Toasty Kettlyst Beer Company is a nano brewery in downtown Gibsonville, NC that opened in November 2020. Owner Praveen G. Karandikar of Cary, who is also the Brew Master, jokes that the idea started “in the garage” where he began homebrewing for friends and family. This eventually led to entering contests and a realization that he had a passion to turn this hobby into a business. In addition to the manufacturing business, The Toasty Kettlyst has a taproom which currently has 13 beers on tap.
Praveen holds a Master’s in Solid State Electronics from Arizona State University, an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and is commercially certified in Craft Beer from WakeTech Community College.
Praveen’s passion for beer making extended to a passion to find a historically appropriate location for the brewery. His love of historical downtowns and downtown revitalization efforts led to their choice of a home base in downtown Gibsonville. He was not familiar with Gibsonville at first, but as he began to work with the town officials, he appreciated the historical, small-town feel and discovered the warmth and welcome of the town and its people.
The name of the brewery, a play on words, combines the word “toasty” for the feeling you can get after enjoying a great beer, and the words “kettle” and “catalyst” which, Karandikar says, is where the magic takes place. That magic being the chemical reaction in the kettle during the brewing process. Historical beer profiles from all over the world tingled their desire to create something of their own which was intriguing and challenging. Praveen Karandikar has a passion for adding his very own special Toasty Kettlyst spin to those historic beer styles and, with a lot of challenging work, what started out as an experimental idea has now become reality.