Anyone in Wilmington, NC?

Had a good interview today with a brewery in that area. Anyone from around there? What's it like?

Im about an hour from there.  Wilmington is nice.  NC is nice in general.  Can be a bit pricey in areas and of course....hurricanes.   But we've been in NC for 3 years now and I dont regret it a bit.

My SIL is from there. My brother likes it there well enough. Hot though, at least for folks who've spent their life in Chicago and Minnesota. 

Spent time in wilmington for work and like the small town southern appeal.  We just got back from Oak island which is 40 min south and loved it.

Got friends there, Ive visited a handful of times - good stuff.

84FSP said:

Spent time in wilmington for work and like the small town southern appeal.  We just got back from Oak island which is 40 min south and loved it.

That is something I was trying to get a sense of how city/town it is. I've always either lived in places 10x bigger or 10x smaller.

Living in a larger city right now, I'm wondering what big-city things I'd likely miss. Big-name concerts seem like the obvious thing.

My mom lived in Wilmington for ~20 years so we visited a lot. We LOVED it. Big enough that there are lots of things to do, small enough to not feel overwhelming. It's also a cool blend of a historic riverfront downtown and world class beaches ~20 minutes to the east. Killer inshore and offshore fishing, great surfing near by and the NC coast in general is amazing! Decent airport too, for a town that size.

The downsides would be hot as hell (anywhere in the south is though...I live in north Florida which feels like the swampy part of hell right now) and hurricanes. The location of Wilmington could be described as the "chin" of NC and the gulf stream seems to push storms in that direction.

Beer Baron said:

84FSP said:

Spent time in wilmington for work and like the small town southern appeal.  We just got back from Oak island which is 40 min south and loved it.

That is something I was trying to get a sense of how city/town it is. I've always either lived in places 10x bigger or 10x smaller.

Living in a larger city right now, I'm wondering what big-city things I'd likely miss. Big-name concerts seem like the obvious thing.

Get used to small town.  We live in the "2nd largest town in Wayne county" which means if we didnt have a Walmart we wouldnt exist ;)  The largest town exists because of the AF base and is still just a blip.  Gotta go up to Raleigh for anything like a city and coming from the northeast its still fairly underwhelming.   However, I miss none of that.  Concerts you still get although you'll have to travel a bit, but you'll also find great local venues and talents.  Traffic you wont miss.

We've vacationed in Kure Beach a few times which is just down the road from Wilmington. It's beautiful. The beaches are nice but the ocean is all silty from the constant waves so I didn't see any snorkeling opportunities while we were there - at least not without a boat trip. People were friendly. Plenty of attractions around. Kure beach is gonna get wiped off the map if the sea levels actually rise much. I loved it but got a bit turned off by "President Davis Ave." why the hell would a union state have a president Davis Ave? Weirdos. 

dculberson said:

why the hell would a union state have a president Davis Ave? Weirdos. 

They were a Confederate state.

In reply to Beer Baron :

Ha! Well mark me down for a C in American history I guess. 

Don't go to jail in Wilmington for public drunk. It sucks. And your buddy from there is a dick who wrecks your ttuck instead of picking you up after being let out.

Good town otherwise from brief experience. Good food, not too dense of people and traffic and buildings. Its bigger than it feels. 

And Charlotte is only a couple hours up the road with every big name band you want coming through, and the symphony, and opera, and....

One more positive for Wilmington is they have a neighborhood called Monkey Junction.    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_Junction,_North_Carolina

I spent most of a year there on a work assignment and liked the place, but that was over 30 years ago so my experience probably isn't relevant.  I remember they had good barbeque joints.

Beer Baron said:

Had a good interview today with a brewery in that area. Anyone from around there? What's it like?

If it's Edward Teach Brewing, maybe they'll brew something worth drinking if you take the job.

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

Beer Baron said:

Had a good interview today with a brewery in that area. Anyone from around there? What's it like?

If it's Edward Teach Brewing, maybe they'll brew something worth drinking if you take the job.

