One of the reasons I wanted to go to Asheville for a few days was to check out a handful of the numerous microbreweries and brewpubs that are located in the area. There are about two dozen breweries located in the Asheville city limits with another dozen or so within a 15 minute drive of the city. Since we were only going to be there for a few days, we knew we couldn't hit all of the breweries, but we were going to hit as many as we could.
How Asheville became "Beer City, U.S.A." is something that seemingly happened overnight to many, but the story dates back to the early 90's when a nuclear waste engineer by the name of Oscar Wong met a young brewmaster by the name of John McDermott who was heading up the beer making at the Dilworth Brewing Company in Charlotte. Wong had been somewhat of a home brewer during his time in college and always fancied himself as a beer connoisseur. Wong and McDermott decided to look for an area to develop a brewery and they moved up to Asheville in 1992. It took a couple years for Wong - who was the money man after he sold his engineering company - and McDermott - the brewmaster - to finally open Highland Brewing Company. It was in the basement of a restaurant that had opened earlier in the year - and which is still there today - Barley's Taproom and Pizzeria. Using mostly reclaimed dairy equipment, Wong and McDermott produced their first beer in December of 1994. McDermott had aspirations of large expansion throughout the Southeast, but Wong liked the smaller microbrewery concept. McDermott eventually left in 1997 and Wong stayed on with a new brewmaster. By 2006 the brewery had moved to a larger location on the east side of Asheville, and in 2014 Oscar Wong turned the reins of Highland Brewing Company over to his daughter, Leah Wong Ashburn.
The biggest problem with the initial growth of microbreweries in Asheville, however, was that North Carolina's liquor laws dated back to just after Prohibition was repealed in the early 1930's. Certain stipulations - such as how strong the beer could be, where it could be served, etc. - were archaic compared to laws in other states. It took until around 2002 before lobbying efforts commenced for the growing number of microbreweries in North Carolina and another three years before legislators passed new laws allowing for stronger than 6% ABV beers to be brewed and served in the state. But it wasn't for another three or four years that the boom in Asheville breweries and brew pubs began. Asheville won their first Beer City, U.S.A. designation in 2010 and has won or shared the title for four different years. (Portland, OR and Grand Rapids, MI also have won or shared the title over the years, as well.)
Other established craft breweries from around the nation have also jumped into the Asheville/Western Carolina beer craze, most notably the Oskar Blues brewery and the New Belgium brewery based out of Colorado. New Belgium opened a tasting room in May of 2016 and then opened a full brewing operation on Asheville's west side just about a year ago. Oskar Blues owner Dale Katechis had vacationed in the Pisgah National Forest for a number of years. An avid biker, Katechis kept a bike in Brevard, NC - about 35 miles from Asheville - so he could use it when he came there to get away from Colorado. He liked the area so much ended up putting in a brewery/gastropub in Brevard opening on New Years Eve in 2012.
When we got into Asheville, we were asked by the personable young man at the Hilton Garden Inn - Downtown Asheville what brought us to the area. "Brewpubs," I quickly replied. "Well, we do have a lot of them here," he said laughingly. Their electric car shuttle service took us up to Pack Square which sits at the top of what is known as The South Slope, an area that has a number of brewpubs just south of Asheville's downtown. We walked down the hill and found ourselves in front of the Wicked Weed Brewing Pub. (see map) This combination brewery and brewpub was founded in 2011 by brothers Walt and Luke Dickinson, who were joined in the venture by lifelong friend Ryan Guthy, and his parents, Rick and Denise, after the Guthy's tried some of the beers the Dickinson's had brewed at their home. (Rick Guthy was the co-founder/owner of the Guthy-Renker direct marketing company that made dozens of infomercials over the years. He retired in 2012 just before he invested in Wicked Weed.)
The brewpub was packed inside and out with people enjoying the Sunday night of the Memorial Day weekend. We were lucky to score a couple seats at the bar from a couple who was departing when we went up to the bar to order a beer. The name Wicked Weed came from a quote attributed to England's King Henry VIII who declared hops to be a "wicked and pernicious weed" during his reign in the 16th century. We ended up having a couple Freak of Nature double IPA's that they had on tap. They were hoppy, yet very smooth on the back end.
While we were in Asheville, the huge buzz going on was the announcement just a couple three weeks before of the sale of Wicked Weed to Anheuser-Busch/InBev. While this rankled many beer aficionados in Asheville and elsewhere, you couldn't tell it with the dozens of people who were enjoying their beer. Plus, as we spent the next few days in Asheville, many people we talked to - including bartenders at other brewpubs - were happy for the people at Wicked Weed. One female bartender at a beer pub we went to a couple days later told us, "Good for them. They're good people. They make great beer."
Outside on the street in front of Wicked Weed, there were two young brothers Andrew and Kyle Hernandez playing guitars. They called themselves The Buskits (a take off on the term "busking" for European street performers) and their father was standing next to the fence to supervise them as they were playing. We got to talking to the father Chris Hernandez and he told us his boys - Andrew is 11 and Kyle is 8 - started playing guitar when they were both just 4 years old. "Completely self taught," Chris told us as the boys played their interpretation of classic rock standards on their acoustic guitars, the whole while never changing the neutral expressions on their faces. They were very good musicians and attracted a huge crowd. We put five bucks into the guitar case after listening to them for about 15 minutes. (If you want to see a video of them perform, click on their Facebook page and scroll down to one of the videos posted on their page. It's worth the time to do it.)
