Issue link: https://alabamapower.uberflip.com/i/705219
8 a p c s hor e l i n e s.c om | 2016 Vol :2 98 percent occupied, with many of the new owners those young entrepreneurs who came back home to Gadsden or just decided to put down roots there. For Wilson and Back Forty, the move has been magical. Back Forty has grown and become a leading brewer in the state and the region. "We've just completed a $2 million expansion. That doubled our production capacity here to about 25,000 barrels, roughly," Wilson said. "We added a new bottling line and a bunch of new, really exciting components. We added a new pilot test batch system, so we will be able to do a lot of small batch, experimental stuff in the months and years to come. The brewers are really excited about that and I know the public will be, too." Back Forty is found throughout Alabama and in Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and Mississippi. "We have some ongoing conversations that continue that kind of natural wave of expansion," Wilson said. "New Orleans; Little Rock, Arkansas; the Carolinas are next on the short list for us." But one of Back Forty's biggest moves to date is turning the Coosa River into an international waterway of sorts. "We just launched an export development program, which will take us into Canada, China, several different countries in South America, several parts of the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, so we're really excited about that," Wilson said. Truck Stop Honey in Tianjin? Paw Paw's Peach in Puerto Rico? Naked Pig in Newfoundland? Why? "Most people don't realize that 85 percent of the beer sold in the world is sold outside of the United States, so we're excited to take an Alabama brand and export it to different parts of the world and let them see what that Southern hospitality is all about," Wilson said "Just like when we started Back Forty in Alabama when there were no other bottling breweries and everybody else Above: Photo by BeRnaRd tRonCale — Jess Moses uses a refractometer to test the specific gravity in wort, which is the liquid extracted from the mashing process. Yeast will be added that will ferment the wort into beer.