First Big Asheville Beer Adventure

I just moved to the Asheville area on Wednesday, May 9th. The move had been planned, to one degree or another, for about three years so it is super exciting to actually be here and settled in.  You can read about that adventure here.

Now that we're here, we decided to spend our first Saturday on a grand beer adventure to the great city of Black Mountain NC, home of Pisgah Brewing.

The day actually started out pretty early with a trip to the Asheville City Market - a farmer's market. We had signed up for a CSA before our move and this was the first day they would be set up at the market. It started at 8am but we figured we'd get there around 9ish, so we did.  But once we were out we didn't want to go back home.  We put our findings in a cooler and made our way out to Black Mountain.

The town is only about 20 minutes east of Asheville so it didn't take long. We parked in the little downtown area and just wandered about. We stopped at a couple little shops including the general store and then just kept walking until lunchtime. At this point, we found a new place called Trailhead.  It is owned, in part, by one of the owners of Pisgah Brewing so they had a lot of Pisgah beers on tap. We sat down, ordered a beer and some food.  Matt got the Pisgah Pale, a beer that is pretty popular in this area.  I ordered the Riverbend Brown. But out of curiosity, we couldn't pass up a tap labeled "Bacon". I'll tell you a little more about this beer soon, but when we tried a small sample glass as Trailhead we were surprised that is was kind of good. I'm not a fan of smokey beers, which seem to be very popular these days. In fact, I have written about how much I disliked smokey beers in the past. I wouldn't drink a pint of the Pisgah bacon, but it really wasn't that bad.

After lunch, we found a little walking path around a lake near the downtown area and went for a stroll. The ultimate endgame for the afternoon was to end up at Pisgah's tasting room but it was too early right after lunch to head out that way. We walked and talked and enjoyed the slightly overcast day in the mountains. We started to make our way toward the brewery, but since we had only been there once over a year ago, we couldn't precisely remember how to get there.  So we drove around a lot, mostly making wrong turns. Eventually we called for directions and finally we made it to the brewery.  We bellied up to the bar and each ordered an IPA when a gentleman walked up to us to let us know a tour was about to happen. Awesome! As soon as we got our beers we caught the back of the tour line and walked into the belly of the beast.

As a home brewer, small commercial breweries fascinate me. While I use couple pounds of malts, I love to see the bags and bags and bags lining the walls of a production facility.  We were told that they muscle all of the grains by hand into the mill and then into the mash tun.  You could tell from the tour that Pisgah was truly a labor of love.  And what makes Pisgah truly unique is that everything they brew is certified organic.  And that, my friends, is why it tastes so damn delicious.

It was at this tour that we learned more about the Bacon Stout. They used a chocolate stout base but added 60 pounds of USDA certified organic bacon to the secondary fermentation. Yes, you read that right. Real, actual, bacon. They seasoned and smoked it up before adding it to the beer process and then let it do the magic.  When it was ready, everyone at the brewery tried a glass and quickly realized that while it wasn't bad it was also about half grease. They let the beer sit a little longer until the grease separated out and then it was ready for the public. 

I failed to get the name of our tour guide, but he was very informative and fun to listen to.  I was glad we accidentally stumbled in right as the tour started.  Because it is a pretty small brewery, the presentation didn't last too long so we were able to sit in the outdoor area for a while enjoying our beers.

We eventually made it back to Asheville and stopped at Barley's Tap Room for some pizza and a couple more local beers - this time favorites from French Broad. We were still back at our little mountain home before dark to put away our stash from the farmer's market and settle in for the night.
The beer scene in Asheville is super inspiring. Lots of fun events coming up, including the Beer City Festival in just a couple of weeks. I suspect that this sadly neglected blog will be getting some additional attention now that we live in Beer City USA.

Two Beer Events in One Week

This has been a very good week in the world of beer for both Atlanta GA and Asheville NC.

On Thursday, January 20th we went to the Taco Mac in Kennesaw for the introduction of the California brewery Lost Abbey in Georgia. I learned about Lost Abbey earlier this year when there was some controversy surrounding their summer beer, Witch's Wit.  Throughout the online discussions, I often wondered whether or not the beer was worth all of the attention.  I had wanted to try it, but it wasn't yet available in Georgia, until this past week.

