Craft Beer Collective

5 Questions: Asheville Brews Cruise

The Brews Cruise in Asheville was a big part of my Weekend getaway last year. And that’s why Brews Cruise Founder Mark Lyons was on my short list for the 5 Questions series. If you’re ever in Asheville Mark will help you get the most out of a lot of breweries in a short amount of time!

1 Tell us the history of Asheville Brews Cruise:
My wife and I were passionate about beer and we were interested in working in the industry. When NC began the “Pop the Cap” campaign which allowed brewers to brew beers higher than 6% ABV, we knew the industry was really going to expand, so we thought of an idea on how to showcase the rich beer scene in Asheville, NC. We started our mobile brewery tour company in 2006. We had amazing support from our local community, and the tourists loved it too. After the first year were hiring staff an expanding tour options. We teamed with the local chamber and marketed locally and via internet and were lucky to have received great local and national press. Turns out, people LOVE great beer and ABC has many ‘repeat offenders’ on the tour. We credit ABC success to our amazing staff, all the beer enthusiasts who participate, the breweries who host our groups, and of course, the fantastic beer! In late 2010 we made the big decision to move to Oregon to work on the bigger Brews Cruise expansion picture. We licensed the Asheville Brews Cruise market to our very first guide, Joe Sallazzo, who is now owner/operator in Asheville and is doing a great job. Joe’s ideas are in line with our original vision and he keeps the tours fun and memorable.

2 I had a great time on my Brews Cruise last year.
Tell us about the different tour packages that are available! So good to hear that you enjoyed the tour. Tour packages include several van tour options, and we also offer walking tours. Van tours include transportation to three breweries, beer samples and an exclusive tour at each brewery, and the last stop provides the opportunity to dine. Walking tours include guided walks to four breweries while strolling through beautiful downtown Asheville. The breweries provide beer samples and exclusive tours of their facilities. The last stop also provides the opportunity to dine or you can visit one of the other numerous restaurants downtown. We also do special events and can customize tours, so check out the website for the latest information and availability at: www.brewscruise.com

3 What other territories / cities have you expanded to?
We have another licensee (and good friend) who operates in the Denver, CO market and we recently moved to Bend, OR and plan to begin operating tours here. We are in discussions with several other markets including San Francisco, CA and Charleston, SC. With so many great craft breweries popping up around the country, we have the opportunity to grow our brand into multiple markets. We have a
contact page on our corporate website for people who are interested in starting a Brews Cruise in their area. And if you make it out to Oregon, contact us an we’ll be happy to show you a great beer time!

4 What do you like best about the beer scene in Asheville?
We love that the brewers are innovative and creative. In a town that consists of nine breweries, the competition is stiff, so each brewery is challenged to bring their ‘A game’ for each batch. It is a healthy competition and really, everyone wins in this scenario. High demand for interesting beer + pressure to brew great stuff = very happy consumers!

5 What is in your beer fridge right now?
We have a growler of Armored Fist from Boneyard Brewing which is an Imperial Cascadian Dark Ale. This beer is a collaborative effort between Boneyard and Three Flyods – absolutely delicious! We also have some Bridgport Hop Czar, a 22 of French Broad’s Anvil Porter, some Lonerider Sweet Josie Brown Ale, a Natty Greene’s Southern Pale Ale and some Laurelwood Workhorse IPA. The IPA’s out here are BIG so we are in
hop-heaven!

5 Questions for Charlotte Craft Beer Week

This week our 5Qs went out to Darrin Pikarsky. Darrin runs the Charlotte Beer Club and with that club they nurtured a fan base for craft beer culture in the Queen City. In it’s second year the Charlotte Craft Beer Week is set to start this Friday.

1 What sorts of new beer events have been scheduled for this year that you
did not have last year?
Our events strive to be unique. I advise the hosts to be creative. We collaborative beer dinners and another great event at Mellow Mushroom. It features Highland beers to be sampled with appetizers and a soda tasting for the kids all in a great family friendly location!

