After 16 years working in the world of conservation nonprofits, Ben Colvin saw the substantial role that for-profit businesses can play to support nonprofit service organizations. Today, as the co-founder and president of Devil’s Foot Beverage Company, he has built this model into his business as a way for his company to do good by doing business. Ben was kind enough to take a break from his crazy schedule to chat with us and share more about Devil’s Foot and the collaborative nature of entrepreneurship in Western NC.
Thanks for your time today, Ben. Let’s kick off with a little history of how you got into the craft beverage business and where the name Devil’s Foot comes from for readers aren’t familiar with the brand.
My wife, Vashti, and I were brewing our own spicier ginger beer in the backyard for cocktails. Soon after, we learned my wife was pregnant with our first child, and wanting to celebrate, we decided to meet friends at a local brewery – NOT exactly the best place to take a pregnant partner to celebrate, I know! There were really no nonalcoholic (NA) options at the brewery except water from the tap. That seemed crazy to us, considering the number of people that would want something other than beer. We looked around at the brewery crowd that day and then lightning struck… all of these people are here for really good craft beer that is made locally with love and intention. So, shouldn’t there be an NA option that compliments the local craft beer and is similarly brewed with love and care?
From there, things just took off and Devil’s Foot became a living thing! If you live in Asheville long enough, you either learn how to brew or hang out with brewers – either way, as we scaled up we started using craft brewing equipment and techniques. Additionally, we started working with regional farmers and held to our sustainability model and ‘full fruit life’ philosophy.
The name comes from the ginger root that used to cover our kitchen counter while test-batching ginger beer – Vashti said ‘Hey! Can you get all this devil’s foot off my counter!” Because the ginger root looks like this cool gnarly thing in the ground…like a devil’s foot. That was a pretty cool day and the name stuck!
You’ve done a lot of environmental and conservation-related work – Can you tell our readers how your background carries into the work you are doing today?
As a nonprofit professional, I saw the substantial role that for-profit businesses can play in the support of nonprofit service organizations – and we built this into our business model as a way to ‘do good through doing business.” I came out of the conservation world where I worked on protecting wild places and wild things from the southeastern US to Uganda and Peru. Because of this exposure, we also built into our business the intention to feature sustainable practices such as using ‘ugly fruit’ that can’t be sold in stores, sourcing produce from local/regional small farmers, and incorporating the whole goodness of fruits used in our products.
For example, we have purchased peaches from Clemson University’s research fields where the fruits are loose stone and typically odd-sized or blemished. They are also DELICIOUS – and though grocery stores won’t sell those peaches, I am fully able to use that bounty! This goes for any other fruit, really. Since we craft brew and process our ingredients, this ‘ugly fruit’ can be kept from going to waste, and instead of using ‘choice fruit’, we can use these beautiful products. The not-so-secret part of this? Ugly fruit usually comes from organic or no-spray small farms and tastes way better than polished-looking fruit you find on the shelf. Don’t believe me? Go try those blemished-looking heritage apples at your farmers market and then let’s talk! This also supports our local farmers, supports low-waste production, and creates amazing flavors.
Further, we aim to respect the produce we use as fully as possible by first zesting our citrus before juicing (we use the peel and pith for flavor and we sell to other companies who use our organic citrus zest). We aren’t always able to keep the final leg of the citrus life cycle, but often we actually can and we send the zested and juiced fruits to a collaborator business to be distilled into essential oils.
To summarize, we’ve always had in mind the plan to use ‘ugly fruit’ because we know how great the flavor is, typically supports small local farms, and puts into practice the preaching of sustainability.
The craft food and beverage scene in Asheville can be super collaborative – are there specific ways that you have found this to be true?
For sure! The spirit of collaboration goes all the back to our very first product offered in public. We ran kegs in collaboration with our friends at The Orange Peel with “Run the Mules” cocktails at a Run the Jewels show – and offered ginger beer tastings to the public! It was a pretty cool start to our run! Since then, we have worked in partnership with restaurants like Strada and their bar side The Social Lounge, at venues like The Orange Peel, Rabbit Rabbit, and Salvage Station, with events like LEAF and Downtown After Five, and we’ve worked MANY brewery collaborations.
These partnerships run the gamut – from bar collabs on cocktails with different spirits companies, to special events and nonprofit sponsorship cans and beverage styles, to some really cool brewery collaborations where we pass on our pressed cherry, blueberry, or other fruits to breweries that ferment on them (Bhramari, Dissolvr, and Botanist & Barrel have all been great partners).
