Asheville Blog Your Source for all things Asheville
Burial Beer Co: Skillet Six Ways
Skillet Six Ways: Thursday, June 2nd at 4pm
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Asheville’s Thirsty Monk Pub & Brewery Acquires Asheville’s French Broad Brewery
In a refreshing twist to the many recent brand acquisitions by macro beer, Thirsty Monk would like to announce we have worked out a deal with our Asheville neighbors and friends at French Broad Brewery to purchase their brand and operations. The transaction is scheduled to close this summer. Both breweries will be pouring at the Not So Big BIG Beer Festival on June 1st during Asheville Beer Week, and invite you to come celebrate this big announcement.
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Bike from Work Week: 5 WNC Breweries Support Bicycle Advocacy
National Bike to Work Week is May 16-20 and a handful of WNC breweries are hosting Bike from Work week. Enjoy a beer, support bicycle advocacy, and have your bike tuned at Wedge, HiWire, Highland, Wicked Weed and New Belgium Brewery on your way home from work. Proceeds from pint sales will be split between bicycle advocacy organization Asheville on Bikes and greenway non-profit Friends of Connect Buncombe. Each brewery will host an evening of bike-centric activities. On Friday, May 20 at 6 p.m. at New Belgium Brewery, the breweries will donate collective proceeds to the two non-profits.
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HiWire Brewing Announces First Can Releases
HiWire Brewing Announces First Can Releases
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Sierra Nevada Partners with Mahrs Brau on New Oktoberfest Beer
Sierra Nevada is pleased to announce Bamberg, Germany’s Mahrs Bräu as their brewing partner for this year’s Oktoberfest seasonal beer. Released each fall, Sierra Nevada’s Oktoberfest collaborative seasonal will feature a different German brewery every year. The partnership blends centuries of brewing tradition with modern spirit, giving craft drinkers the ultimate Oktoberfest, a festival beer unlike any they’ve experienced in the US.
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Beer and Chocolate Pairing: Catawba Brewing To Host During Beer Week
Catawba Brewing hosts another wildly popular 90 minute Beer and Chocolate Pairing on the South Slope during Asheville Beer Week at 7:00 PM on the evening of Wednesday, June first.
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Wicked Weed Announces Sour Festival Brewery Lineup
Eblen Charities and Wicked Weed Brewing are gearing up for the third annual sour festival scheduled for Saturday, July 16th. The Funkatorium Invitational (formerly Funk Asheville) will host 50+ breweries both well established and up and coming that are paving the sour and wild path for craft beer. Ticket sales are slated for Monday, May 9th beginning at noon via ETIX.
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Blaze Pizza Announces Grand Opening of First Asheville Location
Blaze Fast Fire’d Pizza, the fast-casual artisanal pizza concept known for its chef-driven menu and casually hip restaurants, announced today that it will open its first Asheville location on Thursday, April 21. To celebrate the grand opening, the restaurant will offer FREE build-your-own artisanal pizzas on Friday, April 22 from 11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. to anyone who follows Blaze Pizza on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. The highly anticipated restaurant, which features a 2,500-square-foot interior plus outdoor patio, is located in Gerber Village in south Asheville (1840 Hendersonville Road), off of Interstate 26. This will be the fourth Blaze Pizza location in North Carolina.
Blaze Pizza is a modern day “pizza joint” serving up artisanal pizzas that are both fast and affordable. Since its first restaurant debuted in 2012, Blaze has become known for custom-built pizzas, freshly made salads, blood orange lemonade and s’mores pies. Each restaurant features an interactive open-kitchen format that allows guests to customize one of the menu’s signature pizzas or create their own, choosing from a wide selection of fresh, artisanal ingredients – all for about $8. The generously sized personal pizzas are then sent to a blazing hot open-flame oven – the centerpiece of the restaurant – where dedicated pizzasmiths ensure that the thin-crust pies are “fast-fire’d” and ready to eat in just 180 seconds. Restaurants make their own dough from scratch daily using a recipe developed by critically acclaimed Executive Chef Bradford Kent (a.k.a. the “Pizza Whisperer”). For pizza fans with special dietary needs, Blaze Pizza offers gluten-free dough and vegan cheese. The Asheville restaurant will soon feature craft beers from popular Asheville breweries as well as a selection of wine.
“Our mission at Blaze is really simple – we’re taking pizza back to its roots,” said Jim Mizes, President & COO of Blaze Pizza. “By making dough in-house, carefully sourcing ingredients and cooking by fire, we’re giving guests a great way to enjoy artisanal pizza without the wait. It’s changing the way people think about and eat pizza.”
Blaze’s attention to detail extends well beyond the food, with a carefully considered, modern approach to restaurant design. Driven by its commitment to “Intelligent Choices for Our Pizzas, People & Planet,” the restaurant is constructed with recycled and sustainable materials, uses eco-friendly packaging and features energy-efficient LED lighting. Additionally, many of the restaurant’s unconventional design elements were inspired by the company’s celebration of individual expression, including an oversized wall graphic, which was custom-built to suit the Asheville space.
