can rattle off a long list of fine establishments clever enough to carry our beer, but this time the list was embarrassingly short. Our excellent distributor is doing the best he can to promote this delicious beer with a funny name, but stores and restaurants aren’t willing to take the risk.

And this is what has brought me out of my blogging lethargy. Our distributors are trying to bring our beer to the masses, but they need your help. Go to your local restaurant, Wine & Beer store, grocery store or any place you buy beer and ask/beg for Weeping Radish. Tell them how much you like it and strike up a conversation about how we got our unique name or how we are the oldest microbrewery in North Carolina. They’ll be dazzled by your obscure beer knowledge and delighted to fill your request. We have distributors in Richmond, Tidewater, Virginia Beach, Newport News, Danville, Charlottesville, Fredericksburg, and Verona in Virginia, Raleigh North Carolina and of course on the Outer Banks!

So think of us when you buy beer and we’ll see you at a beer fest in the spring!

That "Veggie Bill"

Controversy and conspiracy are running wild as the Federal government comes closer to passing the Food Safety Modernization bill. Small growers, farmers market patrons and even people on the street are outraged that the government is trying to regulate Grandma selling tomatoes from her garden at a local market. Websites railing against the bill and email petitions are popping up all over the digital ether and yet the bill is almost a law. Calmer heads are saying that the effect on small growers will be nothing more than a bit of paperwork to register your farm and a headache if an inspector comes to visit. But here at the Weeping Radish we are buried in paperwork and inspectors and this “headache” was enough for me to sign one of those numerous petitions. Currently we are being inspected by over a dozen agencies. This is a staggering number, but each agency feels that they are protecting people from some aspect of our business that might harm the general public. And that got me thinking. USDA inspectors have basically moved in to our building because there was an infection at a massive processing plant, the county health inspector checks our restaurant because someone got food poisoning from another restaurant, even the Department of Natural Resources investigated our compost pile to make sure it wasn’t affecting water quality. So what has happened at farmer’s markets to warrant this kind of bill? We stumbled across the answer to this question without even realizing it at the time

This summer we have absolutely loved attending a local farmer’s market. There were two large farms supplying vegetables, one organic and one non-organic, and we presumed they were selling produce from their own farms. As we were preparing for a larger market event the organizers came to us and asked how our farm had fared given the recent weather changes. They wanted us to bring as many vegetables as possible because their larger vendors had weather related shortages and their other suppliers were short as well. This floored us. We would never dream of bringing other people’s sausages to market or even offering organic vegetables from another farm.

Please correct me if I’m mistaken, but isn’t the point of a farmer’s market to buy fresh produce and support local farmers? Shouldn’t I be offended if a farmer is selling me vegetables without telling me that they aren’t his?  Shouldn’t I be as angry as the people who got E. Coli from peanut butter or food poisoning from a restaurant? Shouldn’t I demand some kind of oversight for farmer’s markets?
Farmer’s markets are a thriving grassroots movement, a place where people come together to talk, laugh, and embrace a healthier way of eating, and the last thing they need is an inspector and paperwork to slow them down. They have regulated themselves for years, but it seems standards have been dropped as farmers/vendors chase the almighty dollar. The economy is tough and I understand the need to increase sales, but at least be honest about it. Tell me where the vegetables come from and let me decide if where they’re grown is as important as organic certification.

The misdeeds of a few have resulted in the government restricting the free trade of farmer’s markets.  Cynics will say that big business is solely behind this movement to create a monopoly on the markets. However, it all goes back to the individual who cheated the system, which caused the regulations, which were sponsored by “Big Business” and results in massive regulatory burdens that kill small businesses. One of the largest attractions of a farmer’s market is the personal connection with the growers and faith in what they are producing. If a farmer breaks that trust by not disclosing the truth about his products, then you may as well buy organic vegetables from Argentina at Wal-Mart.

Government Inaction

Over twenty years ago, Uli battled laws and regulations that were written by corporate breweries to limit competition from small microbreweries. Today he is fighting the same issues with regards to the meat industry. Our artisan butchery is subject to the same regulations and restrictions as large-scale slaughter and processing facilities. We appreciate that these regulations are meant to protect the consumer, but for a facility of our size they are more of a hindrance to the consumer: our Master Butcher spends more time filling out inane forms than crafting products for the consumer. In desperation Uli contacted the North Carolina’s US senator to see if he could help us navigate the minefield of threats and regulatory requirements. Sadly the Senator’s answer, “Hang in there, it is going to get worse,” was not what we had hoped for. In an attempt to increase awareness of the difficulties facing small businesses, here is Uli’s response to yet another instance of government inaction:

Dear Sir, 

As a representative of a Senator I am somewhat disappointed with your response to my issue. First of all, you have to surely agree that one Federal Inspector daily supervising our one-man artisan butchery is not an effective use of taxpayer’s money. If we have one inspector for one worker where does this leave the “Land of the Free?” We do not have this kind of scrutiny in our nuclear or chemical industry.
Secondly, the Senator is always reporting to his constituency that, as a Republican, he supports small business and fair trade. How can it be fair trade if we have a policy where a US business is inspected every day and is not allowed to operate if an inspector is not present while we import food from countries that our Government inspects once a year upon announcement? We are trying to create local jobs, support sustainable agriculture, revitalize family farms in eastern North Carolina and we’re struggling to accomplish all this while our Government allows un-inspected meats to come in by the container?

