There are plenty of breweries in Asheville, North Carolina but I want to compare brewery tours for two of the larger, more commercial brewers in town: Sierra Nevada and New Belgium. Each has its charms, but they are starkly different in atmosphere and experience. See which one you prefer – I know I have my favorite.
Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
Both of these particular breweries are East Coast outposts of West Coast companies. Sierra Nevada Brewing started in Chico, California, just west of, you guessed it, the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
Their German style (I think – don’t quote me) of brewing American beer was one of the earliest and most influential forces behind the craft beer movement of the 1980s-’90s. In their 1979 beginnings, the founders used scrap metal to cobble together their first brewing equipment. Now, the company is one of the largest private brewers in the United States.
The Mills River (near the airport) location of Sierra Nevada opened in 2014. It’s a beautiful structure, with a lodge-like main building, built from the same trees that were cleared from the property. A central cavernous room holds gleaming copper brewing kettles. It’s a front-facing room with huge windows, so you can even see the brewing process from the parking lot.
Sierra Nevada Brewhouse Tour
There are several tour options at Sierra Nevada. I took the cheapest, a $9 brewhouse tour that lasts 45 minutes. All tours start in a little room right next to the big brewing room and most of your tour is spent working your way back around to it. You hear the history of the brewery and are physically walked through the brewing process. I liked a stop in the raw hops room, and you get plenty of time in the huge brewing room to walk around and take pictures. At the end, you’re led upstairs to a bar area and offered 4 small samples of the company’s beer. I don’t remember getting much choice in our samples, and it was boom, boom, boom, one right after the other.
To me, it felt like a firehose of historical and technical information, then a rush through the beers themselves. I felt like I got a good feel for their brewing process, but left with no better understanding of the beers they make. Even after a tour, I’m no more familiar with Sierra Nevada’s lineup other than their flagship pale ale.
Other Tours
Again, I took the cheapest and shortest tour they offer. It’s called the Brewhouse Tour, lasts 45 minutes, and costs $9 online, though I think it’s $10 if you walk up in person. For $25, you can take the Beyond the Pale Tour (which maybe is what I needed to actually learn about their beer.) It lasts 90 minutes and offers 9 beer samples, again all at the end of the tour. On Saturdays in May, they offer a Pints and Pioneers: Women in Beer tour, also a 90-minute tour for $25. I assume it’s very similar to the Beyond the Pale Tour, but with a focus on women in the company and led by female staff. All tours are for ages 12 and up, no young children are allowed.
The longest tour is the 3-hour Beer Geek tour. It costs $75 and is only open to ages 21 and over. Also, long pants and closed-toed shoes are required since the tour goes on the production floor. The last option is a Trip in the Woods Hiking Tour. It costs $30, lasts over 2 hours, and is a guided 1.5 mile walk around the property, including grazing fields for sheep, donkeys, and chickens. You end with beer samples on the Back Porch beer garden.
Taproom Restaurant
Speaking of the beer garden, what most locals come to Sierra Nevada for is to eat at the Taproom restaurant. It’s a large space with lots of tables inside and outside on a large back patio. The back of the property slopes down to make hillside seating for a lovely stage area. Next to all this is a sweet little pollinator garden and even a playground for kids. It would be a fantastic place to go for some live music and dinner. And nice enough for larger celebrations and anniversary dinners, etc.
Outside behind the parking lot is a hiking trail through the woods. It was closed for “bear activity” during my visit, but a door leading to the trail was unlocked, so I guess you could still risk it if you want. It’s the North Carolina woods, I imagine bears are always at least a minor concern.
New Belgium Brewing Company
New Belgium Brewing Company is more properly inside Asheville, on a reclaimed site on the French Broad River. The Asheville location is an outpost of the company’s original brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado. (I’ve been there too.) Compared to Sierra Nevada, it’s MUCH more laid back and casual. I like the tour much better here, but there’s far less as far as dining and hanging out.
The buildings here look much more industrial. They cleared this land – formerly a cattle market and eventually a dumping ground – and built this facility in 2016. There’s a welcome center of sorts (the “Liquid Center”) with restrooms, a bar, and a gift shop. The brewing production happens across a small bridge in another building.
New Belgium Brewery Tour
There’s only one tour at New Belgium Brewing, the Production Tour. It costs $15 and lasts 90 minutes. The best thing about their tour is they serve you beer all along the way, and they’re big samples too! It definitely “lubricates” the wheels of the tour and makes the whole thing more fun and social. You start with a generous pour of their basic Flat Tire Ale pretty much right away, and get at least 3-5 more samples during the course of the tour. And if you don’t like anything, your guide is almost always happy to let you try something else. Drinking the beer is a big part of the tour!
New Belgium has its own cathedral-like room for their brewing kettles, though it’s maybe not quite as grand as the ones in Fort Collins. We were also able to see the process in action, which wasn’t true at Sierra Nevada. What follows is the company’s history, philosophy, and walk through the rest of the plant, from making their own malt to the bottling process. There’s even a spiral slide, just like the one in Colorado! We also got a peek into the employee’s reserves of beer, a large walk-in cooler that any employee can grab from. This tour felt less like a firehose and more like a good-hearted romp.
Beer Garden & Food Trucks
Instead of a big in-house restaurant, New Belgium has a small taproom in the Liquid Center and a covered patio with picnic tables overlooking the river. A rotating assortment of food trucks take up residence on the lawn in front of the Liquid Center. It’s easy to see exactly what food trucks will be on hand and exactly what drinks are on tap at any given time on their website.
When I was there, I had an amazing pulled pork and pimento cheese sandwich and a watermelon salad side. It’s all very casual and easy to drop in and out of. The riverwalk even runs right by here. On a long walk or a bike ride, you could easily walk up the stone steps for a drink or bite to eat.
Conclusion
I clearly liked New Belgium’s tour better than Sierra Nevada’s. I like their beer better too, but more than that, their philosophy. Of course, there are about a million more local breweries to choose from in Asheville that don’t have big factory tours, but it’s fun to take the tours and see how the big breweries operate. Maybe that’s why I like New Belgium better – it still feels like a small brewery, even though their operation is big.
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