Asheville NC Beer Scene?

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passedpawn

passedpawn

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In November, I'm heading up to Asheville for a weekend bender with a few friends. It's all about the beer, no work. 4 days.

We have rented a house downtown, and we are ready to party. Any ideas? We have to eat, too, so tips there would also be appreciated.

The only plan right now is we've booked some sort of Brews Cruise that takes us around to some breweries:

This tour departs from the Zebulon Vance Memorial located in Pack Square, downtown Asheville. We will drive to the Pisgah Brewing Company in nearby Black Mountain to tour the brewery and enjoy several samples of their all-organic brews. Next we will then head to the French Broad Brewery, where we will get a lesson about their unique and delicious beer styles. There you will have the opportunity to ask about any beer styles and learn about their awesome brewery. Our tour will culminate at Hi-Wire Brewery a new circus themed brewery where you will get to enjoy several of their amazing beers including.
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Oh man, this is a great time headed your way!

First and foremost, Lexington Avenue Brewery (LAB). Try every beer they have and then grab some french fries fried in duck fat and drizzled with truffle oil. Try them sober, you'll appreciate them more. :)

The only other advice I can give you will sound like I am regurgitating what is on this site: http://www.exploreasheville.com/foodtopia/beer-breweries/. I wholeheartedly suggest you also find a way to ship beer home if you're not driving up. With so many amazing options, it is impossible to take it all in, even with 4 days. Your liver will hate you but I think an angry liver is worth every day of fun. :)

Have a great time.
 
Was there over the weekend for the first time, you'll love it. in addition to the spots on your cruise try Wicked Weed and Thirsty Monk downtown. My favorite was Highlands though, great brew and a cool facility but not really walking distance from downtown IIRC.

Cheers!
 
and for lots of beers on tap and good pizza, try Barley's Taproom, downtown.

I love Pisgah Brewing in Black Mountain and French Broad. Highland Brewing is fun, but very much more commercial, less bohemian.
and the Green Leaf grocery store (similar to a whole foods) has a nice beer selection for taking home.
 
I recommend the following:
Pisgah Brewing - has the best beer & atmosphere in my opinion
Wicked Weed - new & won a gold at gabf
Lexington Ave Brewing - good all around place to eat drink
Wedge Brewing - Hipster mecca, but good beers at decent prices.
Thirsty Monk - just a bar, but has a great tap selection
Bruisin Ales - great bottle shop

Places to skip (imo):
Highland - good beer, but weird operating hours and way too commercial these days
Barleys - is a franchise, tap selection is no better than anywhere else.
The brews cruise bus tour - you hit all the sites, but end up spending time at crappy locations, not enough time at good locations, and there is certain to be either a beer know it all, extreme drunk, or worse, an extremely drunk know it all on the bus (assuming you don't have a large group that will get a dedicated bus/van for the tour)
 
Wicked Weed is a very cool place and I really enjoyed their beer and food. Right next to the Orange Peel, which is a great music venue. You might check their calendar for your dates for a show. Thirsty Monk is also very fun. Asheville Brewing Company is pretty good - go to their Brew n' View location (Merrimon Ave) to catch a movie while doing pizza and beers. Lexington Ave Brewery and Pisgah Brewing also make tasty beers. I'm not a fan of Highland's beers at all, but they're wildly popular down here. Hops & Vines is a cool bottle shop / LHBS.

My strongest recommendation however, is to eat at a place called Salsa's on Patton Ave. It's kind of a Mexican/Carribean style place and it's one of the tastiest restaurants I've ever been to. Definitely check it out.

I'll be doing a weekend there in November as well. Hit me up with a PM if you're interested in grabbing a beer. Maybe the schedules will line up.

Have fun and enjoy the brew.
 
I second Pisgah brewery and Wicked Weed.

Also, if ur in for mood for pizza, try Mellow Mushroom. They have decent pies and a great draft /bottle selection. (had to plug it, used to throw pies there back in the day)
 
Wedge brewing. Iron Rail IPA is life changing. It's in the arts district and doesn't open til 3. Don't miss this, and the others already mentioned.
 
I just visited Asheville a week ago. Awesome place!

You MUST go to Wicked Weed. The food is delicious, and they have quite the selection of beers that are all awesome.

Another must, Burial. This place is miniscule, but puts out some fantastic beers.

I also visited Wedge, great beer...bit of a walk from downtown. Green man was cool, I only had one beer but it was a neat place and good.

