Traveling and beer have been going hand in hand for me recently and last weekend I was heading to Asheville, North Carolina for a little celebration and to check out the local beer scene. Asheville has been ranked beer city U.S.A. for the past three years in a most scientific survey (that allows you to vote multiple times) and with 11 breweries and counting the city is definitely keeping its citizens from going thirsty. My brewery adventure was a brew tour that visits several local breweries and allows you to sample several beers offered by each brewery. One of the breweries I had the opportunity to visit was Pisgah Brewing Company in Black Mountain which is located just east of Asheville. Pisgah Brewing is a 100% certified organic brewery and only distributes to local accounts only venturing about 30 to 40 miles away, which is unfortunate because their beer was fantastic. As you approach the brewery there are several things you notice. Right across the street is a center for alcohol treatment and all of us on the tour joked that we were being taken to an intervention. However that was not the case and we pulled into a rather industrial looking park with a building that had a sign for Pisgah Brewing positioned outside of the front door. Once inside we were ushered to the tap room where we were instantly given a sample of the Pisgah Pale ale which was an american style pale that leaned towards the less caramel flavored side of pales which I enjoy more and had a nice grassy and citrusy hop character that was very refreshing. After our pint glasses were poured we took a walk around the corner to the brew house which was a large and mostly empty warehouse type room with pallets of malt and about a dozen conical fermentors lining the back wall. Our guide began talking about the brew process for Pisgah as we were brought a sample of their wheat beer, which smelled amazingly like fresh dough and had a lot of yeasty character in the flavor. We heard a lot about their brewing process which included everything from their organic ingredients to the step by step process of going from grain to glass. It was all incredibly interesting and as we began talking about the different kinds of yeast strains used we were brought their Summer Solstice which is a Belgian Tripel and is brewed with a Belgian Trappist style yeast and is a special mix that includes part of its strain from Chimay. This beer had a nice spicy Belgian character and had a very soft and slightly sweet aroma and flavor from the Belgian yeast strain. It also had a very dry finish so it didn’t leave a lot of residual sweetness in your mouth. The tour ended up with us heading back to the bus but not before we had a chance to fill our pints with one last beer we wanted to take with us. I chose the Valdeez which was a coffee stout brewed with coffee beans from a local coffee shop and the smell was overwhelmingly like freshly ground coffee. It really played nicely off the roasted malt character and followed through in the flavor as well. Some chocolate notes snuck in around the finish but this beer had mostly coffee character and was definitely a full bodied beer. Overall the Pisgah Brewing experience was really great, the guide was extremely knowledgeable and friendly, the beer was great and is 100% organic,