ASHEVILLE – Asheville’s craft brewing industry has lost cherished breweries after historic flooding, rain and high winds from Tropical Storm Helene wiped out neighborhoods and districts and leveled buildings to their foundations. Others are struggling to finance repairs, pay staff, reopen taprooms and restart production and distribution operations due to structural damage, extensive clean-ups and the ongoing citywide water outage.
“It was a big feeling of defeat,” said New Origin Brewing’s co-owner Dan Juhnke. “We had worked for five years developing that property and bringing a vacant property to a vibrant brewery and that was all gone in an instant.”
New Origin Brewing Company, Brouwerïj Cursus Kĕmē, Hi-Wire Brewing and Zillicoah Brewing Co. are several local craft beer breweries that took direct hits from the unprecedented weather event that’s left a path of destruction in its wake. The list continues with New Belgium Brewing, 7 Clans Brewing, French Broad River Brewery and Eda Rhyne Distilling Co., Village Pub, Burial Beer Co.’s Forestry Camp and more.
New Belgium Brewing’s River Arts District facility sustained flood damage. Its Asheville taproom, which opened in 2016, remains closed and its Fort Collins, Colorado, taproom is open.
On Oct. 10, Michaela Eagan, public relations manager, provided a statement from the company, stating, “Remediation efforts have begun at our campus brewery, and we anticipate clean-up efforts to take some time. We have been in communication with our business partners and expect there to be disruptions to our order fulfillment capabilities for the next several weeks. Our teams will be doing everything we can to mitigate these disruptions to the best of our ability and we are targeting the end of the year to be back up and running at our Asheville brewery.”
Karis Roberts, executive director for the Asheville Brewers Alliance ― which promotes and supports local beer and other craft beverage members, including providing educational resources and assistance during a crisis ― said there is hope among the local beverage community that the industry can rebuild and with an evolving plan.
Roberts said the brewing industry must have outside support to be restored.
According to the Asheville Metro Area Breweries Contribution Analysis, a study conducted by Riverbird Research in 2019, the Asheville area brewing industry contributed $935 million to the local economy. The craft beverage footprint deepened as more establishments opened and grew each year.
“There are all kinds of avenues and ideas that we have floating around of ways we can rebuild and it’s going to take money, time, brains, and a lot of folks working together,” she said.
A blow to ‘Beer City’: New Origin Brewing
Juhnke, who opened the brewery with Brian Fetting in 2020, said sandbags were stacked up to nearly 20 feet, considering the record flood level of the Swannanoa River. Juhnke said he was bailing water off his home’s patio the night of Sept. 26 as the tropical storm moved in early that Friday morning.
“I started thinking to myself, ‘This rain has got to stop otherwise it’s going to be a disaster,’ and the rain just did not stop.”
He said he and his family evacuated due to landslides that sent trees, rocks and mud toward their Fairview home.
After bulldozers cleared the roads, he said he checked on the brewery only to find record-level floods and a railroad car had demolished the building.
“The whole train car got displaced and smashed into our building that’s ultimately what destroyed it,” he said.
He said a current was running through the commercial neighborhood, which neighbored other businesses like Cursus Keme’s brewery, which also was in ruins.
Juhnke said the site of New Origin was determined based on landmarks like a crane boom that had stood to the height of the brewery, but no building was left standing nearby.
He said before New Origin, the building was occupied by Biltmore Electric, constructed in the 1970s and opened until 2008, then the building was leased to other companies. In early 2020, New Origin’s owners purchased the property and opened in August, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Juhnke, a Minnesota native, said he chose to open a brewery in Asheville due to its “Beer City” reputation.
“We moved to Asheville to open a brewery because Asheville is such a big beer town,” he said. “It’s like a chef who wants to get his name out or get exposure moves to San Francisco or New York City where there’s a high-tier food community.”
Juhnke said he would consider opening the brewery again though it would be challenging due to the financial burden and regulations if the site is deemed a flood plain unsuitable for construction. He said Federal Emergency Management Agency aid and insurance may not be available or enough to cover the costs.
New Origin, which employed nearly 10 staff members, has a GoFundMe campaign to support the rebuild.
“It’s possible that we’ll have to cease to exist which is really sad,” Juhnke said.
Depleted beer stock: Hi-Wire Brewing
Hi-Wire Brewing’s River Arts District Beer Garden was ravaged by the French Broad River and its Biltmore Village Big Top brewery was damaged by floods.
Bryna Forsaker, Hi-Wire’s co-owner and chief people officer, said the RAD Beer Garden’s parking began to flood on Wednesday evening due to the heavy rains preceding the Friday morning tropical storm.
She said the parking lot at the Biltmore Village location, which opened in 2015, flooded and the water stopped about three cinderblocks from entering the garage door. The interior took in rainwater but not river water, so the facility’s equipment, taproom and event center were mostly spared, requiring minimal repairs.
RAD Beer Garden, which opened in 2021, was engulfed by water.
She said water rose to nearly 10 feet and poured into the business’s second-story corporate offices and distribution center where 80-90% of the brewery’s finished products and most of the stock of empty cans for distribution.
Forsaker said Hi-Wire, founded in Asheville in 2013, brews about 90% of its products in Biltmore Village and about 10% at the South Slope brewery and distributes to the company’s 10 taprooms which includes locations in North Carolina, Ohio, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.
