The Story

Who we were. Who we are. Who we will become.

A look back on the rich history of Burial through the lens of Co-Founder and CSO, Doug Reiser.

Year 1:

Never forget your first project. The concrete walkway that Jess’ 30th bday built kinda says it all. The relics we left inside were happenchance. Just little reminders of our lack of readiness and resolve. Stapled grain bags, dusty bricks, and decaying railings masquerading as an aesthetic. We made due with very little. Worked with what we found. Begged and borrowed our way. Brazen ideas fueled every week. Lack of caution became our calling card. And customers gave us wandering eyes and curious souls.

You latched us in your jaws and carried us through. Lining up for donut holes on toothpicks we struggled to justify. Loaning us your backs, mistake fixers, and bright ideas. That first year was magical. Asheville was everything. Wicked Weed’s otherworldly launch, Sierra Nevada and New Belgium coming to town. Somewhere trapped inside it all was the tale of a little hole in the wall brewery that couldn’t keep beer on tap for a weekend. Just a little morsel of chaos that must have had you all intrigued enough. Either that or our infatuation with solving the mystery of saison without temp control in tiny imploding tanks.

Year 2:

Pay attention to your muses. Their wake will help you navigate the unknown. The tide moves quickly in craft and we were swimming upstream. Feeling lost became our greatest tool for staying alive. So we purchased the grounds around our taproom and set out to define ourselves. We opened up the galleyway that Winter and began to fill the taps with our own beers for the first time. We finally felt unafraid to embody our fondness for hops. We allowed ourselves to be pulled to the damning patience of lagers. I remember that first batch of Surf Wax that went on draft. It was November; we were a mixed mélange of mess throughout the space, no intention to our design. But that cold resinous froth eased my fear. Burial put out a fun array of ales, waded into mixed cultures, and concocted Shadowclock.

Things were beautifully a mess at that time. No aim in our coffers. And as we began to build a team, we recognized the immense allure to relationships with collaborators. These were our conspirers. The makers of fine flavors, and the fermenters of great elevation. It was then that we met eternal friends like Other Half and French Broad Chocolates. It was a time where curiosity took hold. And we wondered what our truth really looked like.

Year 3:

It takes time to recognize what you have to offer the world. But after a couple of years, we knew we wanted to be in experiences. Immersing people in a time and place, among conversation, with an exploration of sound and art to feed the mind’s introspection. That was us. We gave up the ole farmhouse dream that year, tipping our caps to the Fonta Floras of the world, and accepting the challenge of breathing new life into the dead and decayed. We found Forestry Camp that Winter on a Craigslist ad tipped off by a colleague. We were intoxicated by the ghosts of the space. It was perfect. Our team built Camp with its bare hands as we awaited permits, tearing floors out, hanging them on ceilings, loading steel, pulling the bootstrap. The stories of 100 years of hard work culminating in a rebirth. It was still kinda calm in those days. Canning beer downtown, cutting ribbons, bringing in new faces, hosting new friends. The bar started to rise. We tried to rise with it.

Year 4

The excitement of growth roams among no finer hell than a shoestring budget. And that’s our story in a verse. Burial’s pending growth put us in a headlock with rationality on a daily basis. The challenges of cultural stability, product quality and financial intelligence smacked us across the brow with each setting sun. A lot of helping hands carried us to surface, and we suffered many difficulties along the way.

I find this to be an awakening period in retrospect. A time where we appended to the narrative that this would be hard and require immense evolution of ourselves as people. The resonation of this feeling became our products and experiences as we evolved into a more personal narrative with names and stories. It felt more real that way. It kept us engaged and fulfilled. And you seemed to dig it as well. We sold our first Camp cans in November that winter, and landed in New York and Atlanta. We birthed our barrel-aged sour program. We sent our wares to Belgium, brewed out on the West and East coasts. And we became something more than what we thought we were. This felt like something more than beer.

Year 5

With form comes function. Sometimes it just takes you awhile to get there. This was the year we invented the projection you know as Burial. We opened the year with our first sour releases. Hosted some of the world’s finest lager makers for Ambient Terrain. And birthed an IPA series, a dissected mural piece by David Paul Seymour we called The Earth As We Now Know It. We were finding a place to rest. But the four corners of our craft began after a trip to the beach. It was then that we latched back on to the reason we were here. You. The customer. We defined our experiential aim and the core values that divided us from others. That did not come without scars.

The first full year of Camp came with many hardships in our quest to preserve integrity and take care of customer desires. We often failed to care for ourselves. It’s still the most impactful teaching moment we’ve had and the guidance we share with other upstarts. And it’s led to our most deeply-inspired art, branding and product lines. It made us recognize the human journey and how it connected to our very own name. The cycle of finite consciousness. And the value in camaraderie, exploration, and inspiration. So we shared what we found. We took chances. We found a way. That year we quietly rebuilt our vision. More focused. More sincere. More realistic.

