Do you know what today is?
Party time! We took particular interest in the part where our state gets a mention for Silly State Regulation. “North Carolina: A mixed beverage (on-premise spirits) permittee may advertise (by means of circular, newspaper, magazine, radio, and television) the price and a description or picture of mixed beverages, but many not include any name, display, picture or make reference to a particular spirits brand or company name. (N.C. Admin. Code tit. 4, r.2S.1010(c)(1).)” Huh? Yeah, we know. Try figuring that one out. We don’t even pretend to understand.

Asheville Pizza & Brewing soon to be bottled
There’s been buzz about this since Brewgrass, but now the cat’s out of the bag: Asheville Brewing fans can rejoice on the news that Ninja Porter and Old School Pale (organic) will be bottled very soon. It’s nice to see some sharing going on between our breweries, too. Cheers to French Broad Brewing Co. for letting them “rent” their bottler. (Which is a labor of love, btw. Four at a time. By hand.) 

Asheville gets notice in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Beer writer, Bob Townsend, is sending folks our way for beer travel in his story about Asheville being a beer destination. ‘Tis true, you know. You’d be really surprised at how many visitors we get on the weekends that come here just to sample the local brews and buy beer. They come from all over—most notably the Deep South—but just about every part of the country is accounted for on any given weekend. (And, if we may point out, someone had her pictures published in the AJC! Whoop!) Also, this story is dated Dec. 7. It’s a story from the future!

Pisgah Baptista only on draft this year
That’s right. Sad news, we know. Beer spies report the brewery had to make an executive decision and the timing and yield both led them to decide that no bottles of the holiday brew, Baptista, will be released this year and only select accounts in the area will get kegs. We know all you collector’s who have them from their first year are just-about-now going a little bit loopy, just don’t shoot the messenger. Thanks.

We never saw this coming
BeerAdvocate and Dogfish Head are teaming up to brew an “extreme beer.” (Can we get over the “extreme” phrase, already? It’s so ’90s.) From the press release: “The Alström Brothers are scheduled to brew a limited release beer on December 9 with Sam Calagione and Lead Brewer Bryan Selders at the original Dogfish Head brewpub on Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. The beer’s creation and progress will be tracked and discussed online, named by BeerAdvocate.com members via a competition, served exclusively at the Extreme Beer Fest, and discussed during an education seminar.” Seems it’s going to be a Belgian-style with wacky ingredients aimed for a final gravity of 8.0% abv.