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Bitter loss:
BURNTSTONE BREWHOUSE
•Suffers One Last Blow
and Closes Its Doors
T he Burntstone Brewhouse, the only genuine
"brewpub" in town, is being forced to close
its doors at the end of October, thanks to a
series of thefts and frauds from inside the busi
ness. It's a serious loss for local beer enthusiasts
and downtown Athens.
Since opening in 1998 at 140 East
Washington Street, the upscale restaurant and bar
has been the only tavern in town where a patron
can enjoy hand-crafted beer in the building
where it was brewed. In its three years in opera
tion, the Burntstone offered a full lunch and
dinner menu, maintained a full bar and served
several styles of original seasonal ales and lagers
brewed on premises by the tavern's own brew-
master, Matt Buley, a longtime brewing enthu
siast who has logged in 108 batches brewed so
far at the brewery.
"Even though we may or not be running it,
we’re hoping that an investor will step in and find
a way to keep it going," says co-owner Lou
Villalba. "That would be much better than selling
the business and watching it get ripped apart.
That would rip me apart."
Burntstone owners Lou Villalba and Scott
Schaffer relocated to Athens from Lawrence,
Kansas in 1997 and
opened the brewpub
in October, 1998. just
as Athens' only other
brew pub, the Athens
Brewing Company, was
winding down its
operations on West
Washington Street
(where the Wild Wing
Cafe currently oper
ates).
Although the
American Northeast and
Northwest enjoyed
something of a craft
brewing renaissance in
the '70s and '80s, it
took the Southeast
much longer to catch
up. There were only a
few dozen micro and
pub brewers back in
1980 (by the mid-'90s
there were hundreds of
brewpubs scattered
across Georgia and the
South). Homebrewing wasn't legal in Georgia until
1992. The operation of "brewpubs" wasn't legal
ized until 1994, the same year that Athens nicro-
biologist and brewmaster Brian Nummer opened
the Athens Brewing Company.
In addition to the fancy beers, wines and
liquors on the menu, the Burntstone regularly fea
tured five or six homemade clean-tasting ales and
lagers on tap. The bar featured a brassy atmos
phere highlighted by the impressive copper ves
sels sitting in the brewing area in the front
window. Local singer-songwriters and folk and jazz
bands played occasionally. The Burntstone
Brewhouse has also been a major supporter of
Athens' annual Classic City Brew-Fest, which bene
fits the non-profit AIDS Coalition of NE Georgia.
Although the Burntstone successfully carved a
niche for itself in the crowded downtown restau
rant scene (the owners say it showed a profit after
only a year), the pub suffered a series of financial
blows that finally debilitated the business.
According to Buley and Villalba, there were trou
bles from the start with the contractor who reno
vated the space from the Atomic Music Hall club.
Then a large air conditioning unit went dead and
had to be replaced in the summer months of
1999. In 2000, the owners discovered an infesta
tion of termites and immense structural damage.
They had to remove the floor and rebuild the
entire brewery and the front facade of the
building in January, 2001.
"Then we had a fantastic head chef this year
who really organized the kitchen and menu who
suddenly went bad... " Buley says. "Basically, the
organization fell apart for a while because the guy
who organized things was suddenly gone."
Despite the structural and employee problems,
the Burntstone continued on, although genuinely
discouraged.
"I was actually having my doubts going into
this fourth year, since the county passed those
decisions on the alcohol and liquor licenses,
which were raised 50 percent," says Villalba.
Earlier this year, the Athens-Clarke County
Commission voted to raise the Class C-D alcohol
sales license from a S2900 fee to a $4350 fee per
year. An additional three-percent sales tax was
added to all mixed-drink sales as well. Burntstone
also has the distinction of being the only tavern
in Athens required to play an additional
"brewpub" license of $500 per year.
"Margins do add up in this business," says
Villalba. "Those numbers are absolutely crucial.
It's not about the dollars and the cents: it's about
the cents. I have a business in Miami where the
alcohol license is considered an asset that can be
sold as an asset. Here, it's not considered a finan
cial asset. I think people who are not in business
have a very wrong picture of what running a ser
vice industry business is like."
Despite the mounting financial trouble in
recent months, the Burntstone was determined to
press ahead into 2002 and beyond. Then, what
Buley calls "the fatal blow" hit the brew pub: a
recent theft and embezzlement scheme from a
new employee. The scam was massive enough to
force the closure of the operation.
According to the proprietors, an employee
hired in early August stole thousands of dollars
from the business over his brief tenure. They say
he cleverly covered his trail of misdirected checks,
deposits, cash payments and bookkeeping manip
ulations for nearly two months.
"He deposited checks into our bank account to
cover other phony deposits and forged signatures
of other employees and deposited those," says
Villalba. "We were paying bills that had already
been paid, or so we though "
After the Burntstone discovered the discrepan
cies and became suspicious, the owners notified
the police department. To confirm their suspi
cions, Buley even "staked out" the brewery on
Sunday, September 23 and witnessed the suspect
letting himself into the building at 4 a.m. and
grabbing an amount of money out of the cash
drawer.
"It was on a Friday (September 21] when we
first walked to the police station and told them
what was going on," says Villalba. "I understand
they have their procedures and limitations, but
as far as bringing this person to justice, nothing
has been done [as of Tuesday, October 2]. Not a
warrant has been issued even though we have
theft by taking, money laundering, embezzle
ment and forgery."
"We're working with an investigator, but it's
going really slow," says Buley. "I know for a fact
that it's over $7,000. And that's a fatal blow.
There are only two financial investigators in
Athens-Clarke County, and they both move at the
speed of molasses."
While the Burntstone Brewpub managers tally
•up the financial dam
ages and contemplate
their future in the
industry, others wonder
if events like this sig
nify the coming end of
what enthusiasts refer
to as the "American
Beer Renaissance."
"Craft brewing is
definitely on the down
ward swing, unfortu
nately," says Owen
Ogletree, organizer of
the annual Classic City
Brew-Fest ana former
owner of the local
homebrew shop
Brewtopia. "It was very
trendy, especially in
Georgia around '95 and
'96 when the laws were
changing. People were
excited about trying it.
but many of them came
to realize that it
required a great amount
of work and time, and you had to be very clean
and know what you were doing. We had customers
the first year who were brewing every week. By
the time we closed, they were brewing once a
year. I think the Normaltown Brew Shop [on
Prince Avenue] is doing okay. They say they're not
making much money, but they're doing it because
they love it. To have a good source of supplies
and as a good service to Athens—I'm really glad
they're there."
As for Burntstone, Villalba says, "I would
like to keep the good memories of this place
intact. That's what this last month is all about.
Friends and loyal customers have been gath
ering here. I always tell people that Matt Buley
is one of the biggest assets of the place. If you
ask me what I'd like. I'd say I'd like to see
someone to take over and harvest a lot of what
we've already cultivated."
• "I'm hopeful that something might happen,"
adds Buley. "I'm filing for unemployment this
week, but I hope I can still brew beer in the
brewery somehow."
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