Asheville brewing was just ok to me. They have a jalapeno beer that I thought was phenomenal. But the rest of their beer was just ok.

If you are there on a Wednesday, stop in at thirsty monk. They have pint night, you keep the glass.

All of the above are walking distance.

I didnt hit up highland because it requires driving. But heard it was good. Same goes for pisgah.

Lastly, White Duck Taco...you NEED to eat there haha. Best food in Asheville, imo.


Have fun!
 
TheMan said:
I just visited Asheville a week ago. Awesome place!

You MUST go to Wicked Weed. The food is delicious, and they have quite the selection of beers that are all awesome.

Another must, Burial. This place is miniscule, but puts out some fantastic beers.

I also visited Wedge, great beer...bit of a walk from downtown. Green man was cool, I only had one beer but it was a neat place and good.

Asheville brewing was just ok to me. They have a jalapeno beer that I thought was phenomenal. But the rest of their beer was just ok.

If you are there on a Wednesday, stop in at thirsty monk. They have pint night, you keep the glass.

All of the above are walking distance.

I didnt hit up highland because it requires driving. But heard it was good. Same goes for pisgah.

Lastly, White Duck Taco...you NEED to eat there haha. Best food in Asheville, imo.

Have fun!
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I agree with everything said here. Also for food El kimchi truck is usually down at Wedge on the weekends and has great food.
 
Thirsty Monk is great, you do need to go there and check out their basement belgians. I really like Asheville Brewing for dinner - their pizza is good and their beer is OK. The Green Man is a very cool bar and I really liked their beer. I judged a competition at Highlands a few weeks ago and was thoroughly impressed with the place. There is also a distillery next door, although it was closed the day I was there. I would personally avoid Pisgah - It was not my scene. If you like hippies letting their children roam around then that's the place for you.
 
passedpawn said:
I'll be in Asheville tomorrow morning at 8am. Let the games begin.
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Have fun man. Tupelo Honey is a good breakfast joint if you're hungry when you get there. They're usually mega-busy so if there's a long wait check out Mayfel's next door. Good food there as well and the coffee is awesome.

Cheers.
 
passedpawn said:
Trip done, more fun that I thought it would be, and I was expecting a lot.

Best Beer of trip: Wicked Weed's Troy & Sons Old Fashioned. Wow, what a beer. That brewery is gonna go far.
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I agree. They make fantastic stuff. Where all did you end up going?
 
Glad you enjoyed the trip man. Heading up there tomorrow for a long weekend of live music, hiking, food and beer. I'm stoked. Hopefully they'll still have Troy & Sons on tap at Wicked Weed so I can give it a go.

Cheers.
 
Asheville is Beer City USA for a reason. I lived there for a few years before the Beer scene what it is today. There are several new microbreweries that were not there in 2010 when I moved.

Highland is in my opinion by far the best best tour which I believe would be part of the Brews Cruise. Asheville Brewing isn't too bad. Wedge Brewing and Pisgah are just okay for me. Maybe they have improved since I lived there.

Oh how I miss Mellow Mushroom. The best pizza I've ever had. Also, be sure to hit up Barley's Tap Room and the Biergarden, they aren't microbreweries but they have the best beer selection I've ever seen.
 
TheMan said:
I agree. They make fantastic stuff. Where all did you end up going?
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I think everywhere.

Lexington Avenue Brewery
Wicked Weed (3 times)
Highlands
Pisgah
Wedge Brewing by the river
Ashevill Brewing Co
Green Man (twice)
Hi-Wire

There might be more... I think some of it is blurry ;)

Some of my group went to Oskar Blues... I went to Biltmore House instead. My mistake.

Missed Burial - Doh.

Hit some cool drinking establishments that weren't breweries.

Did the Brews Cruise, which was very fun, and BTW full of happy girls. I never saw so many 21-ish hot beer geek girls.

Great food everywhere. Got Korean beef and kimchi from the kimchi truck outside Wedge. That was awesome. Great burgers at Fatburger.

This town is seriously Beer City USA.

NathPowe said:
Glad you enjoyed the trip man. Heading up there tomorrow for a long weekend of live music, hiking, food and beer. I'm stoked. Hopefully they'll still have Troy & Sons on tap at Wicked Weed so I can give it a go.

Cheers.
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It's only on tap downstairs.
 
