USA, NC: Lazy Hiker Brewing to open this week in Franklin

Franklin will get its first brewery this week with the opening of Lazy Hiker Brewing in an old fire and police station on Main Street, Asheville Citizen-Times reported on May 18.

Lazy Hiker opens on May 20 at 188 W. Main St., Franklin, with a grand opening June 13, said Ken Murphy, who is teamed with partners Lenny Jordan and Tommy Jenkins and brewer Noah McIntee.

With a 15-barrel system and two 30-barrel fermentation tanks, Lazy Hiker will sell beer both at the tasting room and throughout Western North Carolina, said Murphy. “We hope to begin self-distribution next month,” he said. “For now, it will be all draft brew,” he said.

While Lazy Hiker is the first brewery in Macon County, residents there have a wide range of tastes, said Murphy. “Some have never had a craft beer and others have visited all the area breweries,” he said.

Lazy Hiker will be the 42nd brewing company in the mountains, most of them in Asheville and Buncombe County.

20 May, 2015