A perfect example was our attempt to make Prosciutto. Our Government does not allow us to air dry Prosciutto, but we can import Italian and Spanish Prosciutto, which has been air-dried in the country of origin where they do not have to comply with USDA’s HACCP requirements, etc.

Just to show you what we have to live with as small business: We had to install a costly 3 hour firewall, 120 ft by 36 ft high, because according to fire code a refrigerated meat processing room contains meat “which is combustible at 42 degrees F”. The stupidity is mind numbing! I know fire code is a State issue, but I want to impress upon you that as a small family owned business producing natural food, we have so far dealt with 14 Government agencies, from local to State to Federal. When we complained once to the Federal meat inspectors about their rules being unreasonable, the response from the agent was: You should have thought about this before you went under Federal inspection. Great! We have to apologize to a Federal inspector for trying to create business.

I had hoped that there would be a response from our elected Senator other than “hang in there, it is going to get worse.” Don’t get me wrong I tend to agree with this statement after all we have been through, but you must admit it is not very encouraging to watch our Country being swamped with imports, while our Government drowns small business with regulations and inspectors. This doesn’t protect anyone and only ensures that we cannot compete, not because we don’t want to, but because regulations are stacked against us and in favor of cheap imports.
Sincerely,
Uli Bennewitz

Butchery

Some things are just meant to go together: cookies and milk, tea and crumpets, wine and cheese, and most importantly beer and bratwurst. It didn’t take us long to realize that the Weeping Radish needed a truly authentic bratwurst to complement our amazing beers. Owner Uli Bennewitz placed an ad in a German butcher’s publication looking for a joint venture partner and was immediately contacted by Gunther Kuehle. The result was a pairing just as successful as beer and brats!

Gunther, a fifth generation Master Butcher from Ülm, shipped over his equipment and started cooking. The average sausage is made by putting chunks of meat through a grinder and adding a few spices; this would never make the grade in Germany! It takes five years of training to earn the title of Master Butcher. the program is a combination of classroom training and apprenticeships and covers everything from the best way to raise animals to recipes for finished products. Culinary schools are popping up all over America, but they do not have the level of intensity of the German Master Butcher’s Guild.
Uli and Gunther agreed that the best recipes and techniques in the world are not enough to create high quality products so they set out to find superior pork and beef. They contacted small family farms that only raised all-natural free-range animals and filled the Weeping Radish kitchen with Bratwurst, Beer Brats, Hot Dogs, Pastrami and so much more. The farmers were so excited by Gunther’s skill that they started sending him cuts of meat that they couldn’t sell at market to be turned into sausages and other charcuterie products. 

As Gunther can’t spend months away from his butchery in Bavaria, he and Uli came up with a unique arrangement: Gunther sends a fully certified Master Butcher to the Weeping Radish for a year and comes over periodically to refresh procedures and recipes. 

Right now we are delighted to have Frank Meusel as our resident Master Butcher. Originally from Kassel, Germany, Frank has spent the last five years working in Kazakhstan! His excitement and creativity are almost tangible. Not only is he working like mad in the butchery, but he is also exercising his culinary talents in the kitchen. His delicious marinated pork chops flew out of our retail counter and his test batch of pork schnitzel was out of this world! The schnitzel was such a hit that plans are underway for a weekend schnitzel bar at the cafe in Currituck. 

Having a Master Butcher on staff has made all the difference to our Farmer to Fork concept. We are able to make value added products that help local farmers, provide custom products for local restaurants and taste absolutely wonderful! Not bad for a day’s work!

Who We Are

Weeping Radish Logo
In 1986 the Weeping Radish opened the first microbrewery in Manteo, North Carolina. Twenty-three years ago it was illegal for microbreweries to sell their own beer, so owner Uli Bennewitz worked with state legislators to change the law and opened the brewery with a Bavarian restaurant.

Times have certainly changed! Now there are dozens of microbreweries across the state with more opening every day. Things have changed for the Weeping Radish too. In 2006 we opened a new brewery in Jarvisburg, about twelve miles north of Kitty Hawk and in 2007 we closed our Bavarian restaurant in Manteo. Our beers have always been fresh, all natural, and faithfully followed Reinheitsgebot, the German Purity Law of 1516 that states that beer can only be brewed using hops, malt, yeast and water. When we moved to Jarvisburg we wanted to apply those same principles to food and launched our “Farmer to Fork” concept.

The US food chain has consistently expanded and by not the average food travels over 2000 miles from the farm to the consumer. Every perishable commodity (which includes most of the food we eat) requires additives, chemicals and preservatives in order to “survive” this processing and distribution system. Our goal is to reduce the food chain from 2000 miles to less than 200. Our new facility includes a 14-acre organic and biodynamic farm and a butcher’s facility, operated by a German Master Butcher, that only buys animals from local, sustainable family farms. Our deli-café uses these ingredients to create a menu that is determined by availability of meats and seasonal vegetables rather than a chef ordering from a catalog.

We are honored to have been a vacation destination for so many families visiting Manteo and are looking forward to being a leading force in the Farmer to Fork movement!