I love Asheville and think the best tour is highlands by far...they released the Cold Mtn Winter Ale on the 14th and it is a brew I love. I get a keg of it every year from a local distributor. I enjoyed the lobster trap seafood house for supper a few times and thought it was cool that one of the bartenders brewed on a Sabco behind the bar. I believe he has since built a brewery at a separate location...I think its called crabhouse brewery but I could be wrong. I'll ne headed back soon and can't wait...missed out on wicked weed and wedge last time :(
 
Just got into town for a week of relaxation with my wife. Kids at home with grandparents. My wife actually picked asheville as our destination for the annual get-away for us this year. I don't think she realized it was "Beer City". Last night ate at Pappas and Beer, which has the best damn carnitas (aside from my own of course) burrito that I've ever had. They had two ABC beers: shiva and ninja (I tried the shiva), and also green man ESB, which was very nice on tap.

We are staying off the beaten path. In addition to general sightseeing and a couple rounds of golf, would like to visit a few breweries. Will not be able to visit them all, but would definitely like to hit wicked weed. As far as I know, they are the only sour beer producing brewery in asheville? Going to try and buy some to bring home.

Any other sour beers available in asheville I'm sure might be found at the recommended bruisin ales shop.

Other than wicked weed, top spots that I'd like to visit include burial (do they have limited hours), hi-wire, and try to get to Pisgah and maybe French broad as well.

Any weird operating hours or what not as far as visiting any of the breweries? Are there any specific tour times etc? I'd kinda like to be as impromptu and non scheduled as possible. Today is Sunday, so I except bars to be full of NFL fans. We are headed to Biltomore today.

TD


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Today I visited Wicked Weed. Scored a nice parking spot on the street opposite the brewery. Had a sampler of saison XXXVI, Decoy, Freak of Nature ( really good! ), Lupulin Lab (feat El Dorado, and also very nice), Peoples choice pale ale, and La Bonte.
Nabbed a 12 pack of beer to go thanks to my great parking spot! My wife had the Abigail Dubble and helped me sample some of mine. We also and their chips and dip plus freebie pretzels. We went to the basement where we were told they had more taps. I counted 20 beers on tap. Our server told me that their "Funkatorium", was opening on Friday this week! if I can manage, will try to visit, though I expect heavy crowds. It's their new barrel aging facility. The service was good, and for a Monday I was glad it wasn't overly crowded upstairs or downstairs. Our server was fairly knowledgeable about their beers and seemed enthusiastic which is a plus. We could see their fermentation tanks from the basement bar table. I wonder what their system capacity is. I'm guessing between 10-15 BBL. We did arrive fairly early, just a few minutes before 5 PM maybe that helped keep crowds in check,

We had dinner at table which was very nice. Stopped at the French broad chocolate lounge on way home- thought this was the same place as the French broad brewery, but it wasn't.

Tomorrow we golf and then made plans to tour the new Sierra Nevada brewery right near the golf course. Looking forward to that, even though I understand it is still under construction and non-functional, so I guess that means no beer in the tasting room afterward.

Later in the week will try to visit a few more places including hi-wire and burial and green man if possible, I understand twin leaf and also one world are nearby.

Another golf day planned and after that might be able to visit Pisgah, and maybe lookout.

TD


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Tonight hit the new Sierra Nevada brewery. It was a totally awesome place to visit. Brand new, state of the art brewery I'm told can do 200 BBL brews every two hours. The pub and taproom was still under construction. The bottling lines were not active, but are fully functional and operate, just not while I was there.

Afterward, we hit thirsty monk (OK, but I suspect their bottle list is the most impressive thing going), then to Hi-wire which was really interesting. Bought a bottle of their barrel aged RIS to go. Then off to twin leaf and swing by the new wicked weed Funkatorium which had a soft opening for the industry insiders that night. We asked if they were open but were turned away. The real opening is this Friday. Then we went to ABC for some badly needed food and another beer.

Taking a break tomorrow from the beer scene. It might visit one or two after hours.
Asheville is a fun place to visit for sure. Hit two bottle shops while in town today as well and picked up a 12 pack of beer camp at the SN brewery as well.

TD


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Glad you're enjoying your trip TrickyDick. One place I always mention to folks who are in/heading to Asheville is a restaurant called Salsas. They do Mexican Carribean style food. It's really tasty if you're in the mood for that kind of thing. Also check out Mayfel's for a really good breakfast w/ great coffee.

Cheers and enjoy the rest of your stay.
 
Thanks!

