Fayetteville, North Carolina Stories: From private Tattoo Artist to the Artist of masses.

 Story of a co-founder of the local brewing company, Mike Ray, and Blue Light Brewing Company(BLBC) in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Next time you pass by or visit Fayetteville, North Carolina will see you at BLBC!

    Hi everyone, it passed a long while since I made the last post on my personal blog page. Lots of things happened in my life and most of them were amazing such as getting married, having first, second, and third child, moving to the United States of America in Fayetteville, North Carolina, getting my license in Real Estate, buying, first, second, the third house and on the way helping few awesome folks to sell and buy a couple of homes. 

    Welcome to Fayetteville the city of the brave, you will ask me why so? The reason is that our town is considered a military town due to the fact that it is located next to the biggest military base in the nation and perhaps in the world, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. If you make a quick check on Google and on Wikipedia you will find out a little about the origins of the name of the settlement and the main idea that I've got before moving here is that Fayetteville has great dinings, small cozy shops, and the downtown sky view with its traditional red brick. The city is quite an ethnic melting pot with people from all over the United States and around the world, Asia, Europa, Africa, Central, and South America. 

    The first couple of months after moving here I discovered craft beer and got fascinated about this movement. I've read articles on the internet, watched videos on Youtube, and most of all I was tasting different kinds of craft beer from brewing companies from one coast to another. It is incredible the boom this industry had taken in the last twenty years and the cultural impact that it made towards the beer as a product associated with the Bars to something more family-oriented and place of gathering in the afternoons or weekends spent socializing.

    In Fayetteville, North Carolina there are several craft breweries and today we will talk about Bright Light Brewing Company. About two weeks ago we had a Daddy weekend in the city with my kids and after a movie, launch, and a car show, we passed by BLBC to check it out what is all about. A few days before just saw a post about music and beer downtown. It was hot, humid however there was a continuous stream of people coming and leaving, few vendors, few food concessions and music, rock music playing inside the factory and on the stage near it. 

    Beer was awesome, food was good and the best was enjoying the launch with very nice music pop-rock, rock and roll, heavy metal, oldies, and some newer songs as a background. There I meet Mike, the co-owner and co-founder of the Brewery, and overall a very nice man. We arranged a meeting this Wednesday and it was amazing. 

Mike is originally from this area, maybe an hour drive max. He grew up in a family of mechanics so he got very handy and he is still enjoying to this day crafting different things such as building a motor or a car from pieces or building a bar stand or a play table for his 12 years old boy. 

The craft beers, growing the business, expanding, and creating new flavors may take most of his time now, however it was a long road to reach here. For almost twenty years Mike was in the art business, most know to common folks as the tattoo industry. About 10 years, Mike was mastering the craft and another 11 years successfully ran his own Tatto Shop. The first time he discovered the craft beer was in Oregon, on the west coast where he lived for a while, and with this, he started to get more interested in the process. Having friends brewing beer helped Mike to get more and more in this Craft beer thing and soon he started to brew himself. 

New passion didn't pay for itself and for a while Mike was combining the tattoo business and craft beer. On the way to learn how the business works and different ways of creating beer, Mike had some time spent with another local craft beer guy, that opened on the outskirts of Fayetteville, North Carolina the brewing company know to most in town as Dirtbag Ales Brewery and Taproom. 

With time Mike's passion for craft beer grew stronger as well the knowledge about production and how to manage a brewing business so as a result together with a few partners opened the first taproom(20th April 2017) and within a couple of years later(2019), they expanded the business. Now they got two locations downtown Fayetteville, North Carolina. 

What people living in Fayetteville or visiting should know about this place? Well, there are quite a few things: First there are food trucks available every day: Tuesdays are California Tacos and Thursdays are RBurges's Day; Second: the taste and the flavor of the beers make this brewery stay apart as well as seasonal flavors; Third: this venue is family-friendly so on weekends you can see lot's of families with their kids and pets here; fourth: music, music, music, drinking beer, having some great conversation over something tasty goes even better with nice music on the background so every now and then there is music in the program; fifth and not the last one is the location that is convenient and is easy to reach to almost all part for the town from here. More about them you can check their Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/brightlightbrewing. 

Personally, I have an admiration for this country and its people who make America the great place it is today. I lived most of my life in Europe and a short time in the Middle East, however after almost three years here my fascination didn't diminish, it increased. Great respect for Mike Ray that with his art of crafting beer can reach a vast audience that provides both benefits of generating the money for living and expanding business from one side and the spiritual, artistic, personal satisfaction when people understand, like, and prize his crafted beer and the work of his entire team, on the other side. 

Respect, Mike Ray! 

God Bless and much more successes, and thank you for taking care of our thirst in the hot and humid town of Fayetteville, North Carolina. I don't know what you took from this article,  for myself,  I am already a big fan of this man, his craft, and his business. 

Cheers!

Ion M. Cerga.