News

LIBATION NATION: Tour blends education and fun

Beer expert Gary Glancy operates The Brewery Experience, which offers a four-hour driving tour of Bold Rock Hard Cider and the Sierra Nevada and Blue Ghost breweries.

By Bill Moss, Published: July 18, 2016

Gary Glancy, a certified beer expert in a locale teeming with amateurs, took the plunge with a new business that he hopes will catch craft beer’s wave of popularity.

“With the craft renaissance that is unfolding as we speak I just thought it was about time,” he says when asked why he started the Brewery Experience, his guided tour of two breweries and a cidery in Henderson County. “We not only have possibly the most beautiful brewery in the world in the county but now we have, with Sanctuary just having opened up, Basic Brewery, Stags Head’s coming soon, Blue Ghost just opened. It was really time.”
Add Southern Appalachian Brewery, the first craft brewery in Hendersonville, and Henderson County has five craft breweries. A sixth is set to open within a year.
The Brewery Experience provides tours of the breweries in Greenville, S.C., and in Henderson County.
Glancy, a former newspaper reporter and avid runner, made a “Forrest Gump” parody in which he visit breweries across the country while reenacting movie scenes. A certified Cicerone, the beer equivalent of a wine sommelier, he’s a serious student of the art of malt and hops.
“There’s only about a dozen of us in Western North Carolina and there’s only one other tour operator right now who’s got it,” he says.

'Knowledge-based, fun tour'

After beer tourists book their seats, they meet Glancy at the Visitors Center parking lot in Hendersonville.
“I’ll tell them how to enjoy different kinds of beer, different styles, glassware, beer and food pairings,” he says. “It’s really an all-encompassing experience.”
He also touts his private party tours.
He’s led trips for wedding parties, corporate retreats, clubs and conventions. His door-to-door tours pick up and drop off tour guests at their hotel or home.
The tour, with tastings at Bold Rock Hard Cider, Sierra Nevada and Blue Ghost, a new brewery in Fletcher, takes about four hours. The tour costs $54 to $59 depending on the day.
“We have music along the way,” Glancy says. “It’s really a combination of fun and educational. It’s a knowledge-based tour where people have fun along the way.”
He loads a cooler on board in case people want to buy a six-pack or growler when they get home, although drinking on board is not permitted.
He praises the Henderson County Tourism Development Authority, which has promoted his brewery tour and one by Eva Ritchey’s Trolley Co.
“I can’t speak highly enough of how supportive they’ve been of my venture,” he says. “They’ve been willing to bend over backwards to do whatever it is to see me be successful.”
He is also developing a walking tour of the brewery taprooms in Hendersonville.
Glancy, who works at Catawba Brewing Co. in Asheville between tour guiding trips, has a serious but friendly way of imparting his knowledge of the libation he loves.
“Beer education and just showing my passion about craft beer is definitely where I’ve found my niche,” he says. “I’ve had good relationships with the breweries. I’m friends with the guys at Blue Ghost. I know many of the folks at Sierra Nevada.”
His niche has also found the right home.
Hendersonville is well positioned to feed off the brew boom that has helped Asheville to claim the title of Beer City USA.
“Asheville is a world-renowned beer destination,” Glancy says. “I see it all the time at Catawba where I work. You have people coming in from all over the place every day — visiting from Indiana, Chicago, Boston, and they’re coming just for beer — ‘beercations’ they call it.”

To book a tour on the Brewery Experience visit thebreweryexperience.com or call 828.216.1343.