Experiencing Asheville's Breweries

barrel-aged beers at Burial Beer

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I went away to Asheville to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. Fortunately, she allowed me to visit some breweries in the afternoons/evenings of our few days there.

While you are welcome to read on about my beer experiences, I will share with you that the two breweries that really stood out to me were Burial Beer and DSSOLVR. Three other breweries that were outstanding were Bhramari Brewing, Wicked Weed, and Hi-Wire.

If you're interested, here is further information about my experiences visiting brewery taprooms in Asheville:

Day One: As we arrived to Asheville, I figured it would be easier to visit some breweries not in walking distance to our hotel first. As such, our first beer stop was New Belgium’s Asheville location. While New Belgium’s primary facility is in Colorado, this is their eastern US facility. It has a nice space with an outdoor area, overlooking a river. I ordered a flight of sour beers:

• Le Terroir Grand Reserve (dry-hopped green Walnut lambic sour) = tasty and intriguingly earthy (like asiago cheese)
• Dominga (mimosa sour) = clean, refreshing, palate cleanser
• La Folie (sour brown ale) = fine
• Adding Corners Three Chambers Rye (sour ale with abruzzi rye and licorice root) = very tasty with chocolatey/coffee notes and some dryness, as well as some earthiness

  

  sour flight at New Belgium
  

We then moved on to Cellarest, where they offer neither tastes nor flights. Nice little tap room with open air patio and also indoors with open garage doors with fresh air filtering in. I enjoyed their Enkindle (ruby saison) with notes of cherrywood and smoked black tea - tasty!

After settling into our hotel, we went out to DSSOLVR, where I ordered two IPAs:

• Eternal Mourning: Citra, which is a funky foeder-aged IPA with simcoe, amarillo, crystal, and citra hops that had Brettanomyces in it - it was pleasantly funky. 
• Ghosted in the Juicy, a double dry-hopped IPA with huell melon, azzacca, citra cryo, mosaic lupomax and phantasm cryo blend hops - this was really, really tasty with a thick mouthfeel - this was really good.
  

Day Two: Having enjoyed my visit to the San Diego location of White Labs seven years ago, I was intrigued to kick off my brewery visits for day two at the Asheville location of White Labs, where I got a flight:

• Tropical IPA with WLP001 California Ale Yeast - Supplied tasting notes: dragon fruit, dank. My favorite of the flight - I like the fruitiness and the dankness.
• Tropical IPA with WLP077 Tropicale Yeast Blend - Supplied tasting notes: passion fruit, peach, vanilla - Easy-drinking. 
• Triple Hop Hazy IPA with WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast - Supplied tasting notes: pineapple, mango, orange blossom - Definitely dry with hop resin.
• Triple Hop Hazy IPA with WLP090 San Diego Super Ale Yeast - Supplied tasting notes: dried apricot, strawberry, mint - Eh okay.

Hoppy IPA Day flight at Wicked Weed

I knew I needed to visit Wicked Weed, since people rave about them (yes, I know they’re an ABI brewery, but had to visit); I got the Hoppy IPA Day flight, where they don’t allow you to make your own flights; only set flights:

• Pernicious IPA: Tropical mango hop aroma, dry finish
• Coastal Love hazy IPA: Pineapple citrus and tropical fruit notes, semi-dry finish. Relaxing and dank
• Perni-Haze hazy IPA: Citra and Simcoe. Citra-y pleasingly lately dank - my favorite of the IPAs in this flight
• Freak of Nature DIPA: Big pine grapefruit peel and dank hop aromas. Clearly, my favorite overall of this flight

Following the flight, I also ordered a half-pint of Valkyrie DIPA - fermented with kveik yeast and dry hopped with Citra, El Dorado, and Idaho 7 - citrussy, hazy, sharp (my wife says that it tastes like cleaning supplies).

