Author: timandjohnna

Another great tasting room plopped smack dab in the middle of the brewery. Nothing better than smelling the beer as you are drinking it. We started the evening off with the Pilsner Bier and a Beorns Slumber brown ale along with our carry-along pretzel rods. Yum!

Named after the Hindu goddess of bees, this place was quite the experience. Due to Covid, they only had outside seating so unfortunately, we picked the warmest day of the year to visit. I will try and make this short and sweet so you don’t spend any more time reading than you would driving here. 1) 15 minute wait with lots of empty tables, 2) order your beer and appetizer at the hostess stand (?), 3) one Low Poly pils and one Fast Cars, Danger, Fire & Knives Kolsch not two Kolsch, 4) burger’s don’t come with chips even though the menu says they do, 5) the “spent grain black angus” burgers were like hockey pucks, 6) check your check – the server won’t, 7) bugs will bug you, 8) get intimate with your potty buddy – there is only one unisex bathroom divided by stalls.

Now this is more like it. When you walk in, you smell fermenting beer. Mmmmm! Sitting just a few steps from 20′ high stacks of empty beer cans just waiting to be filled, we kicked back in front of the fan and cooled off with a delicous Hi-Wire lager and an Old North lager taking in the almost bread-like smell of the beer.

Yes, this is the nationally-known brewer of the commonly-known Fat Tire amber ale. Everyone said we must visit this brewery and here we are. As expected, it is a HUGE operation in terms of craft beers but is dwarfed by other mass-production breweries like Anheuser-Busch that we visited in St. Louis. We were pleasantly surprised by the menu that offers 30 different beers ranging from everything you can imagine. We kept it simple and ordered a pint of Mountain Time lager and Old Tuffy lager while sitting out on the deck overlooking the river of what could be described as an “event center”. A large, modern building lacking intimacy and built for one thing: serving the masses. We weren’t really all that impressed with the beer – something you would expect from a mass-production craft beer factory.

Definitely not a tasting or tap room! This place is more like a trendy restaurant that serves their own craft beers brewed offsite but the selection is great. Serving up well over two dozen beers, most of them are something we would absolutely drink. Staying within our box, we tried the Greenlight lager and the Uncle Rick’s pils. Both were refreshing but the Greenlight provided an interesting little tweak of green tea which was a pleasant surprise. Zoey approved too with her cup of ice water.

Someone once told us you could practically walk to most of the breweries in town and they were right. This next brewery is actually the second location as the original one is on the other side of the block and one block from the last one. Set up to adapt to the new Covid requirements with picnic tables in the loading dock, we sat down to enjoy a Green Man Lager and a Farm-To-Pils along with a couple of street tacos from the food truck or should I say food “trailer” called The Grey Eagle. AWESOME!

We decided to take along one of our kids today on this Sunday afternoon of craft brewery visits. We discovered that most tap rooms here in Asheville allow pets so Zoey got to come along for the adventure. After a hardy breakfast of French toast and bacon, we started things off with the Contrition German pils and the Atonement dry Irish stout on nitro. Both beers were a good start to the day. The only thing odd is this creepy mural on the wall of what appears to resemble Tom Selleck with his arm around a creature from the movie Goonies. Weird…

This micro craft brewery is unique in that is all about the outdoors. Even without the Covid situation, this tap room has very limited indoor seat and is all about the outdoors which includes a huge picnic table area, an outdoor stage for live music, a hammock and even has a satellite “tap barn” where you can get your beer without making the trek back up to the tasting room. This place gives you the feel like you are in someone’s back yard with a food truck, dogs running free and families on blankets. The only thing missing is a swimming pool. The beer-tender was very helpful and even gave us a 1st taste of the recently tapped seasonal saison. We were reluctant to try it after our last experience but needless to say it was good. We wrapped up the evening listening to a 2-man country/bluegrass band, eating a lobster roll and a delicious Pilsner and Brown Ale .

So at the last brewery we talked about getting outside of our box with some of the beers we drink. We usually stick with ales, pilsners and an occasional IPA. This stop we tested the waters, I mean beers, and tried the My Currant Mistake which was a Belgium Wit Sour with black currant beeries. Ouch! Talk about tart! This was more like a Big Mistake. Good thing we also ordered the Hillager lager so the stop wasn’t a total loss. The lesson learned here is if you are going to get outside of your box, read the menu carefully!

Named after the river that winds through the mountains and into the city, we started off this beautiful, sunny Saturday of day-drinking with something light; Gateway Kolsch and Goldenrod Pilsner. Feeling a little rough from the night before, these two beers were a perfect way to rebound and restart our Asheville mini-tour.