Charlotte Area Breweries Are Primed For The THC-Beverage Trend

A week after New Year’s, Resident Culture Brewing showcases its nonalcoholic drinks—Dry January, you know—during a tasting event on the lower level of its South End location. Chilling in ice baskets are reasons you might cheekily rebrand the month as High January: cans of Cümulo, a line of hemp-derived THC-infused seltzers, which the brewery launched in August 2023.

Resident Culture sells four varieties. The featherweight is Tropical Punch, with 2.5 milligrams of THC, the chemical in cannabis plants that gets you high. It sells for $22 per four-pack. The 5-mg Pink Lemonade sells for $25; the 10-mg Mango Lime for $30; and the 30-mg Pink Lemonade Storm for $40. (I have tried the Pink Lemonade. It got me frosty enough to suspect that the Pink Lemonade Storm would deposit me somewhere near the Crab Nebula.)

They’ve sold well since their launch, but Resident Culture expects the cannabis-drink trend to grow. Tonight, Molly Hanson, the South End location’s bar manager, mixes Resident Culture’s first-ever Cümulo cocktails—blends of the Pink Lemonade flavor with strawberry syrup and actual lemonade. “It’s nice because it welcomes a bigger clientele than just people who want to drink,” Hanson says. “It gives people who don’t drink, don’t like to drink, can’t drink, the option to still enjoy some kind of cocktail without actually drinking liquor.”

Resident Culture’s confidence in Cümulo seems warranted—THC products in general have grown more popular in recent years, and young people nowadays drink less than their predecessors. But as of January, Resident Culture appeared to be the only Charlotte-area brewery that produced and sold its own line of THC beverages, joining a handful of independent breweries throughout North Carolina.

Resident Culture sells four Cümulo varieties with THC levels as high as 30 mg per 12-ounce can.

That will change soon. In March, NoDa Brewing launched a hemp-derived seltzer, in three flavors and 5-mg and 10-mg varieties. Lenny Boy Brewing already produces a limited-release cannabis kombucha, Happy Camper, and Asheville-based Burial Beer recently launched Seance, a cannabis sparkling water line. But most brewers are waiting for the legislature to establish a regulatory framework before they commit to their own lines.

When that happens, cannabis seltzers and drinks are poised to become Charlotte brewing’s next big sellers, says Brandon Stirewalt, the operations director at Town Brewing and vice president of the Charlotte Independent Brewers Alliance’s board of directors. “It has been a major topic of conversation within our industry, especially in this state,” Stirewalt says. “And I think you are going to see a lot more breweries look at that space.”

The federal law that allows the sale of certain hemp-derived products—it’s commonly referred to as the Farm Bill—establishes a per-product dry weight limit for Delta-9 THC. But state law is silent on issues like concentration, enforcement, taxation, and permitting, says Lisa Parker, executive director of the North Carolina Craft Brewers Guild. A bill that would have clarified some of those issues stalled in a House committee two years ago, and Parker says in January that she knows of only “five or six” breweries statewide that sell cannabis drinks.

“We do support a legislative regulatory framework for these projects because it provides clarity for our businesses and the public,” she says. “It’s the Wild West right now because none of these things are in place.” 

Resident Culture moved ahead with the Cümulo line anyway. The brewery prides itself on innovation, says co-owner Amanda McLamb: “We don’t like to stay still.” Last year, another brewery in a city not far away stepped forward with its own cannabis beverage. Winston-Salem-based Foothills Brewing unveiled Little Trees, a line of 10-mg sparkling waters, on April 20, 2024. (Note the date.)

Foothills was reluctant at first but eventually warmed up to the idea, says Bill Manley, its sales and marketing director. Little Trees accounts for about 20% of Foothills’ beverage sales and has earned statewide distribution in small bottle shops and specialty markets, Manley says. At 45, he’s a satisfied consumer, too.

“I’ve been in the beer business for 20 years. I have consumed an awful lot of beer in my life. And the older I get, the harder it is to bounce back from a night of drinking,” he says. “Whereas the THC beverages, man, my wife and I will often split the can, or sometimes just drink one each, and I get a pretty good feeling. And I go right to sleep.”