The Final Countdown

So its almost here. Perhaps the biggest celebration of the year for our local beer scene. Brewgrass started way back in 1996, when we had one brewery and one good beer bar. Things have changed a lot since then, but Brewgrass is still the annual event that everyone looks forward to. This is personally my 10th Brewgrass, and it is always a day filled with great beer, great friends, and I hear that they have great music too. This year should be no different. For a great rundown of this year's Brewgrass, as well as what to expect from WNC breweries, check out this Mountain Xpress article. As for other breweries, I will be on the lookout for Coast Brewing from Charleston, and Ham's Brewing out of Greenville, NC (some underated beer from this brewery). And I say this every year, if you are looking for tickets, check out craigslist, and if you don't have any luck there, show up early at MLK park and put on your best sad face. I always see people selling tickets outside. There will also be a raffle at tomorrow's Bruisin' Ales beer tasting for tickets. I hope to have a full writeup of Brewgrass next week.

If you are looking for some pre-Brewgrass activities, look no further than the Thirsty Monk. This Thursday night, that is tomorrow for those counting at home, there will be a cask from New Belgium brewery, a rare treat. In addition to the cask, they will also be tapping the Founders Canadian Breakfast Stout. This is not in reference to Canadian Bacon, which is neither bacon, nor Canadian (discuss). The Canadian part comes from aging the beer in bourbon barrels that were used to make maple syrup. This is an extremely rare beer that I highly encourage you folks to try. I will definitely be there. Friday at the Monk will feature a cask all the way from Rogue Brewing Company.

The other beer news for the week can be found at this Mountain Express article (thanks for doing my job Edgy Mama). Of note is the new south location of the Thirsty Monk, which I will give a full report on soon, and also the news of a new beer festival that will be held in late spring in Asheville. Tickets will go on sale at the Brewgrass festival, and at local breweries starting this Friday.

And now for a rant. I am extremely excited that we will be host to another beer festival. In my opinion, there is no such thing as too many beer festivals. But please, can you wait until we get a little closer to these beer festivals before you put your tickets on sale? Brewgrass tickets went on sale back in FEBRUARY. There are many folks who had no idea that they went on sale until it was too late. And now this spring festival's tickets are going on sale a full 8 months before the date of the festival. I have no idea what my calendar will look like in May. Obviously, my advice to you is to buy the tickets, since it will probably sell out sometime before the last leaves fall off the trees. I will give credit to the folks at the World Beer Festival who do it right. Tickets for the Durham event went on sale one month prior to the event, and they never have a problem selling out. While I'm at it, can you also limit the amount of tickets sold to one person? Four would be a good number. The more people get a chance at tickets, the better. Okay rant over, and again, I appreciate the festivals and I know they take a lot of work to produce.

Happy drinking, and we'll see you at Brewgrass.

Smoke on the Water

For two years running, Highland Brewing Company has sponsered a homebrewing competition where the winner gets to have his own brew made and sold by Highland. Last years winner was Aaron Schenk, a local homebrewer whose winning recipe was a Cream Ale. This years winner is also a local, and is familiar to many in the homebrewing scene here in Asheville. Alex Buerckholtz, owner of Hops and Vines a beer/wine/homebrew shop in West Asheville won this year's competition with his Big Butte Smoked Porter. Alex has been brewing beer for years, and this is not the first time he has had accolades for his beer. In 2006, he was a finalist for the Samuel Adams Long Shot homebrewing competition, and while he didn't win, he did get to attend the Great American Beer Festival courtesy of Sam Adams. This year, he gets to see his beer entered into the Great American Beer Festival in the Pro/Am category for his smoked porter. We wish him luck.

You can get a chance to try the beer and meet Alex this Tuesday (September 8th), when Hops and Vines will debut the beer with a special tasting that runs from 5 to 7 pm. They are also raffling off a pair of Brewgrass tickets for those folks who weren't able to get them when they went on sale back in spring.

Renovations

For those of you who visit the site, you may have noticed a freshening up around here. I decided to do a slight redesign that was spurred on by the failure of my old Google Calendar gadget. Other than the cosmetic changes, I added links to Asheville beer bars, updated the brewery list, and put in a new look for google calendar. It would be perfect if only google could figure out a way to word wrap my calendar entries. Speaking of the calendar, I do my best to keep up with it, and I have also learned how to embed html links into my calendar entries so you can easily be sent to the event's website. So for all of those readers who only look at my blog through your favorite RSS feed reader, please stop by and check it out. And if anyone has any suggestions about the site, feel free to let me know.

History Lesson

I'm a wee bit late in posting this, but the Thirsty Monk is hosting a Dogfish Head Ancient Ales Week that started tonight. This week will feature four of Dogfish Head's historical ales, three of which have never been on tap in Asheville before. The festivies have already begun tonight, as the Monk has tapped the Midas Touch, which is based on ingredients found in 2700 year old drinking vessels in Turkey. If you haven't had the Midas Touch before, it has some great mead like qualities that come from the addition of honey. This will be followed tomorrow night by the Chateau Jihau, which is based on a 9000 year old recipe found in China. Yes folks, fermented beverages have been around for a long time. Wednesday will feature the chocolate and chile flavored Theobroma poured from a bottle. And Thursday they will tap the Sah'tea, a juniper and chai tea flavored beer based on an old Finnish beer style called Sahti, which used juniper and other herbs to flavor the beer before hops came into style. Thursday night will also feature the debut of the Punkin Ale, Dogfish's spin on the ever popular pumpkin beers that show up in the fall. Oh, and there is a chance that a very special limited Dogfish beer could appear on cask that night as well (I've been sworn to secrecy on this one, but I hope they can get it).

