After lunch at 12 Bones on Friday, I proceeded into town. My first stop was NOT my hotel, but a brewery, of course!

Recently, several of the major craft players in the western United States have seen the craft beer boom push their capacities to or beyond their limits. Expansion plans were enacted, and for some of these breweries, it made sense to build new facilities in different parts of the country (thus, saving on shipping costs) instead of expanding old facilities. As a result, the eastern United States has become home to East Coast operations for New Belgium Brewing Company and Sierra Nevada Brewing Company in the Asheville area, along with Stone Brewing's facility in Richmond, Virginia. I set up the Asheville big boys as the bookends of my long weekend, starting with the 1 1/2 hour tour of New Belgium Brewing Company.

The bicycle entrance arch leading to the New Belgium production facility and offices.

Located in West Asheville on group of plots that once housed an auto parts facility and a cattle-holding facility, among other businesses, New Belgium worked very hard to clean up this EPA-designated brown site and worked to reuse or recycle a significant portion of the materials, whether reused in the building designs (like some 14 linear miles of lumber that was reused) or in decor throughout the site's facilities. The arch in the picture above leads to the business side of the campus, including the full production facility and business offices. The primary public area is called the Liquid Center (pic below), and features the usual merchandise area and bar/tasting room with plenty of indoor AND outdoor seating, including a beautiful deck overlooking the French Broad River and the greenway, which includes brewery land along the river that was donated back to the city of Asheville by New Belgium. Like so many breweries, a food truck or two can be found out front during most business hours.

Main arrival/entrance area to New Belgium's Liquid Center, with the requisite taco truck out front.

The New Belgium tour runs 1 1/2 hours. I can't for certain remember my tour guide's actual name (I want to say...Mike?), but he definitely goes by Party Grandpa. So, keep an eye out for him in the Liquid Center or on a tour if you make it there. The production facility is immaculate. The tour features 3 different tasting spots and tends to utilize those spots to tell the story of the founders, Jeff Lebesch and Kim Jordan, rather than spend tons of time recapping how the beer gets made. Which, to Party Grandpa's point, tends to be a fairly universal process. It's all just a matter of scale. At one tasting point, I finally got a chance to try out The Hemporer, an HPA (Hemp Pale Ale?) which has generated a ton of buzz since it's debut recently. It wasn't bad, but the hemp notes tend to not necessarily be my favorite when they pop up in pales, and this one has those notes turned up to 11. The 4 ounce pour I had was more than sufficient. They also offered us a pour of their flagship beer Fat Tire and a choice of a Belgian Dubbel or their long-time sour offering, La Folie.

Next time: Friday night at Highland and Saturday afternoon on South Slope!