WNC’s brewing industry is down but not out

Since Tropical Storm Helene battered its way through Western North Carolina at the end of September, Asheville Brewers Alliance (ABA) Executive Director Karis Roberts has been tracking the status of area craft beverage businesses on a special spreadsheet. 

One column notes active GoFundMe links. Another reports each brewery’s status: intact but closed due to no water or power; closed, but providing supplies; closed, in rough shape; in extremely rough shape; destroyed.

Despite the sobering picture this list sketches of the previously bubbling industry, Roberts is working hard to connect and communicate with brewers, locate and share resources, and inform state and national trade organizations about the gravity of the situation and the need for assistance and support.

And along with the inevitable exhaustion, she’s feeling a sense of optimism rather than despair.

“I’m going to say that this will show us just what tenacity in the brewing industry looks like; just what community in the brewing industry looks like,” she says. “It’s going to take some time — Rome wasn’t built in a day. But there are already so many businesses that are saying, ‘We’re going to rebuild.’”

Though Roberts says the ABA had around 48 official members at the time of the disaster, her spreadsheet so far includes nearly 100 beverage businesses from all over WNC. She has been working to make contact with all of them. At press time, she had connected with about half.

“I don’t even care if you’re an ABA member anymore,” says Roberts. “If you’re in the brewing or beverage industry, and you need help, I’m going to share your GoFundMe. I’m going to help register your employees for unemployment. All those things.”

Roberts has transitioned the ABA’s regular monthly newsletter into a means of relaying relief and recovery information among brewing community members, such as where to find food and internet service, sell existing products and find staff support resources. It’s also serving as an impromptu job board for brewery workers now seeking employment outside WNC.

Along with breweries on Roberts’ list that have sustained serious damage — and those, such as Chimney Rock Brewing Co. and New Origin Brewing, that were demolished by flood waters — there are many that are simply not operating due to loss of water or power. Several of those, she says, have shifted to acting as collaborative distribution centers for water and supplies.

“The beautiful thing about breweries is we are primed for distro like this,” she explains. “We know how to use forklifts. We have the capacity to bring in huge trucks, and we know how to get them in and out. Some breweries had their Brite tanks filled with water already and were able to redistribute it.”

White Labs Brewing Co., Devil’s Foot Beverage Co., Green Man Brewery, Cultivated Cocktails, Pisgah Brewing Brewing Co., DSSOLVR and Terra Nova Beer Co. are a few she points to that have been collaborating among themselves and with other organizations to move water and supplies — from food to diapers — to community members.

French Broad River Brewery, where Aaron Wilson is head brewer, is among the businesses in the “seriously damaged” category. The Biltmore Village brewery, which marks its 24th anniversary this year, was flooded to a depth of about 5 feet, says Wilson, resulting in heavy damage and lost equipment. Wilson even lost his personal vehicle to the flood. 

He counts French Broad as lucky, though, because its brewing tanks and brewhouse are still intact. “We lost a lot of stuff, but it’s our intention, at this point, to rebuild and continue on and keep moving forward.”

The brewery is “winging it right now,” he says, as far as covering the expenses of cleanup and recovery. The best way he knows of for people to support WNC breweries as they struggle to recover, other than donating to their individual fundraising campaigns, is to buy their beer and other products whenever they see them on the shelves.

“Our goal is to be up and brewing as soon as possible once the water is safe,” says Wilson.

Roberts says another avenue for helping brewers recover is the N.C. Craft Brewers Guild’s new Pouring for Neighbors program, which allows beverage companies nationwide to designate a beer or other drink with proceeds benefiting WNC disaster relief. 

Additionally, DSSOLVR has released Higher Calling, a collaborative hazy IPA, aimed at raising money to help the N.C. Craft Brewers Foundation allocate disaster relief funding to WNC breweries.

Roberts also encourages supporters to visit individual brewery websites to buy their merchandise and urges retailers and breweries outside WNC to buy packaged Asheville beer for resale. “Any revenue, at this point, is beneficial for Asheville breweries, whether it’s merch, direct beer sales or just donating money to their GoFundMe — any way we can get them funding,” she says.

For more information on the Asheville Brewers Alliance, visit avl.mx/e7v. To learn about the Pouring for Neighbors campaign, visit avl.mx/e7w. Breweries interested in collaborating on DSSOLVR’s Higher Calling beer project should email highercallingbeer@gmail.com.