Author: timandjohnna

Hello Knoxville! We arrived here from Asheville in time to check out a couple of breweries as we passed through to Kentucky. Located in an industrial area of downtown, we started off the birthday celebration with their Lager and a Greenbriar Honey Blonde. Quite refreshing after a days drive.

This make number 24 and last stop on our Asheville Mini-tour. Not bad for a two week visit and what a great time we have had. Someone told us you could practically walk to most of the breweries and that is probably true if you really liked to walk. Winding down our mini-tour brought us to this small, almost speakeasy type of upstairs tasting room with cool jazz music and unique portrait-abstract artwork for sale on the walls. We were glad to see two of our style of beers given the small menu of only 8 beers – quite the contrast from most of the other breweries we have visited here. Enjoying our Helles lager and American pils, we decided we would head to Knoxville tomorrow to what is going on there before continuing on to Kentucky.

Even though the name doesn’t have “brewery” in it, this place does indeed brew beer. Located in the heart of downtown in a hip area of bars, restaurants and shops, they offered quite the selection for such a small place. Even though we were tempted to get outside our box with so much to choose from, we stayed in our comfort zone with a Never Been Crunchier kellerbier and a Believe in Breeze Czech style lager. Both beers were superb. Wierd name – great beer!

We started off our last day here in Asheville with a swing and a miss. The Oyster House Brewing was a long awaited stop but was unfortunately closed today so we opted for this place since they were open at noon and had food. We were excited to see a cream ale on the menu so we jumped on the County Store cream ale and a Stay Golden light lager. Both were a delicious compliment to our pulled pork and smoked turkey sandwiches . We will try for the Oyster House next trip to town!

After a 20 min wait in the parking lot to get in, we finally got to see what this place is all about. Nothing special other than good beer down by the river. With only limited outdoor seating, we were glad to at least get a pint of their Kellerpils and North German lips to mark it off the Asheville Mini-tour list. Both were definitely worth the wait!

Now this is more like it. Small batch, limited craft beer menu and a small tap room with nothin’ but tables, Reggae music and friendly people chatting. Except the short interruption by thunder off in the distant and a brief shower, this place is everything we like on our tour. Sitting under the lean-to shed while the rain tapped on the metal roof, we relaxed in our folding chairs with a Workin Man’s pale ale and a Feedback stout while the showers cooled the breeze.

Well, today marks another HUGE milestone in our brewey tour. For those of you who have been following along for 3+ years now, this brewery is number 300! And what a better place to celebrate this great accomplishment than at “Asheville’s original craft beer” birthplace that opened in 1994. While not really our style of tasting room, this place is kinda cool in that it is a large complex of brewing operations, tap room with live music venue and a large outdoor area. We kicked off our milestone weekend with the Pilsner and the Gaelic Ale – both fit the bill for the event. People always ask us “what was your favorite brewery?”. We usually say “the last one!” except there have been a few memorable ones along the way.

This brewery has two locations so we visited the only one that was opened in a hip, artsy area down by the river called The Foundation district. Bar, restaurants, shops and lots of outdoor seating make up this old manufacturing area once served by railways and barges. Sitting under an umbrella on a picnic table next to a food truck specializing in grilled cheese sandwiches, we enjoyed our Haus lager and Julian Price pils in the warm breeze watching the worl go by……

Coolest place ever! This tasting room is like no other and will definitely be a memorable one. It is made up of a group of old train car connected together with all original interiors. Wood floors, painted steel walls and tin roofs accented with vintage tables, chairs and pictures of railroad history. We sat in the cupola of an actual caboose and drank our Banana Wheat and Kolsch watching the traffic go buy. You must visit if you like trains and beer!

So this brewery has three locations but we visited the downtown location that was convenient to our last stop. Pretty typical tasting room with snacks and a dozen beers to choose from. Seating was limited to just outside so we were stuck with one of the last two tables that were sitting on a sloped sidewalk, making our chairs feel like we were tipping over. No, it wasn’t because of the beers – we were drinking the Shiva IPA and the Rocket Girl Kolsch which were only our 2nd beers of the afternoon.