Beer today, gone tomorrow: Asheville beer happenings Jan. 21-27

Beer Today, Gone Tomorrow is the one-stop home for Asheville-area beer news. Check back throughout the week for updates and send your own to wncbeertoday@gmail.com.

Bottle and can releases

• Hi-Wire Brewing‘s annual collaboration mix-pack is currently available throughout its distribution footprint. The latest edition includes Almost West IPA (6.8% ABV), created with Eugene, Ore.’s Ninkasi Brewing Co. and dry-hopped with Citra, BRU-1, Amarillo and Zappa; Intercontinental Contemporary Pilsner (5% ABV), created with Tampa, Fla.’s Cigar City Brewing, featuring hops from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S., plus North Carolina-grown heirloom Jimmy Red Corn and German malt; and Belgian Stout (7% ABV), made with New Belgium Brewing Co. and featuring additions of orange and star anise. Each 12-pack of 12-ounce cans features four cans of each beer. The brewery also releases Kveik Imperial Stout (8.5% ABV), featuring additions of High Noon cold brew and cacao nibs, on Saturday, Jan. 25. It will be available in 750-milliliter bottles for $15 each at both of its Asheville taprooms and will not see distribution.
• Oskar Blues Brewery has released three new packaged products: Can-O-Bliss DIPA (8.2% ABV), hopped with Citra; Death by King Cake (6.5% ABV), a white porter brewed with vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, cacao nibs, orange peel and pecans; and Slow Chill Vienna-style Lager (5% ABV) are available in six-packs of 12-ounce cans.
• Burial Beer Co. releases Finite Spectrum of Existence Triple IPA (10% ABV), mashed with lactose and oats and triple dry-hopped with more than six pounds per barrel of 2019 select crops of Citra, Strata, Mosaic and Cashmere, on Friday, Jan. 24. It will be available in four-packs of 16-ounce cans for $21, exclusively at the taproom.
• DSSOLVR has two new packaged releases on Friday, Jan. 24: Shibby Shibby Shibby (4.2% ABV), an American New World Pilsner, and Paths Never Looped Before (8% ABV), a hazy DIPA hopped with Citra and Wakatu, will be available in four-packs of 16-ounce cans and on draft.

Small-batch beers and ciders

• Guidon Brewing Co. will be pouring a cask Pale Ale from its beer engine on Wednesday, Jan. 22, and will celebrate its first anniversary on Saturday, Jan. 25, with the release of its Vienna Lager.
• Catawba Brewing Co. taps POG Hazy IPA (5.5% ABV), made with passion fruit, blood orange and guava, and hopped with Citra, Simcoe, Amarillo, on Thursday, Jan. 23, at all four of its taprooms.
• In addition to Finite Spectrum of Existence being available on draft the day of its release, Burial also taps two beers on Friday, Jan. 24: A Divine Intervention That Came To Naught Imperial Stout with Maple, Banana and Bourbon Vanilla Bean (15% ABV) and Feral Gates of Flesh Port Barrel-Aged Dark Sour Ale (8% ABV).
• **NEW** 12 Bones Brewing is currently pouring Wünderhaus (6.5% ABV), described as a “robust rendition of a classic Märzenbier with nine different varieties of malted barley to achieve maximum complexity.”
• Highland Brewing Co. taps Metal Rat Hazy IPA (7% ABV), hopped with Lotus, on Saturday, Jan. 25. The beer was brewed in collaboration with Seattle’s Lucky Envelope Brewing to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
• Ginger’s Revenge will tap a Lemondrop Dry-hopped ginger beer (4.8% ABV) on Sunday, Jan. 26.

Special events

• The Whale hosts the 2020 Plow to Pint Brew Off on Thursday, Jan. 23. The competition involves local brewers making any style of beer — as long as it includes a particular ingredient chosen by Rayburn Farms. The Whale will be closed to the public, 5-8 p.m., while members of the Asheville Brewers Alliance determine a winner. At 8 p.m., the bar will reopen to the public to vote on the beers for the People’s Choice award.