Foothills Brewpub

Foothills Brewpub is the original Foothills Brewing location — a full-service restaurant, bar, and brewery on West Fourth Street in downtown Winston-Salem, NC, open since March 2005 in a former car dealership built in the late 1920s. This is where Foothills started, and it remains the anchor of the city’s craft beer scene.

The brewpub pairs the full Foothills beer lineup with a substantial pub menu — burgers, sandwiches on house spent-grain bread, and the fried pickles the place is known for. There’s frequent live music, in-house catering, and private event space, and the kitchen runs late seven days a week.

Worth knowing: this is a different experience from the Foothills Brewing Tasting Room on Kimwell Drive, which is the production brewery with 28 taps and no kitchen. The Brewpub is the downtown, walkable, sit-down-dinner version.

We’ve always loved the chicken tenders here — there’s something about the breading that sets them apart. As of our last visit, some of the best we’ve had anywhere in North Carolina.

Be sure to check out the pictures below to get a feel for Foothills Brewpub before you go — or to relive the visit after.

The Founding and the Building

Foothills traces back to Jamie Bartholomaus, an anthropology major at the University of Georgia and an avid homebrewer since the early 1990s. He volunteered as much as 30 hours a week at Blind Man Ales, a since-closed brewpub in Athens, and after graduating did archaeology work around the Southeast before brewing became the actual career.

During a stint at Olde Hickory Brewing Company in North Carolina, Bartholomaus met Sarah McNeill, a waitress who shared his interest in craft beer. The two married and shared a plan to own a brewpub. When the chance came to take over an old Winston-Salem nightclub and convert it, they built a business plan, found investors, and founded Foothills Brewing in 2004 alongside co-owner Matt Masten, a local financial advisor. The brewpub opened in March 2005, with Jamie as President and Brewmaster and Sarah as COO.

The building has a history of its own. The West Fourth Street space was originally a car dealership built in the late 1920s, and by the time the Bartholomauses took it over it had been run pretty hard through years of use as a succession of nightclubs. The conversion turned it into the brewpub that has anchored downtown Winston-Salem’s craft beer scene ever since.

The first year produced 800 barrels on three 15-barrel fermenters. Output doubled the following year, and demand kept climbing until the brewpub couldn’t keep up — which led to the 48,000-square-foot former manila envelope factory on Kimwell Drive that became the main production brewery and now houses the Tasting Room. Foothills has since grown into one of the largest regional craft breweries in the Southeast, with seven Great American Beer Festival medals and three World Beer Cup medals — more than any other North Carolina brewery.

The Beer, the Food, and the Room

The beer is the full Foothills catalog: Hoppyum IPA, Torch Pilsner, People’s Porter, Pilot Mountain Pale Ale, Carolina Blonde, and Jade IPA among more than twenty year-round and seasonal offerings. The one that made the brewery’s national reputation is Sexual Chocolate, a cocoa-infused imperial stout whose release day once drew people camping out overnight on the sidewalk.

The kitchen is what separates the Brewpub from the Tasting Room. This is a full-service restaurant rather than a taproom with a food truck out front — burgers, sandwiches, and pub plates, with the smoked chicken sandwich on spent-grain bread a standout that uses grain left over from the brewing process. The fried pickles have their own following. Our own pick is the chicken tenders — there’s something about the breading that sets them apart from the usual pub version, and as of our last visit they were some of the best we’ve had in North Carolina.

The room itself is a downtown brewpub in the traditional sense: open kitchen and bar, room for groups, and a patio with views out over the surrounding downtown blocks. Live music and events run regularly, and there’s in-house catering plus private event and party space for larger bookings. Hours run from 11 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week, making this one of the more reliable late options downtown.

The location works well for visitors. The Brewpub sits in the historic West End and is within walking distance of the Kimpton Cardinal Hotel and the Embassy Suites. Footnote Coffee and Cocktails — Foothills’ third location, part coffee roastery and part cocktail lounge — is right next door at 634 West Fourth Street.

Good to Know

• Location: 638 West Fourth Street, Winston-Salem, NC 27101 (historic West End)
• Phone: 336-777-3348
• Hours: 11 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week, except Thanksgiving and Christmas — check the Foothills Brewing website for current hours
• Foothills founded: 2004 by Jamie and Sarah Bartholomaus with co-owner Matt Masten
• Brewpub opened: March 2005
• The building: A former car dealership built in the late 1920s, later a series of nightclubs before the conversion
• The beer: More than twenty year-round and seasonal offerings, including Hoppyum IPA, Torch Pilsner, People’s Porter, Pilot Mountain Pale Ale, Carolina Blonde, and Jade IPA
• The famous one: Sexual Chocolate, a cocoa-infused imperial stout with a release day people once camped out for
• Awards: Seven Great American Beer Festival medals and three World Beer Cup medals — more than any other NC brewery
• The food: Full-service pub menu; the smoked chicken sandwich on spent-grain bread and the fried pickles are the standouts
• Our pick: The chicken tenders — the breading sets them apart, and as of our last visit they were among the best we’ve had in NC
• The room: Full bar and kitchen, patio with downtown views, frequent live music, in-house catering, and private event space
• Also from Foothills: The Foothills Brewing Tasting Room at the Kimwell Drive production brewery, and Footnote Coffee and Cocktails next door at 634 West Fourth Street
• Best for: Sit-down dinner with good beer, groups, live music, late nights downtown, visitors staying at downtown hotels, and anyone who wants the food that the Tasting Room doesn’t have
• Pair with: Our guide to the top breweries to visit in Winston-Salem; the full Winston-Salem food and beverage cluster; the Foothills Brewing Tasting Room for the 28-tap production-brewery version; or Fiddlin’ Fish Brewing Company, Broad Branch Distillery, and Camel City BBQ Factory elsewhere downtown

A Winston-Salem Highlight

This is where it started. A homebrewer with an anthropology degree, a waitress he met working at another brewery, a financial advisor willing to invest, and a beat-up former car dealership that had spent years as a rotating cast of nightclubs. Foothills opened the doors in March 2005 and made 800 barrels that first year. Two decades later, the company holds more medals from the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup than any other brewery in North Carolina.

The practical case for choosing the Brewpub over the Tasting Room is the kitchen. This is a full restaurant — you can sit down to dinner, order a smoked chicken sandwich on spent-grain bread made from the leftovers of the brewing process, and stay until midnight any night of the week. The Tasting Room has more taps; the Brewpub has the food and the walkable downtown address.

Order the chicken tenders — the breading is the thing, and they’ve been some of the best we’ve had in North Carolina. Get the fried pickles on the side, and whatever’s on tap you haven’t had. And if the calendar lines up, come during a Sexual Chocolate release — the overnight campouts have faded, but it’s still the beer that put Winston-Salem on the national map.

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Foothills Brewpub Website

Foothills Brewpub Facebook

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