We drove up to
Asheville, North Carolina, recently for the weekend to catch a concert and before the show on Saturday night, my wife, Ashlee, and I did an impromptu brewery-crawl from the music venue, The Orange Peel on Biltmore Avenue, and back. Since Asheville boasts at least seven microbreweries in the area, you don't have to go very far to find great beer. And, of course, that fact also makes Asheville one of my favorite towns in the South. Our first stop was a repeat for us.
Asheville Brewing is one of the legends here in town and has been a favorite of ours for a long time. Their air-conditioned brewpub a few blocks down on Coxe Avenue was a welcome stop from the summer heat.
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| Our second stop was a new one for us and a fairly new craft brewer on the Asheville scene. Craggie Brewing is located on Hilliard Avenue. Started by a former assistant brewer at Highland (another big name in the Asheville brewing game), they are small, but serious about their beer including the delicious Antebellum Ale shown above. |
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| Our next and last stop was Wedge Brewing, an even newer player n the Asheville craft beer circus. They are located in the kooky, Bohemian-style River Art District in the Wedge Studios building down on Roberts Street. |
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| Wedge Brewing's boisterous Third Rail IPA (photo above) is strong in taste and ABV. How's 10% grab you? Since it's an English-style IPA, I wasn't blown away by it, but I do appreciate the results and the mastery of its creation. I was a bigger fan of their "Derailed" Hemp Ale. |
With still a few minutes to go before the show, we stopped in a little restaurant/bar back up by The Orange Peel called Storm. I was happy to see they had
Green Man Ales on tap...yet another strong and talented Asheville craft brewer. The beer selection inside The Orange Peel was even good and I enjoyed a bottle of Starr Hill Northern Lights IPA (one of my favs out of Virginia) during the show.
