My all time local favorite is Wee Heavy-er Scotch Ale from French Broad Brewing. My usual, however, is Gaelic Ale from Highland Brewing as the first brew is not widely available. Now, y’all hear the latest? Asheville has been named one of the top two micro brew towns in the US.
My all time local favorite is Wee Heavy-er Scotch Ale from French Broad Brewing. My usual, however, is Gaelic Ale from Highland Brewing as the first brew is not widely available. Now, y’all hear the latest? Asheville has been named one of the top two micro brew towns in the US.
So I just spent a long time writing a post of how I’m a bit surprised that Asheville would even be in the top 5 and then it did not go through as I briefly lost my connection…but here I am again.
I guess I’ll leave it at that as I don’t want to be a rotten Moe Ball, but after traveling the country especially out West, I feel Asheville has a lot of good beer to offer but it’s just not as prevalent as other places. I know I do have some West bias. The thing is out West, many people only drink microbrews and the microbreweries have really cool places to hang out. Not trying to bash Asheville by any means as I love the place, but ‘best’ in the nation? I don’t think so. Especially on the quantity side…well, and quality.
No insult to Asheville, but that seems a little ... not real. There’s not even that many micro-breweries in town, are there?
Highland, Green Man, French Broad, Wedge, Pisgah ... two or three more with any kind of distribution, tops? I mean, doesn’t San Fransisco alone have dozens of quality microbrews?
Exactly Steve. Even to look at the Denver/Northern Colorado area, there are several mighty fine breweries with great bars and restaurants where they are brewed and served on site. They are also bottled and distributed all over. Northern Cali, Oregon and Seattle area are the exact same. The NorthEast is catching on as most of the country, but i drank my first microbrew out in CO in ‘93 and remember people being amazed I had never tried the JuJu Ginger from New Belgium (great with sushi).
Yeah, but asheville (and portland) is hip, so publications like to name-drop it.
Kinda like the Orange Shmeel getting best venue, or whatever, from that entirely irrelevant rag, Rolling Stone—just an excuse to try and get a bit of the asheville shine…
New Belgium is showing up around town now. Ingles has 22 oz. bottles and is also carrying 22 oz. of some French Broad brews. Got me on the article, I would have doubted it too. My wife actually picked it up in the Cit-Times Sunday.
Yeah, but asheville (and portland) is hip, so publications like to name-drop it.
Kinda like the Orange Shmeel getting best venue, or whatever, from that entirely irrelevant rag, Rolling Stone—just an excuse to try and get a bit of the asheville shine…
Exactly my thinking. I’m not dissing Asheville at all, just being realistic. Asheville out-brewing most of these major cities with significant microbrew industries is a big claim, and one that doesn’t seem terribly supported by the facts.
