My husband and I just had a first since having our kids. We had our very first weekend away just the two of us (well not exactly just the two of us since we met up with some church friends). We got to spend the weekend in Asheville, NC touring the amazing breweries downtown. Did you know that Asheville has more breweries per capita than any US city? With all of these breweries we had our work cut out for us this weekend! I’ll give you all a few highlights of our tour.
First stop was The Wedge. The Wedge is an awesome brewery located in an old industrial section in downtown Asheville. It sits right next to some railroad tracks. With great outdoor seating you can sit outside and watch the trains go by while sipping on a beer and munching on some peanuts. You can even grab some food from one of the local food trucks parked outside. I had an Iron Rail IPA and Derailed Hemp Ale. Both were fantastic beers, but the Hemp Ale was my favorite.
Our next stop was dinner at Pack’s Tavern. Their food is amazing. I had an order of fish tacos that were to die for. The first beer I had was a Catawba Valley Brown Bear Ale. At this point we decided to start taking it easy on ourselves and switch to ordering flights of beer to share among the group. With this flight we had a Pisgah Pale Ale, French Broad Wee-Heavier, Asheville Shiva IPA and a Ninja Porter. I honestly can’t remember which of these were my favorites.
Next we went to One World Brewing. This is a fairly new brewery located in a basement downtown. Loved the vibe of this brewery. Small and great music. We split another flight here. With this flight we had “Paradise” Coconut Porter, “Whale of a Tale” extra pale ale, New Moon American Stout and I honestly couldn’t tell you the other three. As you can tell my note taking is getting a little fuzzy at this point.
Next up was Thirsty Monk. I took a break from drinking at this bar.
My husband and I decided to add one more stop to the evening and hopped across the street to Jack of the Wood. This is a very cool Celtic pub with live music in the evenings. We ended up meeting some really cool Asheville hippies. We spent the rest of the evening chatting with them. One of the things I love about Asheville is how friendly the people are. We met new friends all along the way this weekend.
The next day my husband and I spent the evening walking around downtown Asheville. We looked around all of the cool shops. Indo was one of my favorites. We had an amazing lunch at Suwana’s Thai Orchid. Seriously the best stir fry and eggroll I’ve had in a long time. After a day of walking around and recovering from the previous night we met up with our friends at Green Man Brewery. This is a very popular spot for a good reason. They have fantastic beer. Best IPA I’ve had. We had a flight of IPA, ESB, Rainmaker and their summer brew. All very good beers. The IPA was my favorite.
The next spot was my favorite spot of the weekend. We visited a hole in the wall brewery, called Burial Beer Co. Unless you were looking really hard for it you would miss it. The sign on the building is hidden behind a tree. The only way you really know a brewery is there is by the kegs in the front turned into planters. This place had such a cool vibe to it and awesome beer. Everyone was so friendly and for it to be so small had a lot going on. A poet sat at a table next to the bar typing (on a typewriter!) poetry by request for customers, there were games of corn hole among a variety of outdoor drinking games. Really fun place to visit. I highly recommend finding this place.
We had dinner at White Duck Taco. The tacos here were AH-Mazing! We finished the evening back at Jack of the Wood and called it a night.
If you are looking to stay in downtown Asheville for the weekend the best place to stay for your money is Downtown Inn. It’s located walking distance to everything downtown. And it’s the cheapest place you can find downtown. While it isn’t a 4 star hotel (it’s more of a motel). It’s still a very comfortable stay. The hotel and rooms while dated were very clean. The bed was very comfortable and there was even a pool and continental breakfast.
