A Year in Beer: Beer, pizza and time travel at Asheville’s third brewery

DRINKING WITH THE STARS: Christopher Arbor and friend Kevin MacDonald explore the nerdy offerings at Asheville Brewing Co. on Merrimon Ave. Photo by McNeill Mann

On Jan. 1, Christopher Arbor and his friends launched a quest to visit one Asheville brewery each week for all of 2025 in the order that they opened. Their most recent stop was Asheville Brewing Co. on Merrimon Avenue. For their previous visit, click here

A big motivation for this series is to trace the history of Asheville breweries. My personal history is so entwined with Asheville’s third brewery to open — Asheville Brewing Co. — that this installment is going to be as nostalgia-infused as some of the Hollywood offerings the company screens at its Merrimon Avenue location.  

If memory serves, the first movie I watched there was Fight Club way back in 1999. The business had just changed ownership and names (from Two Moons Brew-n-View to Asheville Pizza & Brewing Co.), and the vibe was basically “college dorm room.” The dining area had free console games, and the movie seats were old thrifted couches. 

If that sounds icky, it was a little, but in an endearing sort of way. This may be hard to believe, but in those days, the idea of serving beer at the movies was novel. 

My college buddies and I could walk over after classes, order food and enjoy whatever film was playing. Part of the charm was that customers gave their names when they ordered food, and the servers would bellow them out during the movie. Back then, there were apparently a lot of residents named “Seymour Butz,” “Al Coholic,” “Amanda Hugginkiss” and “Fire!”  

Since then, I think we’ve both grown up a bit. My crew filed in on a recent Wednesday evening — 14 of us — eager for beer, pizza and camaraderie. The place is cleaner and brighter these days. The couches in the theater have been replaced with real movie seats, and the servers hand out buzzers instead of bellowing names. 

The best parts remain, though: the easygoing vibe, the cheap movies, Funky Chicken pizza, Shiva IPA, funhouse mirrors and the arcade room, which impossibly still has the same Off Road game that’s been there for decades. There’s still a singular place in each of the circular rooms that has a wonderfully weird echo. You can still sit at a table with the characters from Star Wars muraled on the wall beside you. 

Asheville Brewing Co. is maybe no longer geared for college nerds but instead geared for us nerds who grew up and had kids. Speaking of kids, local trivia-night legend and dear friend Kipper Schauer showed up with his adorable baby, who immediately became the focus of our attention and conversation. A pint in my hand, a baby on my hip and friends by my side: That’s about the most Asheville experience I can imagine. 

For more details on Asheville Brewing’s past, check out a previous Xpress article by the late Tony Kiss, “20 Years Later, Asheville Pizza & Brewing Remains a Hopping Landmark,” from April 4, 2018. It’s also worth noting that Asheville Brewing Co. moved its brewing operation to a second location on the South Slope in 2005, long before most other breweries arrived in town. That site is currently closed, but I’m hoping it will reopen with warmer weather. It has a mighty fine outdoor space. 

For our next stop, we’re going to rectify my previous Jack of the Wood detour and go to Green Man Brewing’s Dirty Jack’s taproom. We meet up around 5:30 p.m. on Wednesdays. Here’s our schedule for the next few visits:

Jan. 29 — Thirsty Monk at Biltmore Park, 2 Town Square Blvd. (downtown location is temporarily closed)

Feb. 5 —Wedge Brewing (either on Payne’s Way or downtown, depending on weather)

Feb. 12 — Oyster House Brewing, 625 Haywood Road

Feb. 19 — Wicked Weed Brewing, 91 Biltmore Ave.

Feb. 26 — Burial Beer Co., 40 Collier Ave.

Join us if you like.

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