We met some friends at the Kennesaw restaurant and enjoyed dinner and conversation.  Then we dove headfirst into the beer selections.  The bar had several available on tap and a few bottles.  I tried the Lost Abbey Red Barn at first and honestly I didn't really like it.  That wasn't because it was a bad beer, but because it had flavors that I don't prefer.  It is a Belgian style beer with a lot of complexity, but it was heavy with the hops and I'm not a friend of hops. I want to be able to understand the intense flowery taste of hops more, but this beer featured more than my palate could really handle.  In fact, the taste was so strong it lingered after I finished this beer and may have affected my taste of the second beer that I tried. 

Which brings me to that second beer.  I had read about Gift of The Magi back in November and was quite intrigued.  It is brewed with Frankincense and Myrrh for Christmastime.  I wasn't sure if that would be gimmicky or good, so I really wanted to experience it.  As I said before, I'm not certain I got the full flavor profile because the Red Barn affected my taste buds, but I did enjoy the beer.  It was a spicy Belgian style beer that I believe lived up to my expectations.

However, the winning beer of the evening was the Couvee de Tomme which was enjoyed by two of my bar-going companions, Emily and Robin.  As you can see, Emily endorses it highly.   It is a strong wild ale with a heavy secondary fermentation with cherries which made it taste, as my friend's described, like a really good cherry wine.  Lost Abbey does consider several of their beers to be more wine-like than traditional beer, so I can see where this fit that description.  I tried several sips of the beer and while it was fruitier than I typically like my beer to be these days I can agree it is a very good fruit beer.  It is exactly the kind of beer I would have liked when I first started exploring lambics.

The second beer themed event that I attended this week was the Winter Warmer Beer Festival in Asheville.  On Saturday, Matt and I left for Asheville and arrived in town in time for lunch, which we enjoyed at the Twisted Crape.    From there we made our way to the Civic Center for the festival. The event had sold out, but we got there pretty early and were near the front of the entrance line.  Matt and I were both wearing our knitted Beer Hats, which as a side note we had no less than 4 comments on throughout the event.  We even pointed someone to our friend Susan's knitting website and told her to leave a comment about the hats because she wanted a pattern to knit one for herself. 

At the festival were all breweries from the South East.  Mostly North and South Carolina, two breweries from Tennessee and one from Georgia.  I make no excuses when I say that "Local Beer" is my favorite kind of beer.  I love local beer because it is typically the freshest available.  I love tasting local beer wherever I go.  There were some definite highlights.  We tried to start out with beer that we hadn't had before so we purposefully skipped over several of the Asheville breweries.  We had heard about a German-style brewery from Sylva, NC called Heinzelmannchen.  I had their Black Forest Stout which was a crisp beer with caramel and coffee flavors.  We also tried Lonerider from Raleigh.  Matt really liked their Peacemaker Pale Ale and I liked their Sweet Josie Brown.  The real star of the beer festival for us was a Tennessee brewery called Yazoo.  Matt had their Sue and I tried their Sly Rye Porter, which we shared tastes of with each other.  Both beers were premium examples of their styles.  We talked with one of the guys from Yazoo and asked them where they were located (Nashville) and where they were distributed.  He said they didn't distribute at all and the only reason they come to the Asheville beer festivals is because they love the people and the city and it is just fun for them.  I would definitely check out Yazoo if we find ourselves in Nashville. 

Once we had tried several new beers, we went back to some of the breweries that we were already familiar with.  Duck Rabbit Milk Stout is one of my favorite beers, so I couldn't pass that up.  Atlanta brewery SweetWater did not have any of the beers that I like so I tried their flagship beer, 420.  It is a pale ale and as I have mentioned I have not yet cultivated a relationship with hops.  I wanted to try more hoppy beers this year even if in the end I determine that I don't like them.  420 is not bad.  It isn't as hoppy as other beers I have tried and it is all around drinkable. I don't think I would have it a lot, but I might try it again.  However, out of the tried-and-true breweries I have to say I enjoyed Pisgah Porter the best.  This led to a discussion of what makes a really good beer.  One of the reasons I like Pisgah Porter so much is that no matter where I am when I taste that beer I know it is Pisgah beer.  It tasted like Black Mountain NC.  It has some IT-factor that I am not sure I can define.  We came to the conclusion that the flavor is actually "Consistency", but I think it might actually be, as cliche as it sounds, "Love."  Of course, we tried a lot of other beers as well but these are the ones I wanted to share here. 

All of the beer events this week were a lot of fun as well as an educational exploration of beer styles and brands.  This is why I love the art of beer.