Since the beginning, Weeping Radish has brewed according to the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot Purity Law of 1516, which states that beer must be brewed using only four ingredients: hops, malt, yeast and water. No additives, no chemicals, no preservatives. Four decades on, that has not changed.

Uli Bennewitz came to North Carolina from Bavaria in the early 1980s and wanted to open a microbrewery like the ones he had left behind. There was one problem: in North Carolina it was illegal for a brewery to sell beer directly to the customer. Working with state politicians, Uli changed that law. A movement was created. North Carolina is now one of the leading microbrewery states in the country, and it started here.

The Weeping Radish Restaurant and Brewery opened in Manteo in 1986, when fewer than 100 breweries were left in the entire United States. Demand outgrew the building, and in 2001 ground was broken on the Weeping Radish Farm Brewery in Grandy, 35 miles north, with a restaurant, butcher's facility and farm. It brewed its first batch there in 2005, and the original Manteo location closed in 2007. Today the legendary brews flow again at the Weeping Radish Taproom inside Firetender, right where it all began.