Thursday, May 2, 2024

Asheville's Original Craft Brewery

highland brewing company old charlotte highway asheville nc

For more information, visit Follow Highland on Twitter at @HighlandBrews and Instagram at @HighlandBrewing. Highland Brewing Company was founded in 1994 by retired engineer and entrepreneur Oscar Wong. As the first craft brewery to open in Asheville, NC since Prohibition, Highland became known as the pioneer of the city’s now-booming craft beer industry. Highland's commitment to quality and sustainability boasts the sixth largest solar array in an American craft brewery.

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Highland also offers brewery tours for those who want to learn more about how some of the best beer in Asheville is made. Join us downtown Asheville in our second taproom space on the mezzanine of the S&W Market, Asheville’s first food hall. Enjoy a Highland beer and a taste of the city from local all-star food vendors on the market’s first floor. While the rooftop bar and events center were completed before 2020, the outdoor spaces now include popular volleyball, disc golf and cornhole areas.

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Not getting metaphorically flattened is part of why Wong Ashburn was brought in to succeed Wong as head of the brewery — though if she had her way, Highland would have been a true family business far earlier. Wong Ashburn made several attempts to join the company in the brewery’s first decade, including as a local beer seller, but Wong says he didn’t think it was the right thing for her to do at that time. The brewhouse has the third largest solar array of any craft beer brewery in the US, and the 13th largest brewery solar array in the world.

highland brewing company old charlotte highway asheville nc

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highland brewing company old charlotte highway asheville nc

In December 1994, when downtown Asheville was sleepy, Highland rolled out its first kegs from the basement to the alley. Built almost entirely of retrofitted dairy equipment, our original brewery could produce up to 6,500 barrels of beer per year in about 12,000 square feet of space. So Highland Brewery, which many locals consider the founder of the Asheville NC craft beer scene, has been doing it for more than 25 years. And even now, after the big brands have stolen the media spotlight, it remains one of the best breweries in Asheville. Operations began in the basement of downtown Asheville’s Barley’s Taproom, where Wong used retrofitted dairy equipment to create his beer. He continued there for 13 years and over time developed the recipes for what would become regional favorites like the Gaelic Ale, Black Mocha Stout, and Oatmeal Porter.

None of the other Asheville NC breweries we’ve visited offer quite so much behind the scenes access. Their Asheville beer tour happens twice on Monday and Tuesday, and on four different occasions each afternoon for the rest of the week. Founded in 1994 by retired engineer Oscar Wong, Highland Brewing was the pioneer of craft brewing in Asheville. Which has, of course, since become the Blue Ridge Mountains’ hottest destination for serious beer connoisseurs. Highland Brewing got its start in 1994 as a retirement hobby for former engineer Oscar Wong.

Highland Brewing through the years - Citizen Times

Highland Brewing through the years.

Posted: Thu, 25 Apr 2024 09:13:26 GMT [source]

But unlike so many fly-by-night microbrewers gone rogue, the first of the many Asheville, NC breweries now has a quarter of a century to its name. Let us craft an authentic brewery experience for your next special occasion. Private event venues include the Rooftop, Event Center and Barrel Room. A vast tree-lined space with shady table seating and a lush lawn to bring your own chairs. The Meadow bar is open for the summer featuring our year-round and small batch beers; cider and wine also available.

After spending years owning and running a Charlotte-based engineering firm that designed nuclear waste facilities, Wong bought a house in the sleepy mountain town of Asheville and was ready to settle into a slower-paced life. Instead, his home brewing hobby snowballed, and next thing he knew, he was opening a brewery. That mix of consistency and innovation has proved key to Highland’s sustained operations in an ever-changing industry. One notable exception is the popular Cold Mountain Winter Ale, which intentionally evolves slightly from year to year with different ingredients. Highland is now the largest family-owned brewery in the Southeast, and currently run by Oscar’s daughter, CEO Leah Wong Ashburn. Visiting Highland should be a big draw for anyone doing Asheville tours.

Highland Brewing Company Is The South's Best Brewery In North Carolina - Southern Living

Highland Brewing Company Is The South's Best Brewery In North Carolina.

Posted: Tue, 07 Mar 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

She officially joined Highland in 2011 and became company president in 2015. Under her leadership, the brewery underwent a brand refresh in 2018, trading bagpipe-and-beer-toting Scotsman “Scott” for a crisp, clean, compasslike logo. Wong is quick to rattle off facts and figures from those early years but otherwise notes he isn’t much interested in revisiting the brewery’s past.

Highland Brewing Downtown Taproom

As a perennial feature on Asheville beer tours and one of the city’s best breweries, Highland Brewing Co doesn’t really need to do much more to get noticed. And yet they do, with their many community-minded and environmentally aware initiatives. In 2020, Highland will also be opening a second site in downtown Asheville, at the S&W Cafeteria.

Asheville’s craft beer footprint has grown exponentially since Highland came onto the scene in the mid 1990s. When Wong began his craft beer journey, he was largely brewing alone. Almost 30 years later, around 40 other Asheville breweries have joined the party. In 2006, Highland moved operations to its current East Asheville location, where they’ve since expanded their footprint to include a multifaceted brewing campus and all-around entertainment destination. Now in addition to grabbing a pint or flight in the taproom, you can also have a brew at The Meadow, where there’s a second bar, plus a stage for live music, shady table seating, frequent food trucks, and a lush lawn.

The packaging hall is where we put our beer into bottles and cans. Changing any of the form inputs will cause the list of events to refresh with the filtered results. Visit our hilltop brewery and see what else goes on beyond fermentation. Additionally, they repurpose spent grains as cow feed, use repurposed materials for some of their brewing systems, and have several mindful operating protocols to minimize energy usage and waste. But the Highland Brewing Company was the very first Asheville brewery.

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