Blaze Pizza is looking forward to continuing to build strong roots within the Asheville community. To that end, the company has developed a turn-key, in-restaurant fundraiser program that returns 20% of an event’s proceeds back to local organizations and will be partnering with local schools, sports clubs and other organizations to host fundraising events at the new restaurant.
About Blaze Pizza
The first Blaze Pizza® restaurant opened on Aug. 6, 2012, in Irvine, Calif., and quickly gained attention for its chef-driven recipes, thoughtful interior design, and a service culture that celebrates individuality. Now ranked as the overall #2 fast-casual brand in FastCasual.com’s annual Top 100 list, Blaze Pizza is building momentum and developing a cult-like following as it expands across the country. The company currently operates 124 restaurants in 28 states and Canada, including the major metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, Dallas, Las Vegas, and Washington D.C. Founded by Elise and Rick Wetzel (co-founder of Wetzel’s Pretzels), the concept is backed by investors including LeBron James, Maria Shriver, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Boston Red Sox co-owner Tom Werner and movie producer John Davis. For more information, please visit blazepizza.com and facebook.com/blazepizza or click here to view a company video. Read More »
Blaze Pizza is a modern day “pizza joint” serving up artisanal pizzas that are both fast and affordable. Since its first restaurant debuted in 2012, Blaze has become known for custom-built pizzas, freshly made salads, blood orange lemonade and s’mores pies. Each restaurant features an interactive open-kitchen format that allows guests to customize one of the menu’s signature pizzas or create their own, choosing from a wide selection of fresh, artisanal ingredients – all for about $8. The generously sized personal pizzas are then sent to a blazing hot open-flame oven – the centerpiece of the restaurant – where dedicated pizzasmiths ensure that the thin-crust pies are “fast-fire’d” and ready to eat in just 180 seconds. Restaurants make their own dough from scratch daily using a recipe developed by critically acclaimed Executive Chef Bradford Kent (a.k.a. the “Pizza Whisperer”). For pizza fans with special dietary needs, Blaze Pizza offers gluten-free dough and vegan cheese. The Asheville restaurant will soon feature craft beers from popular Asheville breweries as well as a selection of wine.
“Our mission at Blaze is really simple – we’re taking pizza back to its roots,” said Jim Mizes, President & COO of Blaze Pizza. “By making dough in-house, carefully sourcing ingredients and cooking by fire, we’re giving guests a great way to enjoy artisanal pizza without the wait. It’s changing the way people think about and eat pizza.”
Blaze’s attention to detail extends well beyond the food, with a carefully considered, modern approach to restaurant design. Driven by its commitment to “Intelligent Choices for Our Pizzas, People & Planet,” the restaurant is constructed with recycled and sustainable materials, uses eco-friendly packaging and features energy-efficient LED lighting. Additionally, many of the restaurant’s unconventional design elements were inspired by the company’s celebration of individual expression, including an oversized wall graphic, which was custom-built to suit the Asheville space.
Blaze Pizza is looking forward to continuing to build strong roots within the Asheville community. To that end, the company has developed a turn-key, in-restaurant fundraiser program that returns 20% of an event’s proceeds back to local organizations and will be partnering with local schools, sports clubs and other organizations to host fundraising events at the new restaurant.
About Blaze Pizza
The first Blaze Pizza® restaurant opened on Aug. 6, 2012, in Irvine, Calif., and quickly gained attention for its chef-driven recipes, thoughtful interior design, and a service culture that celebrates individuality. Now ranked as the overall #2 fast-casual brand in FastCasual.com’s annual Top 100 list, Blaze Pizza is building momentum and developing a cult-like following as it expands across the country. The company currently operates 124 restaurants in 28 states and Canada, including the major metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, Dallas, Las Vegas, and Washington D.C. Founded by Elise and Rick Wetzel (co-founder of Wetzel’s Pretzels), the concept is backed by investors including LeBron James, Maria Shriver, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Boston Red Sox co-owner Tom Werner and movie producer John Davis. For more information, please visit blazepizza.com and facebook.com/blazepizza or click here to view a company video. Read More »
Highland Brewing Company Releases Highland Pilsner
Last week, Highland Brewing Company released Highland Pilsner, its second new year-round beer of 2016. Highland Pilsner is available now on draft at select retail locations throughout its nine-state footprint and will debut in six-pack cans in mid-May.
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Fat Tire Flowing from New Belgium’s Asheville Brewery
New Belgium Brewing’s flagship Fat Tire Amber Ale is flowing from their Asheville brewery and heading toward draft lines and cold boxes across the eastern United States. With production ramping up over the next few years, the 500,000 barrel capacity, 127,000 square-foot brewery gives the country’s fourth-largest craft brewer 1.5 million barrels of total capacity.
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