What advice would you give to entrepreneurs in the Asheville area who are still in the formative stages of a new business?
Whew – that’s a great question that I get asked a lot.
First, I’d say make sure you are inspired, excited, and envision your niche, your customers, and your growth. Things inevitably get busy and sometimes feel out of control, so it’s just so vital to remain inspired and feel driven to your entrepreneurial journey. Revise your business plan over and over until you have a solid foundation and as you continue to revisit the plan, stick to the bones even while you maintain flexibility.
Then, I tell people to know what you do well, do it well and find professionals that do other parts of your business well and let them thrive (get a bookkeeper, an accounting firm, a lawyer, a web designer… just let them do what they do best because you can’t do it all!).
We love that you are distributing statewide across North Carolina, South Carolina, and now your old home state, Alabama. What’s the next big thing you can share with us that’s in the works for Devil’s Foot?
We have a few tricks up our sleeves and can talk about a few exciting things on the horizon!
In Q1 2022, we are moving into a new level of production and business structure, scaling up to a new, bigger brewhouse and into a larger space that will allow us to grow, engage the public, diversify, and be the best we can be! Keep a lookout for new styles, ventures and partnerships, hires, and public engagement from Devil’s Foot!
Do you have a dream flavor that you would like to develop into a beverage? Or a dream collaborator for a flavor or label?
Oh boy, I get emails every week to brew root beer. I love root beer but it is so sweet. So we’ve developed a pretty awesome lower-in-sugar root beer and will be releasing it soon! I’m definitely looking forward to that. It will be a nice relief to send that to the inquiring public but also, it’s pretty awesome!
We’ve had outstanding collabs with breweries and with the growth of NA beers. We had great success trying a TartBerry style in a collab with Green Man Brewing that was a riff on their Berliner Weisse – it was awesome and nearly indiscernible from the alcoholic version. I want to keep building on that with non-grain, sour-type beer clones.
2020 and 2021 have been intense years, to say the least. What are you most looking forward to this fall?
I’m really hopeful that vaccinations will keep rising and we will find a more ‘normal’ baseline of what the health and economic climate will be in the future. It’s just so difficult to plan as a business when you don’t know what CV19 will look like. A crux of our business model is community support, and the better we do as a business, the more we can do to help our communities. So I’m looking forward to joining forces with new organizations and partnerships to carry out our model of doing good through business.
What song/artist is playing on repeat for you right now?
Well, it’s fall…so I get a slew of Jack White/Raconteurs that have that darker/Halloween vibe for me! But I keep Prince Buster radio on the queue all the time, always good vibes for what’s going on any given day. We have a Spotify channel for Devil’s Foot where I get our crew to create playlists and we crush through them during canning or production days – this lives on our website and we’ve started to post it on social media.
Podcast or Documentary? Do you have a favorite?
RadioLab is a go-to podcast, but I’ve been getting into lighter pods like Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend and Questlove Supreme – but I can’t wait for in-person events to pick back up because How Did This Get Made is absolutely fantastic when there is a live crowd! The NC Food & Bev podcast will pick up with events also and it’s a great go-to for what’s awesome in NC.
If someone were coming to visit you here in Asheville, what would be your top three places you’d be sure they had to see while they were here?
- Downtown. It’s changed a lot in the past 20 years, but considering how we almost lost our downtown to massive mall construction, it’s worth doing the walking tour and seeing the historical architecture and vibe (plus the restaurants, bars, etc.)!
- Hike off the Blue Ridge Parkway (Black Balsam/Sam’s Knob etc). It takes dedication to drive up there but the fresh air, mountain scenery, solitude (on the right day), and Asheville-identity of the mountains is a must-do.
- Music! The Orange Peel, Grey Eagle, Salvage Station, or Rabbit Rabbit – music is such an identifiable part of Asheville and our local venues are incredible! Where else can you experience an amazing huge act among only 500-1000 people? Asheville does that ALL the time – bringing big music acts to small venues for us major music lovers!
If you could meet someone from the past, present, or future, who would it be and why?
The Dalai Lama… because I would talk about transcendence and find more inner peace…yeah, that’s right.
What’s something people would be surprised to learn about you?
I can juggle? Hmm…not that interesting. How about I graduated college in 3 years, attending 3 different schools? That’s pretty weird I guess. I found out how credits transfer and to where, and used that to find my place – the University of Montana. I went back to grad school in Missoula, too. It’s my home away from home.
Find Devil’s Foot at:
Instagram: @devilsfootbrew
Facebook: @devilsfootbrew
Website: devilsfootbrew.com