“The timeline is hard because we have all these finished goods that are gone,” Forsaker said. “We have taprooms that are still selling beer and as soon we can either get a company to contract brew for us or we can be up and running ourselves, to make new beer takes four to six weeks, best case scenario.”
NoDa Brewing Co. in Charlotte has been a big help, delivering beer to Hi-Wire’s South Slope taproom, as the brewery now depends on guest taps, in anticipation of Hi-Wire’s products supplies running out.
In addition to the loss of packaging material due to the water outage, the beers at the South Slope site can’t be canned. Distribution had operated out of the RAD Beer Garden.
Forsaker said Hi-Wire has nearly 60 employees in the city that rotated the four local sites – Biltmore Village, RAD Beer Garden and the original Hilliard Avenue taproom and its speakeasy-style cocktail bar, The Tiki Easy Bar, in the South Slope brewing district downtown.
As of Oct. 11, Forsaker said some staff members have continued to work as the Hilliard Avenue taproom is open but about 45 people are without work though not laid off. However, donations have been dispersed to staff via payroll.
Forsaker said that while RAD Beer Garden’s fate is unknown as areas like insurance coverage are considered the Big Top will reopen once facilities like electricity and water are fully restored, and employees can get to work safely. Then, brewing will resume.
She said reopening RAD Beer Garden is a financial and emotional decision.
“The trauma is significant enough that we’re all not ready to make a call,” Forsaker said.
Brewery operational shifts
WNC breweries are looking to the global brewing industry and customers for support to pull through.
Roberts said some surviving breweries are considering contract brewing or sharing venues with other breweries in Asheville and other cities like Charlotte and Raleigh. Another option is to sell beer from guest breweries in local taprooms while the brewery’s stock is replenished.
“Then you have other breweries that are no longer recognizable or standing,” Roberts said. “It’s just an empty, mud-covered wasteland where a bomb went off and those breweries and their staff need all of this help and support.”
Local food and beverage businesses have supported each other and the great WNC community, like Highland Brewing, which turned its East Asheville brewery’s campus into a distribution hub, hosting several relief aid organizations’ distribution operations and assisting local food and beverage businesses with storage in the 11-acre building. Partnering organizations and businesses include Beloved Asheville, Wine to Water, North Carolina Highway Patrol, Flush AVL, Curate and Urban Orchard.
How to help WNC breweries
Many have launched individual fundraising campaigns, including on GoFundMe, to raise money for the unemployed staff, reconstruction/renovations/relocation and other storm-related issues.
Dssolvr, an Asheville-founded brewery, launched the Higher Calling international collaborative brewing project to raise funds for Asheville’s beer community, distributed by the nonprofit North Carolina Craft Brewer’s Guild. Breweries are invited to brew the Higher Calling beer recipe and use the provided labeling with net profits donated to the NC Craft Brewer’s Fund. As of Oct. 15, more than 100 global breweries had committed to the call. For more, visit highercallingbeer.com.
Wicked Weed Brewing’s Beers That Build campaign supports the beer and greater Asheville community, including “a financial donation to the Emergency & Disaster Relief Fund at The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, which funds grants for a number of critical nonprofit organizations providing on-the-ground emergency relief to those affected by Hurricane Helene.”
According to Ryan Gunthy, Wicked Weed’s co-founder and general manager, the brewery has continued supporting its 300-plus employees and provided water and supply drop-offs, shuttle services from outside the city, and hot meals to the community. For more, visit wickedweedbrewing.com/community-donations/.
Roberts said Wicked Weed Brewing, Botanist & Barrel and Devil’s Foot Beverage Co. are a few businesses that have been essential in assisting impacted establishments and staff, and that Beers That Build has included marketing materials directing the public to donate directly to WNC breweries and wineries, Hillman Beer, Mad Co. Brew House, Whaley Farm Brewery, Big Pillow, The Wedge, 12 Bones Brewing and Pleb Urban Winery.
Roberts said other ways to support include purchasing merchandise and products, donating to fundraisers, and reaching out to businesses to discuss in-kind donation needs, like production space, warehouse equipment and other supplies.
Craft beverage industry workers support
She said service workers need assistance paying rent, bills, gas, groceries and other basic needs, and some are now without homes and need funds for relocation as “their job was eliminated overnight.”
Roberts said an online Western North Carolina job board is under construction to assist with temporary and permanent job searches and relocations within the brewing industry.
Roberts said Asheville’s challenging housing market is another obstacle for food and beverage workers, who she called the “body, heart and soul of the industry,” and may contribute to a long-term drastic decline in the workforce beyond breweries.
Roberts said there are known cases of workers who’ve left the city seeking employment who may not return once taprooms reopen.
“It’s a fluid and ever-evolving thing and if anything, this has taught us that we need to be flexible and we don’t know what tomorrow’s going to hold that can change how our work environment looks, how we go to work every day and even how we communicate with each other.”
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Tiana Kennell is the food and dining reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. She is a graduate of Michigan State University and covered the arts, entertainment and hospitality in Louisiana for several years. Email her at tkennell@citizentimes.com or follow her on Instagram @PrincessOfPage.
