Boogercat. Old Gregg. Appalachian Bandido.
For some, these names bring back memories of a Friday night well spent with friends. For Jay Fox, they’re a lifestyle.
While craft beer fanatics race to The Peddler each week to see what’s on tap, few of them see the hours of work that Fox, who has served as brewmaster since the brewery opened in 2017, and his team put into meticulously crafting each batch. Beyond hops and fermentation, their craft focuses on giving people a reason to stop, stay and come back.
From blond ales to sours to dark lagers (and even a beer that tastes like Mountain Dew), casting a wide net is exactly what The Peddler has done. The restaurant averages 20 different beers on tap, with a handful of staples and a variety of rotating brews.
Twice a week, Fox and his assistant brewer, Mike “Woody” West, head to The Peddler at 7 a.m., where they remain until 3 p.m., for brew days. Although the process begins before the restaurant opens to the public, starting at 11 a.m., customers can watch the brewing in action from their tables, as the tanks are just feet away. However, for Fox, brewing wasn’t always a public spectacle. “I started homebrewing in the early ‘90s because there wasn’t really that many craft beers back then,” he said. After 20 years of crafting beers at home for family and friends as a hobby, Fox left a 12-year career as a process engineer to become a full-time brewmaster.
“It was a cool job, but, I mean, who doesn’t want to brew beer?” Fox said.
The early initiatives of The Peddler, Fox said, stemmed from the same issue he recognized when he started homebrewing: the lack of craft beer in the area. One of these initiatives included helping with the start-up of West Virginia’s largest craft beer festival, Rails and Ales, which will celebrate its 13th year this fall.
Rails and Ales originally took place at Heritage Station, drawing in crowds of 500 to 800 people. The festival now takes place at Harris Riverfront Park with attendance rates in the thousands and many attendees traveling from out of state. Although Rails and Ales brings brewers together physically, collaboration and community are at the heart of the industry on a day-to-day basis, Fox said. “If you’re having issues with something, you can say, ‘What would you do in this situation? What kind of hops are you using in this beer?' It’s very collaborative,” he said.
This kind of collaboration is exactly what encouraged Nate Randolph to open a restaurant and distillery downtown this spring. Throughout the six years Randolph prepared Hück and NJ Randolph Distillery for opening, the distiller said he worked with other locals like Drew Hetzer, the owner of The Peddler and Backyard Pizza, and Jason Beter, the owner of Köerber Beer Company, 1861 Public House and Oscar’s Burgers and Brews, to ensure his establishments were complementing existing restaurants and breweries, not competing with them.
Although Hück is already open for business seven days a week, Randolph says he expects NJ Randolph Distillery to be fully operating some time in May. Upon its opening, it will make history as Huntington’s first distillery, distilling handcrafted vodka, whiskey and other spirits right next door to the restaurant.
Being a full-time business owner and distiller was not always on the books for Randolph, though. After a 25-year career as an architect, Randolph, like Fox, turned a 20-year hobby into a living. However, it wasn’t until after he began distilling that Randolph discovered a deeper, personal connection to the craft.
As his family farm, dating back to the 1850s, was being liquidated, Randolph’s family found a still hidden inside of a wall, and with that discovery, a restaurant and brewery built on family history was born.
Honoring his German ancestors who immigrated to the United States in 1847, Randolph’s restaurant dons the name “Hück” because it is his mother’s maiden name, and he proudly displays the family still, nearly 150 years old, in the main dining room.
From the Hück family story on the back of menus to the historical banquet room with a capacity of 250 guests, Randolph said his vision is to create a welcoming environment and a curated experience, not just to sell alcohol. “The whole idea from the beginning was this is more of a tourism-generated project where people come here, maybe take a tour of the distillery, buy a few bottles, go to the restaurant, have something and then, maybe, eventually come back and go to a wedding reception or a birthday party,” he said.
Anna Adkins, the director of sales and marketing for the Huntington Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, said she believes Randolph’s establishments will be an “excellent addition” to local tourism and the overall craft beverage community. “We’ve always had options to give [tourists] local West Virginia options, but now it’ll be really nice to say this one is actually just five blocks from my office,” Adkins said on NJ Randolph Distillery being the first of its kind in Huntington.
While distilling is new to the scene, Adkins said brewing has grown to become a significant part of Huntington’s identity because of The Peddler and Köerber Brewing Company. Additionally, she credited Jeff McKay, former owner of Summit Beer Station, for introducing the city to craft beer culture as a whole. However, brewing is not necessarily new to the area. Fesenmeier Brewing Company, which sporadically operated in Central City from 1891 to 1971, was once known as the largest brewery in the state. The brewery temporarily halted business through natural disasters and Prohibition but was ultimately closed due to the success and popularity of national beer brands.
Today, Adkins said, local breweries once again seem to be decreasing in popularity when considering national statistics. For West Virginia, though, this is not the case. According to data from the Huntington Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, from 2011 to 2024, the state jumped from having five breweries to having 36.
While West Virginia does not yet have enough breweries in close proximity to create its own rendition of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, Adkins said the opportunities for brewery-related tourism are increasing. “Even if someone wanted to come to Huntington and hub-and-spoke out to Charleston or Logan or just do a trail basically through the state, they could easily do that and get a very unique, cool experience,” she said.
As the local craft beverage scene grows, brewers and distillers alike are doing more than serving drinks; they’re helping put the region on the map.