Mills River Business
MILLS RIVER — More than 2,500 people are expected to “Prost like a Pro!” with authentic German beer, food and music at Sierra Nevada's third annual Oktoberfest under tents on the brewery grounds.
Tickets are still available for the celebration from 5 to 10 p.m. Saturday.
Sierra Nevada brewed year’s Oktoberfest beer, available on tap and in stores since July, in collaboration with Brahaus Miltenberger of Germany, Brian Grossman, second generation brewer and vice president of Sierra Nevada, said during a media preview of Saturday's celebration on Tuesday.Sausage and kraut top the menu, along with sauerbraten and red cabbage, wood-roasted pig, German potato salad, brussels sprouts, a harvest salad and German chocolate cake cupcakes.The Minor Mishap Marching Band from Austin, Texas, will lead partiers into the tent to kick off the festivities, followed by Sirius B with its gypsy folk sound. The Mountain Top Polka Band from West Asheville closes out the night.Keg throwing is the new contest this year, joining the mustache and “Chicken Dance” contests. Hot Glass Academy and Asheville Area Arts Council will provide glass blowing demonstrations, and select items will be auctioned off to benefit the Arts Council.General admission tickets cost $45 and include the meal, a commemorative beer stein, entertainment, shuttle and one drink or pretzel. Additional beer, pretzels or cupcakes cost $5. Designated driver tickets are $30, with water, lemonade or ice tea as the beverage.Complimentary shuttles from downtown Hendersonville will start at 4:30 p.m. from the Grove Street Courthouse parking lot. Parking is also available at the WNC Agricultural Center, where shuttle service will start at 4 p.m. No parking will be allowed at the Sierra Nevada site.For more information and to purchase tickets, go to http://www.sierranevada.com/oktoberfestnc. Read Story »
Hendersonville Business
Twenty attorneys in 29 different areas of law for the Van Winkle Law Firm have been named to the 24th edition of The Best Lawyers in America, which has been called “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice” by Corporate Counsel magazine. In addition, three Van Winkle attorneys received the highest overall peer feedback for a specific practice area and have been recognized as “Lawyer of the Year,” including trust and estates specialist Robert H. Haggard of the Van Winkle’s Hendersonville office. Also recognized from the Hendersonville office were Adam L. Shealy, trusts and estates, and Caroline T. Knox, elder law.Others were Jones P. Byrd – Litigation – Real Estate; Stephen J. Grabenstein – Litigation – Trusts & Estates; Albert L. Sneed Jr. - Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights / Insolvency and Reorganization Law; Commercial Litigation; Corporate Law; Allan R. Tarleton - Medical Malpractice Law – Defendants; Workers' Compensation Law – Employers; Carleton C. Metcalf – Litigation – Banking & Finance; Caroline T. Knox – Elder Law; Carolyn L. Coward - Corporate Compliance Law; Health Care Law; Craig D. Justus – Land Use and Zoning Law; Litigation – Land Use & Zoning; Dale A. Curriden – Commercial Litigation; Medical Malpractice Law – Defendants; Personal Injury Litigation – Defendants; Professional Malpractice Law – Defendants; David M. Wilkerson – Litigation – Patent; Esther E. Manheimer - Appellate Practice; Litigation – Land Use & Zoning; Litigation – Real Estate; Larry C. Harris - Business Organizations (including LLCs and Partnerships); Closely Held Companies and Family Businesses Law; Commercial Transactions / UCC Law; Corporate Law; Mergers and Acquisitions Law; Larry M. McDevitt - Commercial Litigation; Medical Malpractice Law – Defendants & Plaintiffs; Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs; Litigation – Patent’ Lindsay P. Thompson – Real Estate Law; John G. Kelso – Trusts & Estates; Jones P. Byrd – Construction Law; Eminent Domain and Condemnation Law; Litigation – Real Estate; Medical Malpractice Law – Plaintiffs; Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs; Mark A. Pinkston - Bankruptcy and Creditor Debtor Rights / Insolvency and Reorganization Law; Mortgage Banking Foreclosure Law; Stephen J. Grabenstein - Commercial Litigation; Litigation – Trusts & Estates; Trusts & Estates; Phillip J. Smith - Commercial Litigation; Construction Law; Litigation – Construction; Barry B. Kempson (Of Counsel) – Trusts & Estates. Read Story »
Hendersonville Business
Brief hed
Crowded craft beerscene claims casualty
As if to signify the financial risks of the food and beverage business, Brooks Tavern is opening just as Basic Brewery, across the street, closed its doors on Sept. 3. The increasingly competitive and crowded microbrewery scene claimed its first casualty downtown when the owners announced that Basic has closed.Started a year and half ago by Linda and Rich Wenger, Basic Brewery went up against the established Southern Appalachian and Sanctuary Brewing Co. and also competed with Flat Rock Cider Works on Main Street. Two more microbreweries are planning to open by the end of the year — Triskelion on Seventh Avenue and Dry Falls in the old Oates Paint and Body Shop on Kanuga Road’s Busy Bend.“As many of you know Rich has continued to work fulltime in Greenville, S.C., in addition to co-owning our brewery in Hendersonville,” the owners said in a note on the brewpub’s door. “That daily commute and those job responsibilities along with an ongoing health issue in the family are the reasons for our decision to close.“We are at peace with our decision and very much look forward to our future endeavors,” the couple said. “A huge thank you to all those wonderful individuals who supported and really appreciated our nanobrewery and our beers.” Read Story »
Henderson County Business
Greater Asheville Regional Airport Authority has been awarded $5,053,216 of discretionary grant funds by the U.S. Department of Transportation to help finish the airport's new runway project.
