Asheville Dilemma

Glad to hear your report back. So often we get questions and then never hear how things worked out!

Interesting to hear that Burial had a hipster scene when you were there. Every time I've been its been mostly just laid back couples (though the poet-with-a-typewriter guy is straight up hipster!), but its small enough that I'm sure the scene can change quickly.

Green Man I've really come to appreciate over the last year or so. I'd been to Jack of the Woods (basically/kinda their brewpub up near Thirsty Monk) and didn't like them at all. After going to the tasting room I really started to like them though as the atmosphere is much nicer and they have a lot of interesting beers that really never make it to Jack of the Woods (at least I never saw them there).

Great to hear about the food walking tour. I've wanted to do something like this for a while and just never gotten around to it and wasn't certain if it was interesting enough to justify it. Sounds like it is.

 

This is incredible feedback. Wish you had visited a couple other places, but it sounds like you'll be back so...

You should really put these experiences into reviews. Very helpful to see another's point of view. And I live here.

 

Define hipsters? Asheville population has a 90% beard-to-man rate so I would think it would be hard to distinguish a BA crowd from true hipsters unless they had those funny glasses and drinking a PBR. The few times I have been to Burial it is usually the beer beards comparing tasting notes, not the guys just trying to look cool. Give it another try for sure.

 

Agreed, though you'll have to agree that the dude sitting by the entrance with the manual typewriter writing poetry is straight up hipster

 

Great review @zac16125 , I too enjoyed reading it! I'm really hoping that Green Man just put that bourbon-barrel porter you mentioned on very recently, because I'd be kicking myself if I had a chance to try it and didn't when I was there a couple of weeks ago.

Regarding the Green Man/Jack of the Wood thing, I'm pretty sure that they don't really have any affiliation with each other. At least that's what a bartender at JOTW told me the last time I was there. I know they have a big Green Man logo outside and they generally have all the Green Man staple beers on tap, but the bartender acted like I was stupid for asking if they're actually affiliated with Green Man.

So in short, Green Man = awesome and Jack of the Wood = the suck.

 

If the bartender at JotW have you a funny look, he either doesn't know the history or was being silly/stupid.

Green Man used to brew out of the JotW location and used to be very heavily linked to each other (websites for both JotW and Green Man mention this). Green Man itself was sold in 2010, which I think caused the operations to be separated a bit further and for Green Man to focus on more of a rotational list (though with their yearly beer list continuing to be produced). Before 2010 I don't remember Green Man ever doing one-offs, or sours, or barrel-aging, or really anything other than their yearly beer list (and maybe a seasonal here and there). I don't remember when the Green Man tasting room was opened, but it was well after 1997 to the best of my memory, which meant JotW was the de facto pub for Green Man until the tasting room opened and they started maintaining more of a split.

So yeah, definitely a connection and why many still connect the two.

 

Gotcha. I get that people still connect the two places in their minds, but they don't currently share any common ownership though, right?

 

Funny glasses, skinny jeans on guys, and Modest Mouse.

Not hating, to each their own (and I actually like Modest Mouse), but it seemed to have a distinctly different crowd then all the other places we hit up in Asheville. A crowd less like me than the other places. Again thats fine, but I seemed to feel more at home at the other establishments. Might have just been the day/time we were there.

On a related note, I don't think Ive ever seen so many Grateful Dead shirts in one location apart from at music festivals. Which I appreciated, haha

 

Definitely worth your time and money. We also appreciated how they made a couple stops during the walk to comment on various things in the city. So it was kind of a walking city tour coupled with a food/beverage tour. Locals probably wouldn't need that aspect, but it was a nice touch for the out of towners (which was everyone on our tour).

 

Laughing Seed > Jack of the Wood > Green Man > Divorce > Splitting of All 3 assets. There was a short lived Jack of Hearts in Weaverville too.

Long story short.

 

Wow, that is short.