"...
This year, he opens Fullsteam Brewery in Durham, celebrating both mad science and local flavor. There you'll find beer brewed with scuppernong grapes, sweet potatoes -- even kudzu.
If his experiment works, he will have given the state a signature drink, a beer as synonymous with North Carolina as Anchor Steam is to San Francisco.
"We want to create something that's distinctively Southern, that's us, that lays claim to this region that we love," said Wilson, 38.
Wilson's "Pop the Cap" lobbying changed beer's definition, inviting a new class of stronger specialty beers brewed to enhance a good meal.
His calling came after he sampled barley wine and triple IPA beer, then learned that his adopted home state deemed them illegal, their alcohol content too high.
So he quickly co-founded Pop the Cap, and in 2005, successfully lobbied the legislature to raise beer's alcohol limit from 6 percent to 15 percent. This was no easy feat, given North Carolina's history as a control state, managing the sale of all alcoholic beverages. Opponents argued that higher-alcohol beers would be marketed directly to poor minorities..."