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Saluda Business
Mark Ray was telling a visitor about how he’d recruited Dennis Dunlap to fly his vintage 1943 Stearman biplane over a celebration of Berkeley Mills baseball park on Sept. 16 when he heard a distinctive sound from outside.
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Henderson County Business
Alan Ward and Marvin Owings make a formidable team — a portfolio manager who’s become an innovator in wine-making, hard cider and now distilling and a retired farm agent who's one of the area’s leading experts on the science of growing apples.
“I give Marvin a hard time but we kind of complement each other,” Ward says recently in the cavernous old barn he’s converted into his newest tasting room venture. “I couldn’t have done this without Marvin.”After more than two years of planning and renovation, Ward expects to open his new Appalachian Ridge tasting room, maybe as early as Labor Day weekend. When he does open, visitors will be able to sample not only hard cider but brandy and French pommeau, a blend of Calvados brandy and hard cider.The 70-year-old barn itself is an impressive adaptive reuse. Built in the late 1940s by apple farmer Walter Freeman, the structure has a towering ceiling and irregularly shaped floorboards made of different kinds of wood.“When he was getting ready to buy this property and this barn you would not believe the stuff that was in this barn,” Owings says. Workers blasted the floor clean, caulked between the floorboards and added a series of finishes.And now the barn has a long wooden table hand-crafted by Ward’s son, Brian, a pediatrician in Boone and woodworker on the side, other tables made of stable doors, a long apple-themed bar decorated with stained glass images and a two-level deck overlooking Ward’s Crest of the Blue Ridge orchard.“We could’ve torn down this barn and done it for a fraction of the price,” he says. “But we didn’t. … It is beyond solid. And that deck we put on the back — we made that as a tough as a railroad trestle. We tried to do everything we could to keep it real. Everything you see inside is the way this barn was. We tried to keep everything authentic.”Talk about authentic. Don’t get Ward started. Or do get him started. No one can stop him.When Ward and Owings get started about Normandy and their search for apple varieties that are perfect for cider, pommeau and brandy, they’re a tag team of narrators unable to conceal their enthusiasm.Back in 2004, Owings invited French apple farmers named the Huets to the Winter Apple School in Hendersonville. They got reacquainted over the last couple of years when Ward and Owings traveled to the Normandy region —a few hundred yards from Omaha Beach — to observe the French harvesting and pressing and buy native trees that go back hundreds of years.With Owings handling the growing side, the partners will receive 5,200 one-year-old trees of 14 different varieties this winter to plant on the slope behind the big barn.
SUBHEDWine to cider to brandy
Ward pours samples of the brandy and pommeau into 300-year-old brandy glasses he brought home from France.“Who knows who drank out of that, maybe Marie Antoinette,” he quips.After starting Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards in 2012, Ward expanded into hard cider and now is launching his distillery.“We now have a distillation license and we are going to build a distillery in that hill over there,” he says. He’s working with Blue Ridge Distillation, which makes the highly regarded Defiant single-malt whisky in Rutherford County.“There some of the most advanced people we’ve found that understand distillation,” Ward says. “These guys can really check it out scientifically where we’re getting what we want.”Local, though, is a big part of what Ward preaches and practices. What he doesn’t grow himself, he buys from local apple farmers. Ward’s grower, Wayne Barnwell, blends seven different varieties of apples to make the base for hard cider.No offense, Ward adds, but “what about craft beer is local except the water? The hops, the grain, they’re not local. This is truly a local product where we can take you out and show you where this comes from. The money that we pay out stays in North Carolina,” he adds. “Probably 90 percent of it stays in Henderson County.”Ward says the trips to Normandy, the importing of French apple trees from stock that dates back hundreds of years and the care in growing, aging and distilling is all part of a mission to produce “something that’s of value and merit, because people that buy brandy, they’re going to pay between $35 and $50 a bottle. This is taking an apple product that takes three years to age. A lot of people want to just get it out there. You can’t do that.”He hopes that the quality of brandy and hard cider will attract tasters from near and far, and he expects to add online sales, too.“We don’t want to come out with something that people buy just because it’s local,” he says. “We want people to buy the things we produce because they’re excellent, not because they’re just OK.” Read Story »
Green River Business
TUXEDO — Classic diner staples and country favorites with a twist make up the menu at Tuxedo Diner, the newest taste of the south serving Tuxedo.
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Flat Rock Business
FLAT ROCK — Electric car drivers now have a new convenient charging station in the Village of Flat Rock.
Funded by Duke Energy, the two EV stations are among more than 200 the utility is installing in partnerships with cities and towns that have public space available. The charging stations are in the Village Hall parking lot.
"We expect our out-of-town visitors and local residents to take advantage of the new stations," Mayor Bob Staton said. "Not only will they be available 24-7 but they're easy to use."
Drivers should register at chargepoint.com to open an account.
A $10,000 grant from Duke covered most of the cost of the installation, which was coordinated by Vice Mayor Nick Weedman.
According to Advanced Energy, a nonprofit group, there are about 7,330 electric vehicles and 938 public charging ports in North Carolina.
"Adoption of EVs depends on a robust infrastructure for consumers," Duke President David Fountain said in a statement.
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North Carolina Business
State Rep. Chuck McGrady, the go-to specialist on environmental legislation in the state House, has been appointed to co-chair of a commission that will look into an industrial plant's discharge of the chemical GenX into the Cape Fear River in Bladen County.
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