Nice. Been wanting to beercation there for a while. Need to make it happen.
Love going there - were you able to hit mills river Sierra? Green man? Just love Asheville!
Edit - oops your first pic didn’t load at first - saw after I posted!
Did you hit the Wicked Weed? IMO best in Asheville!
Hit up Noble Cider! They’re doing some amazing things with apple juice.
We went to both Wicked Weed’s, Burial, Hi-Wire, Wedge, Green Man, Thirsty Monk, and the enormous Sierra Nevada brewery and tap room. The Wicked Weed Funkatorium had some amazing sours. There is more to try for next time, but we did a pretty good job for a weekend.
The bottle shop just in front of Hi-Wire is also pretty dang good. I spent almost as much time there as I did in the brewery.
My wife and I went for our honeymoon. I didn’t know Asheville was such a beer town… Needless to say we had a great time checking out all the breweries!
Just will say the Sierra Nevada Chico brewery is much bigger. The one in Asheville is the most beautiful of all I have seen, and I have seen a lot. The second most beautiful is Chico. 
I was about to say the same thing. Mills River is literally the most beautiful brewery I have ever seen. Simply stunning.
The Mills River brewery can make ~350k bbl/year. Chico is in the 900k bbl/year range capacity, and they were around 1 Million/year when Mills River was under construction, the guide said it was a strain on the brewery.
Late to the party. If anyone needs Asheville recommendations I’m your huckleberry.
It wasn’t about three years ago… a lot of that explosion is very recent (of course, right after I move away).
I started noticing a lot of new stuff popping up, naturally, right after I moved from NC to Portland, OR. I’m in beervana so I ain’t complaining, but some it is like “Damn… really?”
Needless to say, next trip to NC is gonna involve a day or two in Asheville. After visiting the New Belgium in Colorado a month ago, I’m really excited to visit the new on in NC. And SN, and Oskar Blues, and Wicked Weed and…
Mike is your guy for food and drink in Asheville. I can vouch for his recommendations.
I’m going in a few weeks to visit my brother. I want to check out Wicked Weed and Sierra Nevada for sure.
Of course it was, it has been for several years. It didn’t take the Beer City USA title in 2009 (a tie), 2010, and 2011 without having a great beer culture. It has exploded recently, but has always been great.
I’m not going to argue with the awards, but considering not a single one of the places we’ve mentioned in this thread was even open when I moved away in 2013, that pretty recent.
Burial opened in 2013. Wicked Weed opened in 2011-2012 but didn’t really blow up until later when they built the Funkatoriam. New Belgium opened in 2015. Oskar Blues opened in 2016. Sierra Nevada opened in 2014.
I’m sure they are small local places that I’ve never heard of but these are the things that have hit my radar AFTER I moved away. The only Asheville brewery that I knew of when I moved away was Highland which has been open forever. I wasn’t as big into beer then as I am now, so of course now a new place opens and I see it right away. I knew about the NBB and Oskar Blues that were announced and under construction before I left, but they weren’t open yet.
So of course, that’s my perception of “man this crap all happened after I left”.
I recently traveled back to Greensboro, where there used to be 1 brewery (Natty Greene’s) and now there are like 10, just in the last 4 years.
Sounds like you just didn’t soak it up since you lived there. It has had a great beer scene for nearly 20 years. Sure there are newer breweries which get some hype or make the beeriodical headlines, but even without Wicked Weed, New Belgium, Sierra Nevada, and Oskar Blues the scene was fantastic. As far as Burial, I have found them hit or miss thus far.
The first time at Burial I liked the beers. The second time we got a Pale Ale and a Session IPA, both were onion bombs. One and done that time.