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David Quinn can’t believe it’s been 10 years. His business, Pisgah Brewing Co., is now 10 years old, and it’s celebrating its birthday in a big way on April 19.
The party includes plenty of music, plenty of friends and food trucks galore. Opening the music in the outdoor space at 3 p.m. will be the local band Travers Brothership. Then comes the Pimps of Joytime, a New York City band that has played Pisgah’s last six birthday parties. Headlining the show is Leftover Salmon, featuring Bill Payne. And playing inside, at about 11 p.m., is the Dead 27s, out of Charleston, S.C. There will be food trucks all day.
Pisgah’s party for itself used to be a private affair, an invite-only to-do that convened bar managers and bartenders around town. “And that just grew into a giant thing,” Quinn said. So many people wanted to come, he said, that last year Pisgah decided to throw a free show on its birthday. And about 1,800 people showed up.
Pisgah is expecting more this year, which is why it’s charging (it will have a free event this fall, Quinn said).
“Ten years — that’s pretty amazing,” Quinn, owner and founder, said. “This is a lot bigger than I ever thought it would be,” he said of the business that started out with him making beer — Pisgah’s flagship Pisgah Pale — in a backroom. The company now has 10 fulltime employees and a dozen bartenders. “It’s hundreds and hundreds of people walking in the door every weekend,” he said, “with different reasons for coming here, whether it’s beer tourism or free music on a Wednesday.”
The alumni of Warren Wilson College have adopted it as their unofficial gathering place during homecoming. “Every year there will be 200 alumni hanging out in the courtyard reminiscing about their time in college and the time they spent in the Pisgah Brewery,” Quinn said. “There’s something magic about that meadow.”
Or it could be the beer itself. Twelve years ago, Quinn won a gold medal for an English Style Pale Ale that he presented at the largest homebrewers competition held in the world. Pisgah’s Chocolatized, a Russian Imperial Stout aged on raw cocoa nib, won a gold medal at the 2014 Great American Beer Festival in Denver
Quinn chose Black Mountain 10 years ago because it was quieter than Asheville. An Annapolis, Maryland, native, Quinn liked Black Mountain because it was set in a place that reminded him of his grandparents farm near Charlottesville, Virginia.
He still can’t believe it’s been 10 years. “Happy birthday to us,” he said. The party “is going to be epic.”
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