Dig it! Honestly, we never thought we’d see this: Asheville Brewers Alliance.

With all the hullaballoo that went on in the past year with certain beers and certain breweries, we’re happy to see things moving in a more positive direction. Strength in numbers, people! Asheville is the premier beer destination of the South (no, it’s not Atlanta, sorry), and it’s great to see our brewers coming together to promote it as such. Not everyone comes to Asheville for the scenery and the Biltmore House—they come for the beer! We’re still not clear who is authorized to post on the ABA Blog and there’s only one post so far, but here’s the intro from John Lyda, of Highland Brewing:

… this blog’s intent is to relay the Asheville brewer’s thoughts and ramblings to you the people so that you get a better idea of who we are and what we are about. Asheville is truly blessed with a number of great breweries making world-class award winning beer. We are also fortunate to have a strong homebrewer presence that make equally great beer! While this blog will not include the homebrew side of the community (check out MALT’s website for that) we will occasionally include some homebrewer’s activities from a professional perspective.. think ProAm competition.

Asheville is quickly becoming the Southeast’s mecca for brewing, with 6 established breweries and two more on the way, each one of us finding our own niche and brewing exceptional beers. The secret is in the water. Our water is well suited for making just about any style of beer from delicate Pilsners to in your face Imperial quadruple IPA’s. Actually the last one doesn’t exist but would make an interesting experiment (hint hint Doug). As Oscar (HBC’s founder) is so fond of saying “we get first crack at the water”. The fountainheads are here deep in the mountains and valleys tumbling and cascading over rocks worn smooth. Crisp and clean water that we as brewers absolutely love to work with when creating our masterpieces.

This little blog could be considered an off-shoot of the brand new NC Brewers Guild, which after about a year (or more?) of legwork, has finally hit the ground running. Not all of our local breweries are members, but Asheville Pizza & Brewing and Highland Brewing are on the list of members. Hopefully we’ll see the rest of our locals join in the name of beerlanthropy! (You know who you are. Now get on it!)