From Daily Planet Staff Reports

As Asheville’s craft breweries continues to multiply, local farmers probably will find it highly profitable to shift into growing hop, a key ingredient in beer, members of a panel agreed on Jan. 27.

Hop, a specialty crop for which there is a worldwide shortage and skyrocketing price, is produced for the female flowers, or cones, which either raw or processed, are an essential ingredient in the production of beer.

Hop cones contain soft resins and essential oils that impart bitterness, flavor, aroma, foam (head) characteristics, and preservative qualities to beer. Hop is a perennial plant related to nettles and cannabis that produces climbing annual stems from a perennial rootstock and crown.

The hop issue rose during a panel discussion on the question of “Is Asheville the ‘Beer Capital’ of North America?”

Master of ceremonies John Boyle (left) and Tony Kiss “The Beer Guy” (standing to right), exchange cutting witticisms during a Leadership Asheville Forum on Jan. 27, as Kiss’ fellow panelists Mike Rangel (seated left) and Oscar Wong laugh at their mock dispute. Rangel runs Asheville Brewing Co. and Wong runs Highland Brewery. Wong is credited with launching Asheville as “Beer City.”

About 90 people attended the Critical Issues luncheon, sponsored by Leadership Asheville Forum at the Buncombe County Board of Education Building in West Asheville.

The panel featured Tony Kill, known as “The Beer Guy” for the Asheville Citizen-Times; Mike Rangel of Asheville Brewing Co.; and Oscar Wong of Highland Brewery.

AC-T columnist John Boyle, who served as moderator, began by quipping, “When I heard this was going to be held at the school board (office), I got excited because I thought Ruth’s Chris (Steak House).” The audience laughed at his reference to the issue of travel expenses by local public boards, on which his newspaper has focused in a series of stories recently.

As for the subject of beer, Boyle also prompted many chuckles when he said, “If it wasn’t for beer, I wouldn’t have a wife and at least one of my two kids!”

He added with a smile, “You’ll have to excuse me. I’m a little bit drunk from sampling the beer” before the luncheon.

More seriously, Boyle said, “We’ve got three of the movers and shakers from Asheville’s beer world here.”

Upon being introduced. Kiss said, “We’ve got nine breweries in Buncombe County. It all started 16 years ago with Highland Brewery. We now have more breweries per capita” than any city in the U.S.

In terms of numbers, Kiss said Asheville is topped only by Portland, Ore., which has “maybe three dozen breweries, but it’s a considerably larger city than Asheville.”

Boyle then introduced Wong, asking him, “Oscar, when you started Highland, what was it like” to be the only brewery in the city?
“As you know, Asheville is a rather eclectic city, open to new ideas,” Wong replied. “Beer geeks, thank God, supported us. It took us about eight years to break even. My wife used to think I was a smart guy. Now the financials are looking positive. It took at least eight years. It’s about a 5 percent profit margin with a lot of struggle.”

The third panelist, Rangel, was introduced as both a brewer and president of the Asheville Brewer’s Alliance.

Rangel agreed with an assertion by Wong that, through beer festivals and other activities, the breweries help to draw people to Asheville from all over the region. He praised the city for already having the infrastructure to serve the visitors.

He noted that the alliance will be hold a Spring Beer Festival on June 5 in City-County Plaza in downtown Asheville.

Kiss added that there are now 55 breweries in North Carolina and South Carolina and “we’re going to invite 35, of which 12” are in the area, to the Spring Beer Festival.

When Boyle asked the luncheon attendees, “How many of you have sampled craft brews?” almost all hands were raised.

“Hey John, can you ask them how many haven’t?” Kiss joked.

Boyle smiled and asked the panel, “What’s it take to make beer?”

“Hops, grains, yeast and water,” Rangel replied. “Hops went up” significantly in price recently, putting small craft brewers in a difficult position financially.

However, Samuel Adams, which Rangel termed “the big craft brew,” came to the rescue of its smaller competitors and “they sold hops to the little guys at what they paid” to buy them originally.

To that end, Boyle triggered more laughter when he joked, “I understand that a number of Madison County farmers have shifted” their production from marijuana to growing hops.

Wong, who has a bachelor’s degree in structural engineering and a master’s in nuclear waste operations, noted that Cold Mountain, one of his brewery’s more expensive beers, contains “the four ingredients Mike mentioned, plus spices that are expensive.”

He also said more expensive beers, such as Cold Mountain, “ties up the (brewery’s) tanks for eight weeks, versus three for our regular beers.”

