Casita Cerveceria brings worldly experience to North Carolina

Ryan Witter-Merithew practically traveled around the world to end up brewing beer where he started in North Carolina.

Witter-Merithew, a Charlotte native, started Casita Cerveceria about three years ago but recently ramped up production when he moved back to eastern North Carolina. The move brought him back to Duck Rabbit — he brews his beers at the Farmville facility — where he first learned the trade.

After leaving Charlotte as a teenager, Witter-Merithew moved to Colorado, then New Jersey and then Pennsylvania where he started applying for brewery jobs. But he didn't quite know what he was getting in to.

"My first interview, I went with a tie on and a tucked in shirt," Witter-Merithew told the 919 Beer Podcast. "I did not get that brewing job because it was evident that I had no clue what I was doing."

He dropped the tie and eventually picked up a job brewing beer at Duck Rabbit. After three years there, he moved to Denmark and then England, brewing more beer along the way. Now, back in the Tar Heel State, Witter-Merithew is whipping up beers like Cosmic Opposites, a white stout and a black IPA that come packaged together.

"I usually make two beers whenever I do cans ... and I just thought it would be fun that if you have a white stout to then have a black IPA as the other side of it," Witter-Merithew said.

The white stout, which some breweries call a golden stout, is lighter in color than a traditional stout but is still heavy on the vanilla and marshmallow flavors. On the other side, the black IPA is a dark beer but still brings the hops.

Because Witter-Merithew is the company's only employee and distributes the product himself, Casita has most of its accounts around the Triangle with a few others scattered around the state.

"We probably get five or six new accounts every release, and I just don't make enough beer to keep adding," he said.