The path to expertly brewing beer isn’t always straightforward.

It certainly wasn’t for Ashley Kinart-Short, the master brewer for Peak Drift Brewing Company, a new massive brewing facility with a forthcoming taproom on North Main Street.

Kinart-Short’s 15-year brewing career started while she was studying biology, preparing for a career in medicine. Today, she’s a certified master brewer at downtown oyster bar and microbrewery Smoked and Peak Drift, one of the city’s biggest upcoming breweries.

She’s one of the only female master brewers in Columbia, and one of few in the state.

She fell in love with brewing after working in restaurants as a way to pay bills — starting with home-brewing while in Wisconsin and becoming over a decade of experience before packing her bags and moving to South Carolina.

Free Times talked with Kinart-Short about what it’s like being in Columbia, working in the industry and how the process has been since she started.