Last week in Germantown, Edmund’s Oast Brewing Co. co-founder Scott Shor stood inside Corks Wine & Spirits, pouring samples of 22 different beers made by the Charleston, South Carolina, craft brewery.
Throughout the evening, customers stopped at the table to work their way through the lineup, sometimes offering Shor candid assessments of what they liked — and what they didn’t.
For Shor, visits like this are an important part of the business.
Edmund’s Oast is still growing — slowly, Shor is quick to point out — at a time when many craft breweries are struggling mightily just to maintain sales.
Part of its approach involves something relatively simple: showing up in the markets where its beer is sold.
“There’s some breweries that’ll just ship beer off to a faraway state, and then that’s it,” Shor told Memphis Beer Blog. “I don’t think that works anymore. I think it did work. It doesn’t now. So now you’ve gotta show up and be part of it.”
Bringing Edmund’s Oast to the people
Shor and his business partner opened the Edmund’s Original brewpub in Charleston in 2014. As its beers gained a following, they began looking for a way to reach customers beyond the brewpub.
At the time, their beer was brewed on a small system and available only for on-site consumption. So the next step was opening a production brewery that could package beer and send it into other markets.
That happened in 2017 with the opening of Edmund’s Oast Brewing Company, a production brewery, taproom and restaurant that’s close to the original brewpub location.
Today, Edmund’s Oast distributes its beers to about a dozen states.
Tennessee has been part of that expansion since 2020 through Advintage Distributing, which also works with Edmund’s Oast in South Carolina and North Carolina.
Shor said the brewery has worked closely with Advintage to gradually build its presence in Tennessee, including Memphis. His recent trip was his third visit to the Bluff City.
Quality, price — and the can
In a crowded craft beer market, Shor believes Edmund’s Oast stands out through a combination of quality, consistency and value — along with distinctive can art that helps get the beer noticed in the first place.
“I think we deliver a consistent, high-quality product at a reasonable price for craft,” he said.
He pointed to Something Cold, the brewery’s 5%-ABV Blonde Ale, as an example. A four-pack of 16-ounce cans was selling for under $11.50 at Corks during the tasting.
The brewery’s cans have a distinctive look, pairing white labels with detailed, black, pen-and-ink-style illustrations.
Shor doesn’t discount the importance of that packaging in attracting attention on a crowded shelf.
“The art doesn’t matter if the beer’s not good, but, you know, the labels help get to stage two where you actually get judged on the quality of the product,” Shor said.
“So it’s important that the label stands out, and you have to back that up with a price people feel good about paying.”
Beer you want to drink again
Edmund’s Oast hasn’t built its business around chasing every trend that comes through craft beer, though its lineup certainly has a playful side.
There’s Popsicle, a blue-green tart ale inspired by the classic frozen treat, along with a rotating series of fruited sours featuring everything from Concord grape to apricot peach to mango orange passion fruit.
But Shor said even those beers are built around balance and drinkability.
“All the beers have to be refreshing and something you can always reach for a second,” he said.
The brewery generally stays away from the especially boozy beers that have become part of the craft beer landscape. It also doesn’t make nonalcoholic beer or cannabis beverages.
“We stay the course of what we do and what we know how to do,” Shor said.
Edmund’s Oast’s biggest sellers include Bound by Time, a 7%-ABV India Pale Ale, and Something Cold, their Blond Ale, along with the brewery’s rotating sour series.
Bound by Time also happens to be Shor’s own go-to.
“Probably 90% of my beer consumption is Bound by Time,” he said. “Like, in all of life. I don’t mean just at work.”
Slow, deliberate growth
At its production brewery, Edmund’s Oast has continued to add larger fermentation tanks within its existing walls without adding new buildings.
Edmund’s Oast now produces about 17,000 barrels annually and continues to grow modestly at a time when some of Shor’s friends and peers in the industry are stagnant at best.
Breweries have closed in Charleston, just as they have in Memphis and other markets across the country.
Tennessee remains a state where Edmund’s Oast is seeing its business grow.
“We are seeing growth in Memphis and Tennessee. It’s slow, deliberate, controlled growth,” he said.
Beers from Edmund’s Oast can be found across Shelby County, from Miss Cordelia’s, South Point Grocery and the Flying Saucer in Downtown Memphis, to Rotolo’s Craft & Crust in Arlington and Collierville — and many places in between.
At Corks in Germantown, Shor’s visit offered a taste of the beers available on a regular basis here, and then some, with more than 20 canned offerings being poured.
For Shor, that’s part of the appeal of taking Edmund’s Oast beyond Charleston.
“We like the idea of coming up to Memphis, cracking open 22 different cans, hanging out with people, and saying, ‘Yeah, I’m here from Charleston. Here’s what we do.'”
