So Many Choices!

Asheville, North Carolina is known as “Beer City” for a reason. Apparently there are more craft beer breweries per capita than any other city in the country. That’s a lot of beer! Where does one start?

We started with a recommendation from a millennial age friend and made Wicked Weed Funkatorium our first stop.

Wicked Weed specializes in barrel aged sours; not being too familiar with sours, we started with a sampler. That’s a lot of pucker power!

What we learned; we do not especially like sour beer.  We settled for a nice Dark Aged Imperial Stout; smooth with a hint of anise.

Day 2 we took the recommendation of our East Tennessee beer guru and checked out Burial.

More favorable to our palates, the Hymn of the Serpent was smooth and very good as was Coco Bolo Coconut Brown Ale. However, Fabrication of the Non-believer knocked our socks off! Nice, full bodied stout made with macadamia nuts, macaroon coconut and vanilla beans.

Day 3 found us at Wedge in the River Arts District

where we enjoyed a Bourbon Barrel Aged Cream Ale and a Derailed Hemp Brown Ale (and awesome double cream brie, honey, walnut and sliced apple grilled cheese sandwich.) What made this brewery special is the location right smack in the middle of an art venue.

We were told the brewery is “next to an art gallery.” That was an understatement; there were hundreds of working art studios housed in reclaimed warehouses and mills. The exterior of the buildings looks a bit funky but they enclosed some very fine art.

Day 4 we stopped in The Green Man Brewery. It was nice with a roof top patio that overlooked the city, but really didn’t offer much in the way of character.

Captain enjoyed a smooth, full bodied porter, rich in flavor and ABN gave a thumbs-up to Dweller, a coffee infused imperial stout with a taste of bourbon.

It was our last day in Asheville so we debated, do we try one more brewery? Nah, we decided to have one more glass of Fabrication at Burial. To our disappointment they were out! It had been replaced by another stout, None of This Matters.  Flavored with cinnamon, vanilla and chocolate, it was not as good as Fabrication but close. Without a doubt of the four breweries we tried, Burial is our favorite.

While we were out exploring  sampling beer, The Wanderer was parked at Lake Powhatan Corps of Engineers campground.

The very well maintained recreational area is popular among mountain bikers and trail runners. We did a couple of 4-5 mile hikes (which our Colorado friends would call “a walk in the park.”)

Bent Creek Service Road

Carolina Mountain Trail

Fortuitously, each trail we chose led us to the North Carolina Arboretum. One to the pollinator garden and greenhouse;

Originally a pollinator garden,

turned garden for children (of all ages.)

and the other to the information center and gardens. 

As ABN's idea list grows, so does Captain's "to do'" list.

We love it when we stumble across unplanned places of interest! 

Once again we were four days off the grid but we were able to use the generator which we needed only one evening for the air conditioner. The weather was great with only a few rain showers. Like last weekend in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, children could be heard throughout the campground; a sound from which we never tire.

Breweries, art, horticulture, hiking, discovery, mountains; what’s not to like about Asheville? Looking forward to returning to see what other jewels this area holds. 

Tonight we are doing a Harvest Host stay at Grove Winery near Burlington, N.C. We were pleasantly surprised with the quality of red wines; for our palates, probably the best we have found east of the Mississippi. After 6:00 p.m. we had the entire place to ourselves. We are self-contained (that means we are depending on solar for electricity and our “holding tanks” for water, etc.) but we do have internet and cell service!

Tomorrow we will cross over the state line into Virginia; uncharted territory for The Wanderer.   

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