From there we went up the slope to Patton Ave., one of the main drags in downtown Asheville. We stopped momentarily on the street and saw a sign that said One World Brewing Company. (see map) It had an arrow that pointed back down this small alleyway that was between a Mexican restaurant and a burger joint. We decided to walk down the alley and see what was down there. We were greeted by a young guy standing in the doorway. He said, "Welcome to One World. We're located down the stairs. Come on in!"
We went down a small flight of stairs, took a left down some more steps and then went left again. After a few more steps we found ourselves in a basement bar with a nano-brewery. Jason "Jay" Schutz had been home-brewing beer for about 10 years and with the encouragement of his wife, Lisa, the couple opened the small brewery in 2014. Initially, the brewery was able to do about 40 gallon batches of beer, but it looks like they've expanded their brewing facilities since they opened three years ago. We hung out and enjoyed a pint of the Ashevegas pale ale that they had on tap. (It was also at One World that my wife found out there such as thing as half pint glasses available.)
In the following days, we wandered into a number of places including a place called the Thirsty Monk (see map) that featured a Belgian bar in their basement with American beers on their main level. Opened in 2008, the Thirsty Monk brews about 20 full-time and seasonal beers - mainly Belgian-styles of beer - in addition to a number of rotating Belgian and American craft brews available at their two bars. We went to the basement first and I made the rookie mistake of asking for a pale ale on tap. "Only Belgian beers down here," the totally urban hipster snapped back at me. "You need to go upstairs and get a pale ale." OH! Sorry! Well, believe it or not, I'm not a big fan of Belgian ales, so we went upstairs to have a beer. I ended up getting a Thirsty Monk Farmhouse IPA - a saison-style beer with its roots hearkening back to a Belgian-style beer with a lot of hoppiness to the beer. The beer was just all right in my book, but the Thirsty Monk was a neat place to have a beer.
Literally across the street from the Thirsty Monk on Patton Ave. was a place called Jack of the Wood. (see map) It was a traditional neighborhood pub with a great beer selection, a food menu, and live music at nights.
We ended up going inside to have a beer and we sat at the bar talking with a bartender and a lady who worked there who had just gotten off work and was having a beer before she left. Jack of the Wood has been open since 1997 and was once a brewpub with beer being brewed in the back until the owner moved the brewing operation to a larger and more efficient location in Asheville. I enjoyed a Green Man Rambler pale ale and it was very good. I told my wife that I'd like to go visit the Green Man brewery at some point.
Well, it just so turned out that the brewery that was once in the back of Jack of the Wood was the original Green Man Brewery. A couple days later, we ended up going to the Green Man Brewery south of Asheville's downtown on Buxton Ave. (see map) The three story brewery/tap room is the culmination of years of expansion by Green Man in Asheville which was started by Philadelphia native Joe Eckert in the back of Jack of the Wood. When current owner Dennis Thies bought the brewery in 2010, he started a campaign of expanding distribution which meant they needed more space for their brewing equipment. Green Man Brewery opened their "Green Mansion" brewery/tap room in 2016.
The entrance to the tap room featured a high-ceilinged room with the Green Man logo on the wall over looking the small bar. The Green Man legend dates back to medieval England involving a mystical man, also known as Father Nature, that lived in the woods overseeing nature. (He was also known as "Jack of the Wood", hence the tie-in to the two names.) There was a small gift shop area off to the side of the bar.
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Not much was happening at the small bar area downstairs, but we heard some commotion going on upstairs. I asked the young girl what was upstairs and she said, "Oh, that's our main tap room. We have a deck up there, too." Heading up the stairs, we found a large tap room with a long bar, some interesting fixtures and an outside covered patio. We ended up sitting at the bar and had a couple beers each - I got the Wayfarer India pale ale on this visit. Green Man had some very good beer.
Another interesting place that we ended up at during our visit was the Bhramari Brewhouse, one of the newer South Slope breweries in Asheville. (see map) Opened in 2016, this brewpub took over the space that was once the Asheville Music School, a non-profit entity that educates budding musicians of all ages. The brewery is named after Bhramari, the Hindu Goddess of bees.
We had hoped they had lunch in the place, but their restaurant didn't open until 5 p.m. Still we thought it was a cool enough place to have a quick beer. We tried the Lorelai IPA, a forward tasting beer made with American hops. It was a good beer and I was glad we stopped in.
One of the local brewpubs that we did go to for lunch on our last day in Asheville was the Lexington Avenue Brewery, or the "LAB" as its known to the locals. Located on Lexington Avenue in downtown Asheville (see map), LAB bills itself as a microbrewery and gastropub. Originally opened in 2010 by two cousins who had a deep love for craft beer, LAB underwent a massive expansion about five years ago and added a tap room/restaurant that features a patio that faces Lexington Avenue. (Look for an upcoming Road Tips entry on the Lexington Avenue Brewery.)
We went to a handful of other brewpubs/tap rooms around Asheville while we were there. But quite honestly, there was no way we could have visited them all during our visit. We would have been trashed all the time and we didn't to have our first visit to Asheville be spent in a drunken haze caused by 7.2% ABV beers. Since we came back, I've done some reading up on some of the breweries we either missed or where we didn't spend enough time. I hate to call myself a beer connoisseur, but I do like beer and I know what I like. I found some very good beers in Asheville. But it can almost be like a kid in a candy store - there's just so many to choose from. However, I think we found a good cross-section of good and interesting beers during our trip to Asheville.
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