USA, NC: Asheville ready to welcome two new craft breweries

Asheville's booming craft beer scene will soon have two new players - one just north of downtown, the other on the south side, Asheville Citizen-Times reported.

Habitat Brewing is building at 174 Broadway St., next to Moog Music, while the pizzeria-brewery called Fahrenheit 828 will locate at 17 Lee St., in South Asheville. The new breweries will push the Asheville-Buncombe total to 26 with more than 50 around the mountains.

Habitat is now finishing its build-out in a historic downtown building, said Matt Addis, who is partnered in the project with Jonathan Myers. "Hopefully we will open in July," said Addis. Habitat will follow the path set by many local breweries, opening first as a taproom with guest beers while awaiting a federal brewing permit. The brewery will use a two-barrel system to start. "We're talking with manufacturers to get something custom-built," Addis said. He'd eventually like to have a five to seven barrel brew house.

Habitat ran into a naming issue, a common challenge with more than 3,700 breweries and nearly 8,400 wineries nationwide. "There is a winery that has habitat on one label," Addis said. "We are working with them" to use the name, he said. "We are confident that we will be able to use that name. We won't be distributing anytime soon." In the meantime, the brewery is using HBT to avoid any legal conflict.

Addis, a longtime home brewer, looks to turn out such beers as an IRA (a red IPA) a standard IPA, a Baltic porter, a stout and seasonal beers, he said. Habitat will have a 4,400-square-foot space, with the brewery on one side and a bar on the other. It will also incorporate a space "that people can rent for events and gatherings," he said.

Even with nearly 25 breweries open now across the county, Addis believes there's room for more, especially on the north end of Asheville. His nearest brewing neighbors are Lexington Avenue Brewery downtown and the original Asheville Pizza and Brewing on Merrimon Avenue.

Meanwhile, the brewery and pizzeria currently called Fahrenheit 828 will open first as a restaurant in South Asheville in a few weeks, with the brewing operation to begin in August or September, said owner James Kloman. A name change is also possible here, he said. "We are looking at some other names," he said. "It will probably be Fahrenheit in some capacity."

The operation will have a unique pizza-cooking system with a brick oven and rotating stone to cook crispy New York-style pie, he said. "We have the oven here and are getting the walls up right now," he said. Until receiving a brewing permit, Kloman said he will serve guest beers. He will use a self-dispensing beer tap system, similar to West Asheville's Pour Taproom. Customers can pour their own beers by the ounce, letting them try different samples of brew. He expects to eventually brew IPA, pale ale and stout.

17 May, 2016