O U R T E A M

N i c o l e S t e i n h i l b e r

F o u n d e r , C h e m i s t

A K A Y e a s t B e a s t , L a d y o f t h e l a b

M u r p h y

L a b

A K A M u r p h d o g

Nicole Steinhilber was born into a family of home brewers. She grew up watching her parents mash in the kitchen pantry, experimenting with different recipes at night and on the weekends.

She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Hartford and went on to work in an analytical MMJ laboratory in MA & CT. Looking for something new, Nicole landed in Charleston, SC, a blossoming community of craft beer at the time. It wasn’t long before she met Ryan Coker, head brewer/ owner at Revelry Brewing Co., and joined the team in a new position as Lab Manager/ QC director.

A scientist working for a small company has the benefit of wearing many hats. At Revelry, Nicole oversaw the brew process from a data standpoint - analyzing processes in real time to make quality inferred adjustments. She worked hands on with the brewers and cellar men, managing various yeast strains and fermentations for both clean and wild/sour beers. She performed quality control checks and helped implement quality assurance measures as part of a comprehensive quality program, all while juggling various R&D projects for concept beers/ deeper product understanding. She created a partnership with the College of Charleston to expand the brewery’s analytical capabilities and to start the conversation for a locally accredited fermentation science program to fuel the industry.

Noticing a gap in the market — namely craft breweries unable to allocate funding for a full time scientist on staff to execute a quality program — Nicole decided to expand her reach and create Craft Solutions.