We then moved on to Burial Beer Brewery; they do not do flights, but I got a couple of half-pints:

• A Collection of Idiocy From A Top Notch Moron (DIPA double dry-hopped with Strata, Motueka, Simcoe, and El Dorado, finished with lots of Cryo) - Juicy and dank🍺😃
• Not A Thing Left To Say (TIPA triple saturated with Citra incognito, Cryo and pellets. Double dry-hopped with Citra, Cashmere and Riwaka) - Really delicious and juicy; nectarines and Dank 🍺😃

We moved on to Wicked Weed's Funkatorium Brewery, where I ordered their limited release flight:

• Marina - Peaches and apricots: Nicely tart
• Mirtelo Morte - Barrel aged golden sour with blueberries
• La Mure Morte - Barrel aged sour fermented with blackberries: Solid
• Cerise Morte - Barrel aged American sour fermented with cherries: Refreshingly cherry-licious

Orville and Wilbur's Awesome Adventure Flight at Bhramari Brewing

Day Three: We kicked-off day three at Bhramari Brewing Company, where the only flights one can order are one of three - a sour flight, an IPA flight and a miscellaneous flight. I went with the miscellaneous flight, entitled Orville and Wilbur's Awesome Adventure:

• Haunted Graffiti - DDH Multi-Grain Farmhouse - Grains: Barley, Rye, Oats, Spelt, Millet, Wheat, Corn, Sunflower, Sorghum, and Buckwheat; Hops: cryo Citra, cryo mosaic, cryo eukanot: Very bright up front with citrusy juiciness early on in the palate and then goes dry towards the finish
• Cubism Dream  - BBA German pilsner: This is a really fun beer as the barrel provided some fun to this beverage, maybe some vanilla maybe some butterscotch. Definitely my first-ever bourbon barrel-aged pilsner!
• Phantom Syren - Leichtbier: It's basically a light lager - okay
• Perfectly Imperfect - Rauchbier urbock: A very clean and easy-drinking rauchbier 

This was certainly an interesting array of flavors!

We then stopped at Twin Leaf Brewery, where I had a half-pour of Fleurs de Soleil, a farmhouse ale with black tea and honey - it was decent. We then went to Eurisko Beer, where they also don't serve flights, so I got two half-pours: 

• Under the Sycamore Trees, which is a saison with lemongrass and cucumber. It is a collaboration with Petty Thieves Brewing Company. Nice and clean.
• He left Us, a hazy IPA with Galaxy, Sabro, and Chinook hops, which is pleasant and enjoyable - solid for the style.

We then returned to Burial Brewing, where I ordered a couple of barrel-aged beers:

• The Garden of Earthly Delights (5% ABV) - Barrel-aged golden sour aged on rhubarb, ginger, orange zest, rose hip, dark fig, and chamomile: This was quite herbal! Pretty clean
• Please Rescue Me From My Own Ignorant Barrage of Non-sequitur - Imperial Stout with decaffeinated coffee, macadamia nuts, vanilla, cinnamon, and maple syrup (14% ABV): incredibly tasty and strikingly smooth! I love the smooth coffee flavors! This was my favorite beer of the trip!

We walked over to

Surprisingly good flight at Hi-Wire Brewing

Thirsty Monk Brewery, where I ordered a tripel, which was okay, but an incredibly forgettable tripel…. 

Then we went over to one of the locations of Hi-Wire, where I ordered a flight:

• Super Haze - hazy IPA: Pleasant, light hazy IPA - appropriate for warmer weather
• Simple Brett: Simple, bretty, and light - easy-drinking for the summer. I actually think this is an incredibly appropriate use of brett
• 9th Anniversary Bulleit BBA amber lager: Intriguing: I have never had an amber lager aged in bourbon barrels before - it has a lot of sweetness
• Puncheon-aged Brett: Intensely tart for a brett beer 

Admittedly, I had low expectations for Hi-Wire, but it was really quite good!

Delicious beers at DSSOLVR

We then returned to DSSOLVR for the 7th and final brewery of the day. Even though I had visited two nights prior, I knew that I wanted to return because the beers were so incredibly delicious. This time I ordered heavier beers:

• Psycho Sigmund's Viennawine (11.5% ABV) - a Vienna malt-based barleywine style ale: Very sweet - almost like a bubble gum quality of the sweetness. Of course, there's also incredible dark fruits such as dates or raisins. While I would prefer this to be aged in bourbon barrels, as it has some youthfulness to it, it is still tasty.
• Absolutely Aliens 30-month barrel aged Mexican imperial Stout (12% ABV) aged 30 months in Bourbon barrels with poblano pepper, cinnamon, vanilla, and cocoa nibs: Very delicious chocolate and vanilla notes. Cannot really taste the peppers. Wonderful smoothness to the mouthfeel.

It was a tasty trip that was accompanied by warm weather that had some rain mixed in, but not too hot of a weather. It turned out to be a lovely time to go, especially as the town was not particularly crowded. Furthermore, one thing that is nice about Asheville is that it is fairly walkable. When we needed, we could get our car and drive outside of the downtown, but there is a lot that one can do