Asheville Brews Cruise Adventure

Asheville Brews Cruise

First a note of caution: if you have never done a Brews Cruise it is nothing like visiting multiple wineries in a given day. We consumed way more alcohol doing this than we ever have doing wineries. The Brews Cruise coordinator comes around with pitchers of beer and will refill your cup so it isn’t like a normal walk-in tasting where there are reasonable limits to what is given to you. My tasting notes go from highly detailed information about the character of the beer to indecipherable nonsense.

The premise is that someone else does all the driving and gives you the inside scoop as to what is going on in brewpubs. The size of the group was about 12 people and we just barely fit into the van. Due to the amount of alcohol consumed we went from being strangers to being best friends to completely forgetting each other’s names in a period of about 4 hours.

Highlands Brewing Company

First stop on our cruise was Highland Brewing Company. The coordinator of our Brew Cruise was quite surprised to find a major event taking place when we arrived. I was thrilled to see it was a class on fermentation hosted by NCSU. On the large screen I could see chemical reactions of carbohydrates and considered ditching the cruise to see the lecture but since it was the first stop I figured I better stick with the group. We had a really great tour of the place with extensive details on the process and a chance to talk to some of the guys working on fixing the bottling line. We tried:

• St. Terese’s Pale Ale – light and citrusy, very crisp and mildly bitter
• Gaelic Ale – everyone surely has had this beer
• Kashmir IPA – very light for IPA, British style with light hops
• Oatmeal Porter – light porter, good burnt caramel flavors
• Black Mocha Stout – great coffee flavor, not too much chocolate, nicely bitter

In addition to the above list tasted during the tour we also got one beer at the bar as part of the tour package. I am fairly sure Brad and I tried different things but I neglected to make a note of it.



Highlands Brewing Company

French Broad Brewery was the next stop. Much smaller place compared to Highlands but we had a chance to actually talk with one of brewmasters, Drew Barton. We tasted:

• Gateway Kolsh – very light, not bad at all for a kolsh
• 13 Rebels ESB – floral, light and grassy
• IPA - American Style, very bitter, hoppy, grassy
• Weeheavy-er Scotch Style Ale – very smooth, sweet caramel flavors but 7%

Asheville Brewing Company (downtown location) was actually the meet up location for the cruise and then the final tasting stop. The downtown spot is a pizza/sandwich spot which serves their beers as well as others.  We tasted:

• Shiva IPA – light and citrusy, very good
• Ninja Porter – very light, very good

And after that I am afraid things digressed. There was a pale ale but I do not know which one. I noted it was “not bad”. And then there was a jalapeno beer which we vividly recall as being absolutely horrible (was not Asheville Brewery beer). 

The Brews Cruise was a lot of fun and was a great way to visit multiple breweries without the risk of drinking and driving. Just pace yourself and avoid accepting multiple pours of beer even if it does taste really good!