Allagash Bash

Asheville has been host to several of the beer worlds biggest names over the past couple of years, including Alain De Laet of Delerium Tremens, Adam Avery of Avery Brewing, Lee Chase, former Stone Brewer, and of course, Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head. Heck, I even ran into Jeff Lebesch and Kim Jordan, owners of New Belgium Brewery, on my birthday last year. Next week, another big name will be visiting our fair city. Rob Tod, Brewmaster for Allagash Brewing Company, will be in town to promote his brewery, which is well known as being one of the best belgian style breweries in America.

The festivities begin at 5 pm on Tuesday the 25th at Bruisin' Ales, where Rob Todd will be on hand for a beer tasting. This is a special tasting that requires a reservation, and it costs 15 dollars, with proceeds going to the Friends of the Blue Ridge Parkway. This is an excellent opportunity to meet one of the country's premier brewers, and to sample some of Allagash's fine beers. In addition, Julie and Jason will be preparing some great food to be paired with the beers. Just call Bruisin' Ales at 252-8999 to make your reservation.

The fun doesn't stop there, as Rob Tod will be heading over to the Thirsty Monk after the tasting at around 7 pm. The Monk will have five Allagash beers on tap all week, including the Black, the White, the Hugh Malone, the Fluxus 2008, and one of my personal favorites, the Interlude. They will also have a special keg that evening, the Burnham Road, a smoked beer. The Allagash festivities continue all week at the Monk, with Pint Night on Wednesday and the Odyssey, my other favorite Allagash beer, will be on cask Thursday. Be sure to check it out.

Beer Fests Galore

The approach of fall means many things. Cooler weather, so I can put on my vintage 1993 flannel shirts. Raking leaves. And beer festivals. There are a bevy of events coming up, so lets run down some highlights.

On Saturday September 5th, the second annual High Country Beer Fest will be taking place in Boone, NC. I haven't been to the event, but you can't go wrong with good beer and the great scenery of our northern North Carolina Mountains. Tickets are 20 dollars in advance, and the beer pours from 4-8 pm. Proceeds from the festival will go to the Hospitality House in Boone, and, get this, the Ivory Tower Brewery at ASU, which will be the first educational non-profit brewpub in the country. The brewery will include courses on brewing and beer, in addition to running the facility with green energy. It may be time for me to go back to school.

Of course, Brewgrass will be two weeks later on the 19th. Tickets have been sold out since sometime in 2003, but if you want to go, check craigslist, and by all means, show up. I have seen people selling their tickets for reasonable prices every year.

If you don't mind a drive, the World Beer Festival in Durham is on October 3rd. I have been to this event for the past two years, and while it gets a little crowded and the time flies by, it is still a great event, featuring quite a few beers that are not available locally. Tickets will go on sale in early September.

Thanks to a comment in my previous post, I was informed of another event happening the same day as the World Beer Fest. Hotoberfest runs from 12 to 7, featuring beer, music, family activities, and prizes. At some point I will post about my Atlanta trip, but in summary, Atlanta is a great beer town, and you could visit some of the area's breweries and brewpubs to make it a weekend. Tickets are on sale and are 30/50 dollars.

The next weekend, Asheville will be hosting its inaugural Oktoberfest on October 10th, sponsored by the Asheville Downtown Association. About time I say, but better late than never. The festival will truly be a local event, featuring many of our local breweries along with german food from three local restaurants. Many of the local brewers will be featuring seasonal beers for the event, and I hope to see them be in the true Oktoberfest style. This should be a fun time. Tickets go on sale August 31st for 25 dollars.

Go ahead and fill up your datebooks, and we'll see you at some of these events.

Odds and Suds

Wow, its already the middle of August. Time has been flying by this summer. Just wanted to post a quick writeup of the area beer happenings.

First up, a new watering hole is on the horizon. Work will soon begin on what will be called Pack's Tavern in the old Hayes and Hopson building located on Spruce Street adjacent to Pack Square. They plan on featuring over 80 taps, which should make it the largest selection in the city. Folks here in Asheville have been following the controversy surronding the development around Pack Square for the past couple of years, and at one point the Hayes and Hopson building was scheduled to be demolished. Thankfully, they have found a reason to keep the historic building, and politics aside, I hope to see the building remain and be put to good use. Tentative plans are for the pub to be open in early 2010.

Speaking of other pubs, lots of work is being done to the Universal Joint, located across from the Bledsoe Building in West Asheville. I'm not sure if it will be a beer destination, but any new place on the west side is good news to me. No word yet on when the opening date will be.

I also happened to walk by the Lexington Avenue Brewery the other day to see how far they are coming along. Needless to say, previous estimates of their grand opening have been premature, but that is par for the course with all the work that is involved in building a new place. I will say the interior is starting to come together, and the beautiful curved bar practically begs you to take a seat. My guess is that they will not be open until sometime in the fall. I'll be sure to pass along any info I get.

Tired of hearing about new bars? Sorry, I have one more to tell you about. The Thirsty Monk is opening a location in Arden for all those folks who hate to drive downtown. The new bar will be located in Gerber village, and will have a nice outdoor patio for the warmer months. The bar will be a mixture of local, national and Belgian ales. Plans are for the Thirsty Monk South to be open by the end of the month.

If you missed out on Brewgrass, tickets are still available for the Asheville Tourist's Baseball and Beer festival coming up on August 22nd. Over thirty breweries will be represented, along with music and food.

Thats it for now. There are lots of exciting things happening over the couple of months, and I hope to keep you informed.