Hit Bouchon for dinner, then LAB for a sampler afterward. Bouchon was great. LAB was no hum. Their beers were solid. All tasted as expected. Some unusual saisons were ok to good. None of their beers wowed me. Not to slam on them, but the business seems not a beer centric one. Full bar, restaurant, music playing (including awful 80's rap artists), and middle of the road beers seems out of place in "beer city". To their credit, place was well run, and beers were not gargantuan 6+ percent ABV monsters across the board. That was the only refreshing change. I enjoyed all their beers but would not have ordered a full pint of any except the IPA or rye ale if I ever returned.

Tomorrow pisgah brewing and possible also highland and or lookout.
Friday saving room for burial, green man, and Funkatorium.
If possible will try to visit wedge. It is an out of place location though.

TD


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TrickyDick said:
Thanks!

Hit Bouchon for dinner, then LAB for a sampler afterward. Bouchon was great. LAB was no hum. Their beers were solid. All tasted as expected. Some unusual saisons were ok to good. None of their beers wowed me. Not to slam on them, but the business seems not a beer centric one. Full bar, restaurant, music playing (including awful 80's rap artists), and middle of the road beers seems out of place in "beer city". To their credit, place was well run, and beers were not gargantuan 6+ percent ABV monsters across the board. That was the only refreshing change. I enjoyed all their beers but would not have ordered a full pint of any except the IPA or rye ale if I ever returned.

Tomorrow pisgah brewing and possible also highland and or lookout.
Friday saving room for burial, green man, and Funkatorium.
If possible will try to visit wedge. It is an out of place location though.

TD


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Click to expand...

Agree about LAB. Not sure why it gets so much love.
 
Wicked Weed always gets my vote. Great sours and their food is amazing while being decently priced. Check out Hops and Vines on Haywood Street. That's my go-to homebrew shop. Good selection of craft beers and they have homebrew tastings every first Thursday of each month. And if you're into clubs, my cousin just opened up his own called Room IX at downtown Asheville. I wouldn't categorize it as "Beer Scene" though.
 
Today visited Pisgah, and they had some nice beer as well. It was close to where we golfed. Tried 8 of the 11 available shared with my wife. Their pale ale, red ale and nitro pub ale were our favorites. Grabbed a couple stickers for the beer fridge. Wonder why the rest of the places we visited don't offer free stickers for visitors as well (without having to ask for one, just have a pile of them)?

No firm plans of yet the rest of the day yet. Probably head into asheville around dinner time, pick a place to eat and one or two places for beer samplers after dinner maybe, would still like to hit up green man, burial, possible Catawba and wedge. Sounds like one of the guys at Pisgah said the Funkatorium was really cool when he visited on an industry soft opening day. 16 sours on tap, plus two non sour. He said they were all WW sour brews. Didn't know they had that many!

Only two more nights in Asheville before headed home.

TD


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The Wedge is hit or miss in my opinion. So don't sweat it if you don't make it.
Saturday nights they have a great food truck, but they also have movie night, and the hipsters actually come to watch the movie and will shush people if they talk. Thursdays they have a pizza truck that is pretty good.

The beers are inconsistent. Some days very very good, some days taste very poorly crafted. The Iron rail Ipa is a perfect example. I've had it when its great with lots of aroma, I've also had it when it tasted full of warm fermentation esters and was super cloudy with an odd boozy aftertaste.
 
Visited Catawba tonight, skipped the French broad place.
Nothing was like WOW, but all four samples were good. My sinuses haven't been very helpful and can't get a lot of those hop aromas.
Tomorrow is the last day, and going to do some golfing in the morning. Want to hit burial, green man and the newly Opened Funkatorium, but who knows if I can make it all happen. Time will tell. I can't wait to see what the sixteen house sour beers are! I never knew that they had sixteen sours that they brewed!

TD




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Thanks. I'll take a listen when I have some time. There is a nice article about their business in a local freebie magazine I picked up at wienhaus I think it was called, detailing their rise to fame and fortune. Hope to get into Funkatorium tonight, but have a feeling it'll be standing room only and if so I'll pass on my last night in town.
Burial and green man is option two.
Maybe salsas for dinner or another Mexican place.

TD


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I think, as of 3pm, the doors of the funkatorium are open.
If you go now, you can probably have your fill before the crowds make it unbearable.

Salsas will get crowded with a wait tonight as well.
Not sure what sort of food you like, but Chai Pani is one of my favorite restaurants there.
Its "Indian street food", and I have never had a bad meal there. Grove arcade area.
 
You didn't miss anything at French Broad. Burial can be very interesting and right around the corner Greenman is solid.
 

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