It is not. Not naming names to jinx it.

This place has a more limited selection of beers than you often see these days. They focus more on classic and traditional styles. We even talked German brewing and favorite traditional German beers. They also make a point of brewing a beer at least 3 times to dial it in before packaging. The owner had similar feelings to me about stunt beers.

All very much my kind of brewery. I'm sure I could teach them things, but I believe it would be a case of adding in some knowledge to make incremental improvements, rather than having to show them how it's done.

In reply to JThw8 :

At least you got pickles going for you. 

On topic, not a fan. Multiple reasons, but I'm probably an outlier.

I used to go to Wilmington regularly as the Mrs. has a friend that lives there.  It is a beach / tourist city and those seem to all have a similar vibe to me. I like it, a lot of cool things to take in but there is always a bunch of visitors that are there for a week or a weekend. They bring $ and buy food and beer so those are good things. 

There are a lot of places to live that are not touristy too. They also seem to allow golf carts on the streets which I think is a huge awesome plus. 

Yeah it's hot but the whole south east is hot. It also doesn't snow so you win some you loose some. Good luck with the interview!

In reply to Ranger50 :

I'd appreciate if you could expand and explain. See if these are things that are likely to be issues for me or not.

NY Nick said:

Good luck with the interview!

First interview went well. First round was narrowed down to 6 candidates. Second round will narrow things down to two candidates.

I think the interview went well, and I'm hopeful I'll get to round 2.

Interview made me feel good that this brewery and position and I would be a good fit for each other. Poking around online gave me a sense that it would be a region worth considering, but not necessarily my ideal location. Trying to determine if it would be a better fit for us than being in Columbus, and how much of a pay raise I would need to be worth making the jump.

Aside from frustrations with the current ownership, we also strongly want to be a convenient distance to drive to visit my brother and his family who are currently in Alexandria, VA (although he's making noises that he'd like to move to Charlottesville). Richmond would be excellent for us, but I'm not seeing any fitting positions for me there. Wilmington only shaves a bit off the drive time, but we wouldn't have to cross the Appalachians to visit in winter.

In reply to Beer Baron :

It's just a vibe I get having to temporarily live here in this state. No town is really "big", unless it's Charlotte, and they all share the same big town problems.

Ranger50 said:

In reply to Beer Baron :

...and they all share the same big town problems.

What does that mean?

No place is perfect. What are the "big town problems" that you dislike so I can evaluate how workable or not they are for me?

I should ad that of places I've lived that I've most enjoyed, it's been Sacramento, Columbus, and Berlin.

I've liked cities with a lot of things to do and a bit of their own personality, but that are generally not the obviously hip and trendy major places that people think of as being cool. So not L.A., NYC, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, DC, etc. Those places are fun to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. Big enough to have lots of things to do and fun cultural events, but not so big as to get outrageously expensive and impossible to drive in.

I've lived in tiny towns of ~10k people and... those are also places that could be nice to visit, but I wouldn't want to live in them. The biggest issue for those was probably finding people to socialize with, especially for my wife who's much more introverted.

Several years back, we vacationed in Florida. We liked the suburb towns outside Tampa - Bradenton and Dunedin.

Wilmington is at the top of the short list of towns I'd like to spend the rest of my days in. Outside of named storms rolling through with regularity, and a lot of the history the town holds, it's a great place. Flytrap, waterline are are favorites for brew, the food at Wrightsville beach brewing makes it worth the trip though. 

In reply to Captdownshift (Forum Supporter) :

PM sent to take the details of brewery quality without naming names yet.

Ranger50 said:

In reply to JThw8 :

At least you got pickles going for you. 

On topic, not a fan. Multiple reasons, but I'm probably an outlier.

As much as I tend to belittle our speck of a town in the middle of nowhere it is, as you noted, the home of Mount Olive pickles, but also the national HQ of Hwy 55 burgers (a small but still nationwide burger chain franchise named for the hwy on which I live) and has a major processing plant for butterball.  Theres a lot going on for a town with nothing going on.