During 4th of July weekend I went with my girlfriend (KKW) and the rest of her family to visit one of her uncles that lives on top of Black Mountain, NC near Asheville. One of my favorite things about North Carolina and growing up in Charlotte is that it only takes a few hours driving west to get to the mountains and a few hours east to get to the beach. Anyways, I couldn't have thought of a better way to start off 4th of July weekend than drinking beer on a mountain house porch while counting the number of ridges I could see off in the distance.
After spending Friday night on top of Black Mountain, we woke up early on Saturday morning to watch the sun come up over the mountains. After eating breakfast we ventured into close-by downtown Asheville. Let me back up a little bit. I have been to Asheville three times in the past year and a half and every visit deserves mentioning for different reasons.
The first of these three visits was during the Christmas season in 2009. KKW got me tickets to visit the Biltmore Estate while it was decorated for the holidays. The Biltmore Estate is impressive in itself as it contains acres upon acres of land and the biggest house in the country nestled between the mountains. Visiting the Biltmore would have been cool during any part of the year but my girlfriend got me tickets to see the mansion during Christmas because Christmas is awesome. It is the best time of the year and the decorations and lights can and should improve most people's moods even in the dreariest of winter days. In order to appreciate just how awesome it is to see the decorations inside the Biltmore during the Christmas season I have posted a picture for your viewing pleasure. You are welcome.
The next visit I took to Asheville was to see the Avett Brothers New Year's Eve show at the Civic Center. I had heard some of the Avett Brothers' songs before I started dating KKW but she introduced me to much of their music that I was unaware of and now I can't get enough. The Avett Brothers themselves, Seth and Scott, hail from Concord, NC and have become increasingly popular in recent years as the band added members Bob Crawford, Joe Kwon, and Jacob Edwards and joining up with producer Rick Rubin. This year they got a chance to feature their folk/bluegrass/country/rock sound (no way to describe their music and do it justice...you have to experience it yourself) at the Grammy Award ceremony alongside Mumford and Sons and Bob Dylan. This particular occasion marked the second time I got to see the Avett Bros. in concert and the ninth time for KKW. I'll be seeing them again in October in Greensboro as well thanks to a graduation gift from my girlfriend's parents.
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| Thirsty Monk |
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Two other places are worth noting in this post and they are within a stones throw of each other. One night over New Years weekend we went to The Thirsty Monk which has a very impressive beer list that does not include a single mass produced beer but rather many tasty, high gravity beers. Drink one beer in The Thirsty Monk and it's easy to see why Asheville was named Beer City, USA the past three years in a row--even beating out Portland, OR in the process. The second place is award-winning Tupelo Honey Cafe which has some of the most delicious southern food I've ever eaten (second only to probably Paula Deen's Lady & Sons restaurant in Savannah, GA).
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| Lexington Avenue Brewery |
The third and most recent trip I've taken to Asheville, as I said previously, was the Saturday during 4th of July weekend after sleeping on top of Black Mountain the night before. This time we were there we went to Lexington Avenue Brewery--also known as "the LAB." It turned out to be one of the better decisions of the weekend. We got a chance to try the Kobe Beef Sliders, Truffled Pommes Frites, the Old World Pretzels, and the Chorizo Chili Rellenos. All of the food was delicious and I honestly cannot pick out one bad thing to say about anything we had. On top of having amazing food, L.A.B. has good beer. I had a pint of the LAB IPA but we got a flight of some of the other beers so we could taste them as well. The beers we ended up liking the best were the Chocolate Stout, the American Pale Ale, and the Belgian White Ale.
Thus, if you haven't been to Asheville or the North Carolina mountains, you should go. By not going you are simply depriving yourself of an area that offers amazing beer and food and is tremendously rich in Western NC culture.
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