Rangel added, “People in Asheville are constantly getting more sophisticated in their tastes. From five years ago, it’s gotten to be” significantly more competitive, as other craft breweries enter the market and the overall quality of the beer the produce constantly improves.

During a question-and-answer period that followed, a man asked Kiss to explain how he became “The Beer Guy” at the AC-T.

Kiss, who noted that he has worked at the newspaper for 26 years, started writing about beer when Wong launch his brewery in 1984-85. In 2002, I started writing ‘The Beer Buy’ column every other week.” He added that “there’s plenty to write about on a daily basis” in Asheville, if he was given the time, but that “primarily, I put out the Take Five entertainment section” in the AC-T.

A man asked, “Home breweries say their beer is so good because of the water. What about Asheville’s water?”

“The water in Asheville is definitely a big part of it,” Rangel replied. “It’s the main ingredient” in beer. Rangel cited Colorado, which “has lots of good water — and breweries.”

Conversely, Rangel said, “There are not many breweries in Miami, for instance. They have to do a lot to the water” there.
Grinning, Boyle asked, “Do you use tap water or special water” to brewer local beer?

“We do treat the water beceause it has chlorine and some iron,” Wong said. “Water is 95 percent of the beer. Chlorine, iron” and other elements “are bad for (the taste of) the beer.

“We start out with naturally cold water, which is an advantage.” Wong said water used locally by brewers is around 40 or 50 degrees, versus 60-degree or higher for much of the water used elsewhere.

Boyle asked Wong if he remains the only local brewer using 12-ounce bottles of beer.

“Yes,” Wong replied. “Each bottle costs 15 cents.” He said breakage of the bottles is a major headache and cost. “If I had to do it over, I wouldn’t do 12-ounce bottles. It’s a real pain.”

A luncheon attendee asked about the feasibility of recycling beer bottles.

“Reuse of bottles is a complicated process,” Wong said. “The continue to make these bottles thinner,” saving on costs but making them subject to breakage in the recycling process.

Kiss added that “you can take your old bottle and get it refilled” live at Rangel’s brewery.

A luncheon attendee noted that the impact from tourism had been discussed, but “what about with farmers?”

“The vast majority of brewers use pellet hops and it takes about a $2 million machine,” Rangel replied.

What’s more, Wong said, “If you use fresh hops, they need to be used within 12 to 24 hours, or be freeze-dried” to ensure good-tasting beer.

“We’d like to see a grant request to get local farmers into growing hops ... I will say there is a big future, economically, because the first cousin to hops is marijuana — the state’s biggest (agricultural) cash crop!”

A woman said, “You all are so civic-minded. Both of you and the others are always giving to the city and helping Haiti. I think you probably give back more than you get.”

Boyle then asked, “Can you two talk about the health benefits of beer?”

“From an environmental standpoint, it’s not shipped around the United States, so no preservatives are needed,” Rangel said.
“The health benefits of beer? Of course!” Wong said. “Beer is liquid bread, after all. You have protein, malts and carbs.”

A man said, “I’m intrigued with your marketing capability. You’re in every pub (around Asheville), even outside the tourist district.”

“These guys and ladies (running pubs) are in business to make a buck,” Wong said. The local craft breweries success, though, is “beyond marketing. If people didn’t support us,” by buying their beers, then “we wouldn’t be in business,” regardless of the marketing to the pubs.

In answer to another man’s question, Rangel said the price of hops is $20 per pound, noting that it makes it an attractive crop for farmers to grow.

Another man asked, “Where do you see competition coming in the future — big cities like Atlanta?”

“I don’t think the big cities will be able to come after us,” Rangel said, adding that, “I don’t that that it’s made-in-Asheville beer that’s doing it. It’s great beer!”

Differing, Wong said, “We will have competition — and we’re having competition.” Tough competitors include Bell from Michigan and Flat Tire from Colorado, he said.

A man said, “There’s a big buy-local push around here. Any possibility farmers could get together in a cooperative to use one machine” and grow hops?

“It needs to be a combination of farms, as Oscar has mentioned,” Rangel said. “They could get into growing hops” and make money.

“We’d much rather purchase hops from Madison County than from British Columbia,” as is the case now.

The questioner added pointedly, “And it would make you more unique!”

In closing, Rangel praised Wong “as the first guy. He set the standard and they’re the brewery we’d like to be when we grow up.” Wong smiled as the audience applauded enthusiastically.