Only a few hours northeast of Alabama, Asheville, N.C. boasts more craft breweries per capita than any other city in the country.
And it’s not just hipsters – Asheville’s attracted major beer makers like New Belgium and Sierra Nevada, bringing production jobs to a region that once thrived on textile manufacturing.
Alabama’s tourists may visit local breweries when in town, but Asheville’s breweries draw tourists for its beer alone.
Tony Kiss has covered the craft beer industry for the Asheville Citizen-Times since the first brewery opened 21 years ago. Now, with 42 breweries in western North Carolina – 19 in Buncombe County alone – craft beer enthusiasts flock to the city.
It’s enough to attract two companies that lead tourists on beer-tasting events, the first of which opened when there were only five breweries in Asheville. Birmingham has four and at least two in the works; Huntsville has seven and at least two in the works. So could Alabama have the next beer city?
AL.com talked to Kiss about the essential ingredients for beer tourism in Asheville – and what Alabama and its two biggest beer cities, Birmingham and Huntsville, could learn from the south’s beer capital.
A creative population
Asheville’s got a reputation for being full of hippies. There’s some truth to it, but it’s also earned its reputation for a city where art thrives, Kiss said. And it’s a population that supported beer as its own art.
“Asheville has a long tradition of writers and artists – food and drink is just part of that,” Kiss said. “Places like Asheville support local endeavors, and are going to want to drink what their neighbors are drinking.”
Huntsville’s got that, said Dan Perry, co-founder of Straight to Ale. It’s exactly why he had at one point tried to move the brewery into the Lowe Mill ARTS Entertainment, a former mill that now houses more than 120 artists, small businesses and restaurants.
Straight to Ale kegs. (Lucy Berry/lberry@al.com)
“We tried to put our brewery in there because we thought that we were artists,” Perry said.
Birmingham may not have the same arts focus that Asheville has – but it has a population that’s benefiting from the momentum of a downtown renaissance, said Good People Brewing Co.’s co-founder Michael Sellers.
“It’s emerging,” Sellers said. “It’s having an active community of people who are trying to improve the community – and Birmingham has that.”
Events
Nothing brings people in from out of town like a party.
Asheville has several beer festivals throughout the year, including a week-long celebration in the spring culminating in the Beer City Fest. But smaller festivals run throughout the year, focusing on specific types of beers or combining brewing with music at the annual Brewgrass Festival.
“Some of these people have drawn people from all over the country,” Kiss said.
Scenes from the closing day of the 9th annual Magic City Brewfest at Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, Ala., Saturday, June 6, 2015. (Mark Almond/ malmond@al.com)
Birmingham and Huntsville each have their annual festivals – Magic City Brewfest and Rocket City Brewfest.
But good beer’s creeping into the everyday fabric of Birmingham, said Sellers of Good People – or else, would you be able to get his beer at Railroad Park?
The smaller events are starting in Alabama, like Wild South’s second annual brewfest. The nonprofit protects wild lands throughout the southeast, with offices in Alabama and Asheville. The festival, held in Birmingham for the second year, brought Alabama and Asheville brewers together for a beer festival.
“That came together because of Asheville’s love of craft beer, and love of community, and love of nature, and Birmingham’s love of breweries, love of communities, love of nature, and the respect that both areas have for each other,” said Eric Meyer, a partner at Cahaba Brewing in Birmingham.
More than just beer
People now come to Asheville for the beer. But it helps that people have been coming to Asheville for ages for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and other tourist attractions, like the Biltmore Estate.
So the city was already on people’s minds.
Birmingham and Huntsville aren’t. But both cities on the way to the beach – and that’s definitely on people’s minds.
Good People founders Jason Malone and Michael Sellers (Photo: Cary Norton)
“We have people coming in here every day from Indiana, Illinois, Chicago, whatever, wanting to take a tour and have a pint – maybe buy some beer in a growler to take to the beach, which we can’t do right now,” Sellers said. “This is a great base camp before you hit the beach city.
“That’s something we could capture, from a tourism perspective.”
‘Craft beer cluster’
Asheville has seven breweries within easy walking distance of each other. The unofficial craft beer cluster makes it easy for tourists to spend an entire day on breweries.
Huntsville’s in the beginning stages of its own craft beer cluster, Perry hopes. Straight to Ale is in the process of expanding into a new building, a former middle school now known as Campus No. 805. On the other side, Yellowhammer Brewing will open a brewery, tasting room and bier garten.
Hopefully, once the space is up and running, new breweries will launch nearby, Perry said.
When the now-defunct Beer Engineers announced it was planning to move next to Good People in Birmingham, there were some people who found it – to say the least – tacky, said Danner Kline, craft beer manager at Birmingham Budweiser.
“Before Beer Engineers folded, there was so much hell raised among the inner circle of craft beer in Birmingham,” Kline said. “I thought it was all really bizarre, because it makes perfect sense for everybody. It’s a win-win to have several breweries within walking distance of each other.”
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