Jan. 25—In this episode of the UnCapped podcast, host Chris Sands talks with Nepenthe Brewing Co. cofounder Brendan Kirlin and head brewer Dan Rowe about how they got into craft beer, how their business started as a home brew shop and the evolution of the brewery. Here is an excerpt of their talk.

UnCapped: How did Nepenthe come to be?

Brendan Kirlin: The company actually started as a home brew supply store. My business partners, Brian and Jill, started that in 2013. Then, we started working on the brewery. We knew we wanted to work off of a brewpub model. In January 2019, we opened the doors at our current location. We opened with the brewery, the restaurant and also the home brew store.

We were looking for a while for the right space. We knew we wanted to be in the city, and Hampden is a great neighborhood — a lot of good, small businesses along the main street, and we're just off of that.

This space needed a lot of work. It was a really old building. It was actually two buildings that kind of got stitched together. The front was an old sports bar, and the back was a meat-packaging facility. Walking through it for the first time was terrifying, like a haunted house. There were meat hooks, there were walk-in ovens, there were huge butcher tables. We were like, is this really gonna work?

UnCapped: Probably a complete lack of lighting, too.

Kirlin: Yeah, it was completely dark and scary. I remember bringing people by and them being like, "This looks really scary. Are you sure you guys can do this?"

Once we got the architects involved and started conceptualizing it, we realized it had a lot of potential, and it was in the right location. It took about two years to get construction through, but we opened in 2019 ... and then COVID hit the next year [laughs].

UnCapped: At least you had a full year under your belt to build a name and a fanbase to keep you going.

Kirlin: Yeah, exactly.

UnCapped: Where did the name Nepenthe come from?

Kirlin: We got the name from the poem "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. It refers to an elixir that takes away your sorrows, which is kind of what beer does for you. Being a Baltimore brewery, and "The Raven" and Edgar Allen Poe having such a significance in Baltimore, it fit.

UnCapped: One thing I think is really cool about Nepenthe is the artwork on your labels. Who does the artwork?

Kirlin: Mike Moses. He does all of my business partner Brian's tattoos. When we were getting ready to open the brewery, we thought about Mike doing labels for us.

UnCapped: Now that you mention it, they are very tattoo-esque.

Kirlin: I think it helped establish our brand. People recognize it.

UnCapped: Oh, 100%.

Kirlin: It's been really fun to see what he comes back with. His line drawings are phenomenal. Then when we see it in color, it just pops and looks great.

UnCapped: What size brewhouse and fermenters did you open up with?

Kirlin: We had a 10-barrel brewhouse, still the same brewhouse. The whole first year, Brian was doing a lot of the production work himself. He'd be brewing and then go upstairs and put work into the taproom, too. He had one assistant brewer in 2019, but that's what we opened up with. A lot has changed.

When we opened, we were anticipating selling most of our beer in-house. Then we started to slowly self-distribute, but we didn't get our canning line until right before COVID hit.

UnCapped: So you're saying back then, when I emailed Brian, he wasn't lying when he said he was super busy.

Kirlin: Yeah, we were all running around like crazy. We had a small team. It was a wild time.

UnCapped: When did you join, Dan?

Dan Rowe: I came on in January 2020.

UnCapped: Fun times. So, you had two months under your belt before the world went to hell.

Rowe: Long, long journey that we've all gone through over the last three years.

We got ahead of the ball, ordering the canning line when I started. Little did we know, two months later, our canning line would arrive just in time, just as everyone else was starting to realize they needed to order a canning line, too. It was a godsend.

This excerpt has been edited for space and clarity. Listen to the full podcast at fnppodcasts.com/uncapped. Got UnCapped news? Email csands@newspost.com.