Get a Peek of Asheville’s New Belgium Brewery

Raleigh Flying Saucer GM Josh Hamilton and his wife, Catherine, recently made a very special trip to New Belgium Brewing Company in Asheville, North Carolina. Josh did the right kind thing and wrote up a post about his trip. Cheers to Josh and Catherine on their one year anniversary! Here’s to many more and for your craft beer dedication!

(Photo credit goes to the beautiful and talented Catherine Hamilton.)

For the one year anniversary of our marriage, Catherine and I went on a trip to Asheville, North Carolina. We drove northwest from Raleigh, and we hopped on the Blue Ridge Parkway for a beautiful 110-mile ride through the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. In the peak of fall, the leaves are especially colorful, and it is a breathtaking sight to witness as you enter one of the greatest cities in the country to grab a beer (or four).

Josh and Catherine with the beautiful North Carolina landscape behind them

Asheville is home to a rich and diverse community of artists and small businesses. You can walk the streets while listening to buskers sing their tunes on the corners, vanish into antique shops where you might get lost for hours, or visit the vast number of breweries who create the best beers in the country. A lot of these breweries were born in Asheville, and some of them are calling North Carolina their second home. Oskar Blues, from Lyons, Colorado is set up less than an hour away in Brevard. Sierra Nevada, from Chico, California is rocking in Fletcher. Then, there is New Belgium Brewing Company, a half mile from Downtown Asheville. Cat and I had the opportunity to take a personal tour of the brewery with one of New Belgium’s “VIPER Squad”, Jen Stampley. Jen is a Bad Ass Bike Pedaling Pixie.

In 2012, New Belgium Brewing Company announced plans to settle their second brewery 1500 miles away from their hometown of Fort Collins, CO right beside the French Broad River. The campus includes three buildings – the Liquid Center, the Brewery Production Facility, and a Process Water Treatment Plant. The Liquid Center, Brewery, and Distribution Center are seeking LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification.

This 18.2-acre site fell directly in line with New Belgium’s vision to take a location, rich in history, but has seen better days. This new home was also known as a “Brownfield Site.” This means it’s a former industrial or commercial site where future use is affected by real or perceived environmental contamination. It once was known as the WNC Stockyard, Penland Auction House, Self-Storage Unit, Bell Automotive, a junk yard, and even a circus training ground. After years of being dumped on, New Belgium gave this land a second chance to thrive.

The attention to detail and authenticity New Belgium has taken with the site and brewery is a bit overwhelming. 90% of art you will see was created within a three-mile radius of the brewery. 97% of materials on site were reclaimed, recycled, and repurposed. 14 linear miles of wood line their walls and the building so almost all the wood seen around the brewery came from the site on which it was built (furniture included). New Belgium worked with the City on storm water drainage from which storm water filters through creek bed and back into the French Broad leaving cleaner than it was when it hit the property. This creek bed is also full of plant life indigenous to Asheville. Milkweed had monarch butterflies all over the Penland Creek Bed.

We started where all great tours begin, at the bar. After enjoying a De Koninck Citrus Ale over introductions, we kicked into gear. We ran through the history of the site, crossed the bridge over the creek bed, and entered the production facility.

The bar where Josh’s comedic stylings are obviously killing it.

We hugged the five giant brewing vessels which pump out 500,000 barrels of beer a year, rode down a spiraling slide to the underbelly of the facility, and found ourselves at the front door of the control room. We met up with Brewmaster John Swanson, high fived the brewers, then put on our safety goggles for a winding tour through a city of malts, hops, sampling stations, and of course we “wheezed the juice” off the Fat Tire and Ranger IPA Brite Tanks.

At a fast 480 bottles per minute, the packaging facility was equally as impressive.

To ensure their trucks have the most direct/non-disruptive trip out of town, New Belgium tractor trailers were built shorter so they could travel safely under the train trestles out of town.

One of the best rooms we visited, and solid proof that New Belgium maintains optimal quality of their product is their laboratory for sensory, microbiological (Yeast Propagation) and analytical (pH, gravity, color, foam stability, VDK’s).

The lab is huge!

So here we are, touring this monstrous facility that looks, feels, and breathes the life of Asheville itself. New Belgium has successfully embraced the life, love, and spirit that is Asheville. It fits in perfectly just like the hundreds and thousands of people moving closer each year. Asheville is not a city where you try to do everything in one trip. That’s why it’s so fun to keep coming back. I can honestly say that every time we return, New Belgium will always be a necessary visit to bring the dogs, grab a world class locally brewed beer, catch fantastic live music, and be a part of the wonderful vibrant energy that the 100% employee owned brewery that New Belgium is.

Go ahead and share...

Facebook

Twitter

Reddit

StumbleUpon