2 What Beer Week event are most looking forward to?
Probably 3 come to mind. The opening reception at Visulite, Duckworths Beer Festival and FreakFest at The Common Market. Lots of fun at each and great, rate beers!

3 What was your most memorable event from last years beer week?
Freak Fest I. I had a blast and the looks on peoples facing was priceless!

4 What do you like best about the beer scene in North Carolina?
I like that we are very young in the national beer scene and we can learn from other markets. It seems like every week there are dozens of new beers to indulge in. Lucky us!!

5 What is in your beer fridge right now?
Lost Abbey 10 Commandments. Russian River Blind Pig. New Holland Dragons Milk. And a new Charlotte Brewery’s bourbon vanilla porter (top secret stuff here…shhhh!)

Thanks to Darrin for taking time out to answer our questions. Please check out the complete schedule of events at http://www.charlottecraftbeerweek.org/events.html

5 Questions with Brewmaster’s Bar

As of this week Raleigh’s Cherry Bomb Bar and Grill is no more. Brewmaster’s Bar and Grill will be taking it’s place with a theme where craft beer and North Carolina beer is the focus. Grand opening celebration this Friday March 4th featuring local breweries, samplings, and a cask. Les Stewart is running the Beer Program at Brewmaster’s and has agreed to answer these questions about the new direction of this beer bar.

1 How will Brewmaster’s be different from Cherry Bomb?
Along with a new menu, outdoor seating and a fresh, if subtle, look. The morphing of Cherry Bomb to Brewmaster’s mostly focuses on ushering in a renewed focus on the beer. There are many wonderful things about Cherry Bomb that we are expecting to continue practically untouched into Brewmasters. Not the least of which would be “the Hangover”, man is that a good burger! On the other hand in some ways the concept couldn’t be more different than Cherry Bomb. For example Cherry Bomb’s menu was designed to celebrate favorite dishes from different major cities across the nation. The images that hung on the wall touted America’s love affair with the automobile and the open road, a path to somewhere else. Brewmasters will celebrate the wonderful gems in our own backyards. We are so excited about beer that is made here, in our community, that we focusing on expanding our already lush selection of local beers. Further, our chef Scott Schabot, is looking forward to incorporating even more local ingredients into the new menu. Ultimately, this is about being a good steward of the community. Oh, and we’re also rolling out more veggie options, which my wife is very excited about.

2 How will the beer program be expanded upon? – you already have 66 taps!!?
Excellent question. 66 taps is a wonderful system to have. Our through the wall tap system is state-of-the-art, but as you know, a great system isn’t what makes a great beer program. Crafting a beer selection with 66 taps available is like painting a picture with 66 colors of paints… and you have to use ALL of them. It needs to be balanced; with that many taps you are expected to have something for everyone and we aim to. Perhaps a greater challenge with such a large number of taps is making the selection digestible to your patrons. We will be rolling out a new menu that separates our beer by style and highlight special beers we might have on. Also, our new menu will be designed to help you pair meal with one of our beers. Taphandles of beer that have won recent medals or deserve special attention will enjoy an indicator placed on the wall directly above them letting the patron appreciate the accolades of the brewer that produced the beer they are drinking. Additional attention will be paid to provide year-round support to breweries that produce particularly wonderful seasonals, so that we can earn the right to share limited production beers from these breweries in the future. Of course we are also looking forward to doing beer dinners and cask events. But my favorite thing… Flights! We will be serving 4 and 8 glass flights on paddles. As responsible drinkers, we of course won’t be throwing any kegs of good beer out, so on the day of the opening you will see much of the same great line up that Cherry Bomb touted, but you should expect the whole selection to, over time, become even more robust and exciting.

