A few years ago, Joe Garcia and Shannon and Bryan Miles realized there wasn’t a good public place for them to hang out where they lived.
“We had this crazy idea to start a brewery back in 2018,” Garcia said. “We all live in Forsyth County, in the Cumming area. We said our community needs a place to gather, so why don’t we put it somewhere where we all live and raise our families?”
Garcia and the Mileses opened the first of three NoFo Brew Co locations in September 2019 in Cumming. Named NoFo after North Forsyth, it was the county’s first craft brewery and distillery.
Approaching its fifth anniversary, the company has grown by leaps and bounds over the past two years.
Credit: Andy Brophy
Credit: Andy Brophy
“Last year was a big scaling year for us,” said Garcia, who serves as NoFo’s CEO. “We made the first acquisition of a Georgia brewery, buying Tantrum Brewing in Cleveland. In August of last year, we opened our third location in Gainesville. It’s a 15,000-foot facility with a full brewery, taproom and distillery.”
Currently, the Gainesville location is dedicated to distilling bourbon and the Cumming location makes all of the clear spirits, including gin, vodka and rum. Beer is brewed at all three locations.
“Plus or minus, there’s 150 breweries in the state of Georgia, but fewer than 10% are distilleries,” Garcia said. “It’s a different discipline and knowledge base, but we were fortunate to hire a very experienced head distiller, Hyde Buchanan, who is overseeing it.”
Credit: Andy Brophy
Credit: Andy Brophy
In 2023, NoFo took home 11 honors for its small-batch craft spirits at the South’s Best Spirits Awards, including a gold medal for its barrel-rested gin, which earned Best in Category and Best in State with a score of 94 points out of 100.
“The licensing is a bit cumbersome, but, really, it’s about the discipline,” Garcia said of NoFo’s foray into spirits. “We wanted to do it because it’s another area of passion for us, and it unlocked a different clientele for us.”
Of course, beer is what NoFo first was known for, and the brewery offers three core brews: Snow Ghost is a New England-style hazy India pale ale, Collateral is a Mexican-style lager and Blue Bird Day is a Czech-style pilsner. The beers are offered on draft at all three locations and are distributed in Georgia in kegs and cans.
Credit: Andy Brophy
Credit: Andy Brophy
What’s more, those beers have become part of the burgeoning craft beer scene in England, as Shannon and Bryan Miles are part of an investment group that purchased the British football (soccer) club in Walsall, a suburb of Birmingham.
“Obviously, craft beer and football pairs really well together, and so we had an opportunity to partner with the football club and make that our launch point for our beer in the U.K.,” Garcia said.
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