Today’s agenda is packed with great beer, sights, food and fun! After fueling up for our big day with a delicious breakfast at the hotel, we’ll hop into our coach to start our tour of Asheville. We will be weaving the sights and stories of this eclectic city throughout our day today.
Our first stop today is to French Broad Chocolate Factory for a tour and – of course – a tasting of their chocolates. Started in a home kitchen and quickly outgrowing the space, French Broad Chocolate expanded to the French Broad Chocolate Lounge and eventually The French Broad Chocolate Factory & Tasting Room- making owners Dan and Jael’s dream of becoming bean to bar chocolate makers a reality. Intent on nurturing connections to the source, French Broad Chocolate began sourcing cacao from trusted farmers and transforming it into fine chocolate, which they continue to this day. The flavors of cacao, paired with ingredients thoughtfully selected for their integrity, provide inspiration for a compendium of confections and desserts, which can be found in multiple locations in Asheville and beyond. We’ll be visiting the factory, which was moved into a14,000 sf space in 2018 and where they churn out nearly 50 tons of chocolate each year!
After our chocolate immersion, it will definitely be time for a beer! Our first beer stop will be Riverside Rhapsody Beer Company, where we will enjoy lunch, taste their delicious brews and hear the story behind the brewery.
The story of Riverside Rhapsody Beer Company began when Joey Cagle and Mike Vanhoose began home brewing together in the mid 2000’s. After years of developing their own brews, while at the same time, hard at work immersing themselves in the local beer scene, they finally saved enough capital to open their own brewery. Their shared experience in the service industry and the local brewing scene combined with their mutual love of music and the outdoors, led to the creation of Riverside Rhapsody. Here you will find a wide variety of rotating styles on tap, all rooted in tradition, but ever evolving.
Next, we are off to New Belgium Brewing, where great beer, art and fun all come together on their awesome tour experience. We’ve arranged a private tour for our beercationers . where we will have the opportunity to sample some year-round as well as some rare offerings! From the beautiful brewhouse where the tanks are surrounded in thousands of colorful handmade tiles shaped like bottles and hops, to the mural of the iconic Belgian bar-the Bruges Beertje – New Belgium is a brewery worth visiting, time and time again.
After our New Belgium visit, we’ll make a stop for a beer at The Wedge. Depending on the weather we’ll go to either Wedge Foundation or Wedge Studios.
The Wedge’s website has a very unusual description of the site where the Wedge Foundation is located: a brewery in a dirt parking lot in a sketchy building down by the tracks.
Surprisingly, while this describes the location perfectly, this is also part of the charm of the place- along with great beer. It is a must-see, weather permitting. Fortunately, for us, if weather is not working to our advantage, the Wedge has another cool location, in the River Arts District, so while it may not be as sketchy, the buildings in the area are all covered in colorful works of art to enhance our tasting experience.
While our next visit of the day is not your typical commercial brewery, they do brew beer. This is because they are a Yeast lab and supplier, so if you brew beer or even if you don’t, you’ve likely heard of them. White Labs is committed to furthering the art of fermentation across the globe. They operate yeast production facilities in San Diego, California; Asheville, North Carolina and Copenhagen, Denmark and have a distribution warehouse in Hong Kong.
White Labs Brewing Company operates the San Diego Tasting Room, as well as the full-service restaurant in Asheville – White Labs Kitchen & Tap. White Labs Brewing Co. was started in 2012 to showcase the influence yeast and fermentation have on beer. Their brewers ferment the same beers with different yeast strains to produce distinctly different beer profiles which they use to supply thirsty beer loving guests, like us, but also for R and D to gain insight into new and innovative yeast strains.
We will be touring their facility and doing a guided side-by-side
tasting of some of these beers. We’ll continue our visit here with dinner, enjoying, among other things, some of their delicious wood-fired pizza, made with dough fermented for 72 hours and leavened with their own WLP518 Opshaug Kveik Ale yeast!
After dinner you can join Mike for some local beer hunting or feel free to head out on your own or back to the hotel to chill, it’s your Beercation so enjoy however you see fit!
Return back to the hotel at your leisure tonight or beer hunting with Mike