Year 6

It took us 2 years to gather a regimen of brewing that offered us comfort. That and really great people. Much of the Burial team you see today joined around this time. We leaned in where we knew best. And those adorning the affectionate gospels of Wax, Clock, Hawk, and Tube became mainstays. We birthed more brands than ever, telling the stories of our everyday in each and every hoppy ale we mustered. We captured the very human path of brewers with Off Topic. And we finally left our safety nest of Asheville, and embarked on the vast unknown to connect with our East side customers in Raleigh. The Exhibit brandished a new look for us. Some celebrated. Others wanted more Sloth and Selleck. But it was a first step outside ourselves and into a wider identity. It paved the way for us connect beyond our hometown and it proved to us that our community was much larger than we thought. The Exhibit would meander a path of self-exploration 2 more times before settling in as the killer vibe it is today.

Year 7

Not all bridges are meant to be crossed. But we entered the year catching stars. The cosmic path of Forestry Camp was unveiled. We will forever adore the first iteration and understand why restaurants are an underappreciated beast of passion. We dished out our high country basque grub aside rambunctious wines and beers from some of the most inspiring creators. We trespassed on an overly ambitious growth plan to bring beer back to our home state. And Burnpile set Camp ablaze with chaos for one incredible night with Beach Fossils and more.

Right as it all felt the heaviest, the plague set in. We have always adored spontaneity, and the unbridled force of necessity mandated we think beyond. Haphazardly we setup shop on the ole web and found a willing shipping partner. What followed was remarkable. Beer evaporated into the ether. We had no time to evolve. And so we turned on a dime. Our team packaged more beer than ever, offering up an ambitious array of new wares each week. It became the hymn we call The Flow. We handed out Imperial Stout weekly, blended more sour ale, birthed the Heavy Resin and finally found space for our own devotion to traditional lagers. This meant an end to many brands of yesterday. But the flood of creativity rushed over us, as we embraced the chance to connect in new ways.

Year 8

The new something. People like to refer to a change of equilibrium as an alteration of “normal”. But we always lived the fluid way. The pandemic was yet another shift in our medium. And the goal of customer connection never changed. As our state opened up, so did we. We responded by investing in the face-to-face experience we all yearned. And we purchased spaces in Charlotte’s Plaza Midwood and our neighboring building in Asheville’s South Slope.

Leaning back in brought us closer to our community, and we recognized that our goals of inclusivity beckoned more accommodation of more interests. We launched VISUALS to do this. It brought new elevations to our experience, offering our customers a way above their own equilibriums, and a welcome to wine, cider and restricted explorers. We’d launch wines seasonally, tell the tale of apples from our own hills, and mix up fortified herbal allegories of the journey. Going beyond beer filled us up. By year end we knew the inevitable. Music would be the next portal into a vast new world.

Year 9

The power of open mindedness is gripping. It beckons connection in places you never knew you’d find it. We’d built a massive endeavor of strong ales. And we’d left little room for the onward journeyers. So we set a course for sessionability. We made more classic lager, birthed One of Us Will Have to Bury The Other, doubled down on a return of our beloved Billows and mapped a plan to turn our new downtown brewhouse into a maven of 5% festivity. Prophetmaker became our darling. We walked you out of the Dark, into the Bright lights and through the Dusk. And as we started fostering adoration for even more moderation, we opined of future booze-free offerings.

The summer brought us to Charlotte. The House of Relics was our most ambitious opening yet, rife with all the risk-taking modality that you hate and adore from us. Free from the tethers of our imprints, Relics confused public perceptions with a different glance at our very curious world of art, nostalgia, festivity and camaraderie. We maintained a special window into the world of Boris & Natasha, and launched with the fervent support of Charlotte’s finest brewers. It was the badass array of connection that represents the reason we go to work each and evey day.

Year 10

Nobody knows the dividing line between right and wrong. But we aim to walk along it. On one side or the other. Asking for your interpretation. Hearing it when we can. We will disappoint you. We will lift you up. We will rot away as the old. And we will usher in the new. That is the story of rebirth we promised 10 years ago. Put it out to pasture. Let it die. Till the land for your new beginning.

It enables this story to be told by many. It will evolve as they are urged by their hearts to tell it. The Burial of Year 11 welcomes in new friends, new spaces, new experiences. And new curators, new voices, new contortions of the Burial you came to know. How will you challenge them to push beyond? How will they implore you to keep walking through the door? All I know is that you won’t let each other down.

Label artwork by David Paul Seymour. Animations by Trevor Carmick of Beer Labels in Motion.