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 then share the experience with Mountain Xpress readers. Read about their previous outing at Thirsty Monk Brewery at avl.mx/ejt.
For a while, this winter felt like Russian literature: cold, bleak and endless. Then the pendulum swung in the other direction to an unseasonably mild February evening, so I texted my friends to meet me at the original Wedge Brewing Co. location. When I say, “Jump,” they say, “Tomahta.”
We arrived in jovial moods, happy to be outside, among friends and on the left side of the tracks. Bartender Joe Sisti has served me so many pints over the years that we’re on a first-name basis. He poured our crew a pitcher of Wedge’s tasty Iron Rail IPA — it’s somewhere between Green Man Brewery’s British IPA and the hoppier American varieties. The compelling tap handles, I learned, were made by another bartender, local artist Aaron Iaquinto.
I love Iron Rail, but my go-to Wedge beer is AOB stout. Wedge’s website says, “No milkshakes or candy bars were used in brewing this beer. Just pure unadulterated roasted malt.” To me, it’s like drinking a loaf of bread, and I love it.
Wedge brews AOB for the annual Spring Out community bicycling event hosted by Asheville on Bikes, a nonprofit founded by former Wedge bartender Mike Sule. “Because so many riders come in, we often offer the beer year-round,” says Wedge General Manager Lucious Wilson.
Perhaps more than anything else, the night made me feel hopeful. Of the breweries we’ve visited this year, Wedge is the first to have recovered after being engulfed in floodwaters from Tropical Storm Helene.
Joe tells me the water was knee high in the taproom; however, none of the brewing equipment was damaged nor were the brews contaminated. With some luck and a heckuva lot of hard work, the brewery reopened this location on Halloween, just a month after the storm.
Wedge has two other locations. The one downtown in the Grove Arcade is doing fine, but the one on Foundy Street was completely submerged in water during Helene. Owner Tim Schaller isn’t one to quit, though. Lucious says Schaller plans to reopen the Foundy Street taproom this fall, though “there are many hurdles to navigate before that is definitive,” he notes.
I’m mighty grateful for Schaller’s tenacity. That location is among my favorite spots in Asheville.
Wedge opened in the River Arts District (RAD) in 2008, when the modern RAD was something of a toddler. Now it feels more like a runner struggling to recover from a major injury. The greenway that still felt new to me before Helene is in mighty rough shape, with many businesses and art studios wrecked and chunks of the dog park washed downstream.
Still, that night I had confidence that we can handle the recovery. Together.
Feb. 19 – Wicked Weed Brewing’s downtow brewpub
Feb. 26 – Burial Brewery on the South Slope
Join us if you’d like. Email me at yearinbeerasheville@gmail.com or just show up.
Editor’s note: This story was revised on Feb. 19,2025, to show an updated list of the next two Year in Beer meetup locations.
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