January 2011

Sexual Chocolate? Yes, please.

by brewgasm

So tomorrow night, Tuesday, Feb. 1, will be the WNC Sexual Chocolate Release Party at Barley’s Taproom starting at 6 p.m. I was telling some colleagues this today at the Mountain Xpress office and one asked, “What’s Sexual Chocolate?” Another guy answered: “The best beer you’ve ever had.” While I’m not sure I’m ready to [...]

read on…

Winter Warmer Beer Festival–soon

by brewgasm

Forgot to mention that I’ll be working at Asheville’s Winter Warmer Beer Festival today. If you don’t have tickets already, you’re probably out of luck. Though typically there are a few souls selling their tickets outside the venue the day of–which is TODAY! Yep, Sat., Jan. 22 from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the Asheville [...]

read on…

Charlie Papazian coming to Asheville and more

by brewgasm

Yes, the homebrew guru, Charlie Papazian, is coming to visit Asheville in February. Here are details we published in Mountain Xpress this week: Even non-beer-geeks around here recognize the name Charlie Papazian — because he’s the guy who runs the Beer City, USA online poll, which Asheville tied with Portland, Ore., in 2009, and won [...]

read on…

Start early, train hard

by brewgasm

Asheville’s oldest and most famous beer festival, Brewgrass, isn’t on tap until the third Saturday in September. Even so, you can start training now. Training, you ask? Yes, indeed. Because in order to taste around 200 beers in seven hours, you need to be in the best beer drinking shape possible. In order to help [...]

read on…

Asheville Beer in 2011 and beer calendar

by brewgasm

I love January in Asheville–there aren’t many tourists around (not that I don’t appreciate the tourists) and there are beautiful crisp sunsets every night that it’s not cloudy. Now I have another reason to love January in Asheville–it’s a rocking local beer month. Actually, both Jan and Feb are chock-a-block with beery events. Check it [...]

read on…

2010 Beer Highlights (for WNC)

by brewgasm

Here’s last week’s column on my 2010 Beer Highlights for Western North Carolina. I also discussed the year in beer on Local Edge Radio last week. A teaser: Highland Brewing opens new tasting room Highland (finally) joined the other Asheville-based breweries and opened a tasting room. The new tasting room is something to behold — [...]

read on…