Now, finally, we get to the meat of the weekend, so to speak: Saturday on South Slope. This was my 2nd trip to the South Slope, the eclectic roughly 10-block area that sits just down the hill from the city center, and I made it a point to largely stay away from places I had visited on my last trip. I lead off with Hi-Wire Brewing. Having recently celebrated their 5th anniversary, I really enjoyed the vibe of their downtown tap room (they also have a larger, more open location near the Historic Biltmore Village south of the city)--it is a superindustrial location, looking like their old loading dock with a bar in the back and a handful of tables sprinkled across the workfloor. But manages to have a chill and unpretentious vibe, and goes old-school with an original Super Nintendo and what I'm pretty sure was a pinball machine from Elton John's performance of "Pinball Wizard" in the movie version of the The Who's Tommy.

The vegan, gluten-free water to help the beer go down easier.

From left to right/1-4: their Imperial Stout (this time infused with Horchata), their version of the New England/Hazy IPA, one of their flagship IPAs, and their seasonal Hefeweisen.

I had the flight shown above, and enjoyed everything. The Horchata 10W-40 was just a hair sweet for me. In this group, the Uprisin' Hefeweisen stood out. Amongst their core beers, I had a Bed of Nails Brown Ale with dinner another night, and found it to be fantastic. The Gose is also very good, if you're into that sort of thing.

Next was a quick trip to Asheville Brewing Company. Again, I'd visited here before, so this served as a quick lunch stop. Though, for something completely different, I tried Roland's ESB, which hit the nail right on the head: malty, slightly sweet, and smooth.

I even nailed the logo placement!

The third stop of the afternoon was Catawba Brewing Company.

Boasting a sleek and spacious tasting room with a funky outdoor seating area (including room for a food truck or two), I tried a few different fruit-infused versions of Friki Tiki, their try at the New England/Juicy IPA style, before settling on the Lemon-Lime variant, which I really enjoyed.

Before we go on, I did not stop at either Wicked Weed location, feeling no strong desire to support A-B InBev’s well-documented assimilation of the brand. En route to Catawba, however, I did pass by the Funkatorium taproom. It seems they are using their Evil Empire money well, as what was once a fairly small, cramped outdoor space has added a huge second tier with a stone floor and full-service beer-bar-via-container. Obviously, they’re getting the traffic to justify such an expansion, so they must continue to do well.

My final stop was Burial Beer Company, a brewery and taproom that reaches far beyond eclectic. One of the exterior walls features a mural of Tom Selleck and Sloth from “The Goonies”. The outdoor space is humorously decorated, with rusted out car seats and other oddities replacing your standard-issue benches. Winding through their outdoor area leads to a fairly standard bar, but continue through the building, and it starts to resemble some lesser demon’s inner sanctum, complete with the brewery’s SECOND Tom Selleck adornment, a velvet portrait. I promise, I wrote that last sentence correctly. I recommend their West Coast-style IPA, Surf Wax. I also really enjoyed a dark sour called Anno Domini MMXVIII. Ceremonial, their Session IPA, is okay, but I think there are multiple better IPA choices out of Burial.

Coming up next time: a few places from Sunday, plus a visit to Willy Wonka’s brewery.