125 B Roberts Street
Asheville, NC 28801
828-505-2792
E-mail: info@wedgebrewing.com
Website: http://wedgebrewing.com
Hours: Monday–Thursday, 4 P.M.–10 P.M.;
Friday, 3 P.M.–10 P.M.;
Saturday–Sunday, 2 P.M.–10 P.M.
Owner: Tim Schaller
Brewmaster: Carl Melissas
Opened: 2008
Regular beer lineup: Witbier, Julian Prince Pilsner, Payne’s Pale Ale, “Derailed”-Hemp Ale, Doppelbock, Belgian Abbey Ale, Iron Rail IPA
Wedge Brewing Company is situated in the River Arts District, which is artsy and funky even by Asheville standards. It is an area known for its wide range of artists’ studios. A simple sign painted on a beam leaning over the sidewalk reads, “Wedge In Back.” There, a staircase leads down into a sculptor’s wonderland of art and to Wedge Brewing Company.
Sculptures outside Wedge Brewing Company in Asheville
The brewing company is named after the building it’s in—Wedge Studios. Much of the building stands in tribute to its late owner, John Payne, a metal artist, sculptor, engineer, and inventor.
Wedge Brewing Company’s owner, Tim Schaller, moved from Sag Harbor, New York, where he had worked as a contractor renovating historic houses. In Asheville, he saw opportunity. “I built some new houses down here,” he says, “but I got out at the right time.”
He arrived in Asheville just after Highland Brewing Company opened its doors and has always been a fan of beer. “What got me into beer was beer,” he says with a smile. “I like it. I’ve always been an entrepreneur of some sort, so I just took the idea of a brewery and ran with it. I usually sort of run with an idea until something comes up to stop me, but we didn’t really run into any roadblocks.”
He was good friends with Payne and talked to him about the possibility of the basement space. He speaks fondly of the River Arts District. “To me, this area is like the last frontier of Asheville—the last area where it’s fairly local,” he says. “And artists are interesting people to be around. I liked the idea of an old man’s democratic bar, where you sit around and just have conversations. And that was the idea.”
Schaller found a local brewer—Carl Melissas, previously of Green Man Brewery—who was interested. He also located a good deal on equipment from a brewery in Florida. Payne, unfortunately, died a few weeks after the brewery opened.
The original idea for the basement space was that it would function primarily as a warehouse. But since the opening in 2008, it has turned into a community gathering space. Wedge Brewing Company is still trying to keep up with demand. For a time, Schaller says, Wedge built up 40 to 45 restaurants it distributed beer to, but it has since pulled back. It’s now down to six or eight. The company sells all the rest of its beer on-site.
Schaller now sees Wedge Brewing Company as subsidizing the artists who continue to work in his late friend’s studios. “Wedge is able to pay twice the rent that the artists can, so it’s still a good deal for them,” he says. “We’re in a transition time, and we’re trying to steer it so that maybe we can get a restaurant down here or something, and that’ll pay more rent again, so that maybe the artists can stay.”
A view of fermentation vessels behind the bar at Wedge
The brewhouse at Wedge
Aside from making Wedge even more community friendly, Schaller has no serious plans for growth. “I’m 65,” he says, “and I can make a living. We have a small system with no real room to grow in the space, so we’re not looking at getting any bigger than this. People like our beer and like our scene, and that’s the main thing to us.”
Wedge Brewing Company lives up to its building’s legacy. The beautiful space, used for produce storage in the 1930s, is now surrounded by pieces of metal sculpture, many built by Payne. The bar is small but warm and accommodating, and the expansive patio overlooks the railroad, where freight trains roll by bearing load after load of wood chips. (“There goes the Great Smoky Mountains National Forest,” Schaller quips.) While mostly closed off from public view, the brewery still pokes its tall, skinny fermenters over the tops of walls inside the taproom. They look very much at home among the sculptures created by the brewery owner’s dear friend.
Every spring since 2009, Charlie Papazian—the author of The Complete Joy of Homebrewing, the founder and president of the Brewers Association and the American Homebrewers Association, and the godfather of the craft beer movement—has held an informal poll online to determine which city in America should be deemed “Beer City USA.” The cities put up for the vote are determined by nominations from readers of Papazian’s online column. They usually include Philadelphia, San Diego, St. Louis, San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle, Denver, Milwaukee, Portland, Oregon, and Fort Collins, Colorado, among many others.
Once the cities are determined, voting commences for a week, at the end of which the city with the highest number of votes is declared Beer City USA. In 2009, Asheville finished in a tie with Portland. In 2010, Asheville won again, with Portland as its closest competitor. In 2011, Asheville reigned supreme, crushing its closest competitor, San Diego, by amassing over twice as many votes.
Being proclaimed Beer City USA says more about Asheville than just the quality of its beer. It is more than rating hop choices, alcohol percentage, recipes, and flavor profiles. It suggests a supportive community with local pride for Asheville and for North Carolina beer.
See more about Beer City USA online at examiner.com/tag/beercity-usa.
