From Staff Reports

Asheville and Buncombe County now boast 10 craft beer manufacturers with more on the way, but it was not always like that, beer enthusiast Tony Kiss said Sept. 21 at UNC Asheville’s Reuter Center.

During a talk titled “How Asheville Became Beer City,” which drew about 60 people, Kiss said that when he began working at the Citizen-Times in 1984, there were no craft breweries in the area, downtown Asheville was mainly boarded up and there was “not much going on.”

That all changed in 1994, when the first serious craft brewery was opened by Oscar Wong in downtown Asheville — and Kiss wrote one of what would be many beer stories to come as Asheville would eventually be recognized as a craft beer mecca.

Indeed, to keep up with the area’s burgeoning beer scene, he now writes a regular column titled “The Beer Guy” for the paper.

Kiss said he actually wrote his first local beer story in 1993, when he heard about a craft brewery opening in Waynesville. He said the brewery “consisted of a card table ... a couple of dudes (entrepreneurs)” and not much else, “so I did a little story.”

In 1994, when Wong appeared on the Asheville scene, Kiss said he always remembered that the beermeister liked to quip: “If you want to make a small fortune in the beer business, you start out with a large fortune.” The audience laughed heartily at the joke.

Wong connected with Barley’s Tap Room on Biltmore Avenue, opening his Highland Brewery in the basement, with Barley’s upstairs at that time, Kiss recounted.

Wong’s efforts inspired others — and today, Kiss said, Buncombe’s 10 craft breweries include nine in Asheville and one in Black Mountain.

Two more breweries are expected to open in Buncombe in the near future, he said.

In addition, Sierra Nevada and New Belgium, the No. 2 and 3 American craft brewers, recently chose to locate in the area, with the former locating next to the Asheville Regional Airport in Mills River and the latter in Asheville’s River Arts District.

“Between the two (aforementioned) breweries, they’ll (intially) bring in about 200 jobs, with salaries averaging $40,000 per year, which is pretty good money around here,” Kiss said. Eventually, “this will be like 500 more jobs in beer” in the area.

Regarding Wong, Kiss told how he set up the fledgling Highland Brewery in Barley’s cluttered basement, powering the operation with recycled dairy equipment and producing Asheville’s first craft beer.

Fortunately for the risk-taking Wong, Highland became a favorite of local beer-drinkers, but it would take years for his brewery to stop losing money, Kiss said.

“They flushed tens of thousands of gallons of beer down the (city) sewer system” in the early days until Wong felt the beer tasted good enough to offer for sale, Kiss said. “They started out with draft only. Its Highland Gaelic Ale became its flagship” brand.

Today, “Highland is the biggest local brewery” in the area and it makes 30,000 gallons of beer per year,” he said.

Seeing Highland’s popularity, other breweries followed, including Jack of the Wood/Green Man, what is now known as Asheville Brewing, French Broad, Pisgah, Wedge, Oysterhouse, Lexington Avenue Brewery, Craggie and Thirsty Monk.

When Asheville claimed four breweries, Kiss said he asked his editor if he could write a beer column. He was asked if he thought there was enough going on to merit a column, to which he said “yes” and never has looked back.

“It’s always fun for me,” Kiss said of his sampling of craft beers and his adventures in keeping up with the beer business and the often-colorful characters involved in it.

“I never figured it’d be more than one or two (local craft breweries) when it started off,” so he initially was surprised the way the business has skyrocketed in the area.

“None of the breweries in Asheville have failed — so far,” Kiss said. “That’s pretty amazing considering how many restaurants go out of business around here.”

Kiss noted that he often is asked, “How many more breweries can we have?”

To that, he said, “We (Asheville) have more breweries than anywhere in the United States” per capita.

“Every brewery in Asheville has its own unique personality — and they make different kinds of beers.” What’s more, some of the breweries also are in locations that serve multiple uses, such as Asheville Pizza, which features pizzas and movies, too.

In his own observation and analysis, Kiss said he has concluded that,“if you’re doing something differently, it greatly increases your chance of success ... Usually, 60 or 70 different beers are being made on any given day” in Asheville.

A few years ago, Asheville won the “Beer City USA” crown, when it came down to Portland, Ore., and Asheville, Kiss recounted. “Portland is a 10 times bigger city than Asheville,” with its 80,000 population.

“Asheville surprised everyone by winning that (Internet) poll. I think its won the poll for the fourth straight year” this year. Upon further thought, he amended his statement to specify that Asheville is sharing the title this year with Grand Rapids, Mich.

While pleased that Asheville keeps winning the “Beer City USA” title, Kiss said he personally wondered if it meant anything elsewhere. However, when he was traveling in Belgium, someone asked where he was from. “I said, ‘Asheville,’” and his foreign questioner responded, “Beer City USA!”

As for the two major craft breweries locating in the area, Kiss said, “Sierra Nevada and New Belgium were both carefully recruited. They both had maxed out on the West Coast.

“I thought we might get one of the two” as the recrutiing process progressed. “I was as stunned as anyone when both decided to locate here,”Kiss said.

As for the future, he noted, “Hardly a week goes by that I don’t hear someone considering opening a small brewery in Asheville.” Kiss said there are currently more than 20 functioning breweries in Western North Carolina — “most within 30 minutes of Asheville.

“I don’t see any end to them ... In a year’s time, we might have four or five more breweries. I don’t think there’s any limit, if your product is different,” Kiss said.