By
Gary GlancyTimes-News Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 at 10:57 p.m.
By the time the wildflowers are in full bloom next year in Pisgah National Forest, outdoor enthusiasts might be able to emerge from a day in the woods and enjoy a cold, hand-crafted, hometown beer.
Kyle Williams, owner of Brevard Brewing Company, stands outside his new location on Main Street in Brevard Monday.Patrick Sullivan/TimesNews
The Brevard Brewing Co., expected to open downtown sometime next spring, will become the city's — and Transylvania County's — only commercial brewery. It will be on 63 E. Main St., between Kiwi Gelato and a future deli in the space formerly occupied by Jason's Main Street Grill and then Docks restaurant.
The initial business plan for owner and brewer Kyle Williams, 28, is to produce mainly lagers — German and American-style — to be distributed to draft-only accounts in Brevard, Hendersonville and possibly Asheville, with a tasting room in the adjoining former Docks bar area. Patrons also will be able to buy take-home growlers of Williams' beer.
Construction on the space is expected to begin this week.
"I had considered a couple of locations — Asheville being one of them — but there were too many breweries in Asheville and then I found this place," said Williams, who lives in Erwin, Tenn. "The building, in particular, is perfectly suited for what I need and there are, obviously, no breweries in Brevard. Everything with this location just worked out better than anything else, so that's why I ended up choosing Brevard."
The owner of the building, Micah Ansley, said he's spent the past year trying to recruit a microbrewery that also would serve as a music venue since Docks closed. It would be an ideal fit, he said, for a town known for the arts but lacking many places to hear live music.
"Brevard, during these tough economic times, has lost some businesses downtown and in the area, as well as most of our major manufacturing like most of Western North Carolina has experienced," Ansley said. "And due to the fact that we're kind of a tourism place — Land of Waterfalls — we rely on creating goods and services that tourists can enjoy, with the locals being able to enjoy it as well."
Ansley also was impressed with Williams' brewing experience, work ethic and passion. Williams recently spent two years as a brewer at popular Pisgah Brewing in Black Mountain, and he thinks Brevard is ready for a place to call its own.
"You've got a heavy tourist demographic, so there's always going to be people rolling through here, and then there's the outdoor crowd, which is also a demographic that tends to like craft brew," Williams said.
"Then you've got the locals. Everybody I've talked to, all the shop owners, business owners downtown, are all super excited. So there's a pretty good, solid customer base here."
Madrid Zimmerman, executive director of nonprofit Heart of Brevard, which focuses on downtown economic development, said that last fall the organization's business recruitment committee met to identify some of the new businesses it wanted to see in downtown Brevard, and a microbrewery was the No. 1 choice.
"I think when you think of brewery, it's a craft, and we're all about promoting local craftsmanship," Zimmerman said. "When you combine that with our incredible natural resources, it's a perfect fit."
She added that attractions such as Sliding Rock, Looking Glass Falls and a slew of hiking and biking trails in Pisgah are a "true magnet for a lot of people to come here, and adding the local craftsmanship of brew is just another element that showcases what this region is all about."
Williams — who will be a one-man business operation aside from bartenders for the tasting room — can find encouragement from the success of Southern Appalachian Brewery, which in late April became Hendersonville's first brewery.
SAB, which local law at the time required to open as a private club, had about 3,000 members in its first three months and currently stands at more than 4,300 members.
"We've had a tremendous outpouring of support from the community, even before we opened," SAB co-owner Kelly Cubbin said.
"We had people stopping by pretty much every day we were working. We'd have dry wall and paint all over us and people coming by just to say, ‘Hey, we're excited ... congratulations ...' It was pretty incredible, and I feel it's continued on a daily basis."
Williams already has purchased a 3.5-barrel brewing system that will give him an annual production capacity of about 1,000 barrels — or about 31,000 gallons. A
bout 75 percent of what he brews will be lagers such as pilsners, amber and black lagers, and Oktoberfests.
"It's something that's lacking in not just the immediate area but in the craft-brewing industry in general," Williams said. "Lagers take twice as long to make — you have to be more patient with them — so it's more profitable to do all ales. But nobody does lagers ... which are smoother and a little easier to drink."
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