3 Why make the change now?
That’s a fair question. Cherry Bomb is a great place to go for a beer and a great meal now, so why change it? There were a lot of forces at work that ultimately pushed us to decide to morph Cherry Bomb into Brewmasters, but the greatest of those is simply that Cherry Bomb wasn’t exactly what the owner Mark Cook envisioned. Mark, you see, is passionate about beer and the people that make beer around here. Since 2003 Mark has owned and operated American Brewmaster, a homebrew supply shop not far from downtown Raleigh. Having watched many of his store’s customers and friends go on to brew at the commercial level and produce wonderful local craft beer he was ready to support them further by helping our local breweries get their beers into the hands of fellow Raleighites. Brewmasters, more than Cherry Bomb could, is ready to help him do just that along with actively celebrating the art of brewing from top to bottom.

4 Please describe the grand opening event on March 4th:
We will be having our Grand opening on Friday March 4th. Starting at 5pm the full new menu will be launched, local brewers will be here giving out samples. Pulse radio will have a live broadcast from 7-9pm giving away a bunch of stuff. Erik Smallwood will be rocking the stage. We will have a cask from Huske Hardware of Fayettville! It should be a blast. We’ll also have some fun beers on tap that you won’t see anywhere else in town. If you can’t make it on Friday come out on Saturday to catch the local brewing guru John Federal’s band JDC Funk Project rock out along with beer specials we’ll be running through the whole weekend.

5 What is in your personal beer fridge right now?
Hmm, let’s see, a 750 of Duval Triple Hop, Stone’s Sublimely Self-Righteous, some Dales Pale Ale, some of Great Divide’s Claymore Scotch Ale and a 22 of their Fresh Hop Pale Ale, a few assorted Big Boss bottles, a bunch of homebrew, and a Ninkasi Tricerahops Double IPA. I recently finished building a cellar under the house too, and it has some really fun stuff in it. mmm, I’m getting thirsty just thinking about it.

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5 Questions with Mike Dixon

This weekend North Carolina is sending one of our own to the Wynkoop Beer Drinker of the Year finals. Mike Dixon of Wake Forest will make a trip to Denver Colorado to match his knowledge against two others, all of whom have been selected because of their impressive beer resumes.

Mike was kind enough to answer 5 questions for the Craft Beer Collective:

1 What qualifies you to be Beer drinker of the year?
Nothing other than a love for beer and a continuing quest to find something new or interesting. It’s probably what most craft beer fans do on a routine basis, they just don’t make it a religion

2 What is the final “Beer Drinker of the Year” competition going to be like?
I have no idea whatsoever. I hear we have to sing and while I can carry a tune in a bucket I don’t have a repertoire of beer tunes running around my brain. There is a weigh in before and after and an intro section and everything is timed. I suspect at some point I’ll just have to take a break and have a beer or my head may explode.

3 As a long time beer drinker what do you like best about the North Carolina
beer scene?
Oh my, people just don’t know what they are missing when they overlook the craft beer scene in NC. You have everything at NC Breweries from the most rudimentary equipment a homebrewer would use to a glam system visible from the Interstate and everything in between. Every brewery is working toward the goal of providing craft beer for the consumer and the consumers are THIRSTY! It’s amazing how we can have new breweries open and the market never seems to become saturated. We’ve long made a great number of styles in NC and now the sky seems to be the limit. Love it!

4 What have you been brewing at home lately?
Oh crap, you had to ask didn’t you. I travel for work and rarely get to see the house during the week. Because of that I was not able to brew last year at all. The previous year I made a few batches, mostly things you cannot readily pull off the shelf. Odd styles like Gotlandsdrinke, and rarely seen styles like Milds. I love to make a small beer out of something larger like a baby saison or a highly quaffable Belgian pale ale.

5 What is in your Beer fridge right now?
Tons of stuff, most of it aging. I’ve got a 10 year vertical of Stone Russian Imperial with my eye on it. Lots of old barleywines and other strong beers and many many bottles of the six DeProef Flemish Primitive series. Not too many brews you would quaff, but several you would sip and savor.

We want to wish mike the best of luck in Denver this weekend!!

Photo courtesy of Mike Dixon