Business

Brewery planned for Busy Bend

By Bill Moss, Published: August 10, 2017

Although it’s not Beer City yet, Hendersonville seems to be trying to catch up to the craft beer capital to the west..

Dry Falls Brewing Co., a father-and-son team from Weaverville, plans to open a brewery in the 77-year-old Oates Paint & Body Shop by late this year.
Jeff Golliher, 56, and his son, Evan, are weekend home brewers who have plans to transform the 5,900-square-foot shop by constructing the brewery on the right and a taproom on the left, behind double garage doors.
Figuring there were enough breweries in Asheville, they asked a real estate agent to look for a suitable building in Hendersonville.
“When our realty agent found it and we first looked at it, we said, ‘Hey, this is it.’ … We want to do our very best to maintain the historic character of the building and appreciate the long tradition and history of it,” he said. “My wife’s a social studies and history teacher.”
They plan to add parking behind the building.
“We actually own both the buildings,” he said. “We plan to do some remodeling to the smaller one to increase space between the two. We talked about maybe leasing it out for a potential coffee shop. Our main focus is to get the main building back in restored condition.”

Like Asheville, which has won national polls as Beer City USA several times, Hendersonville is becoming a craft beer hotbed in its own right. Dry Falls would be the seventh brewery in Henderson County ranging from one of the largest on the East Coast to microbreweries. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. attracts thousands of craft beer drinkers to Mills River. The Blue Ghost pours beer in Fletcher. Hendersonville has three now, with Triskelion and now Dry Falls set to open this year.
A contractor pulled a permit last week for the body shop renovation construction last week.
“We’re doing interior demolition and a roof,” said Alfred Bottego of Precision Craftsmen of Asheville. “We’re going to put new roof and dry out the whole building and reconfigure the inside for a tasting room.”
Plans call for brewing tanks on the right side and the tasting room behind the double garage doors on the left.
“You’ll be able to see the brewing process and get the beer right out of pot and into the cooler and right out of the tap,” Bottego said. “This is new coming out of the ground. He’s just a local guy and this is a venture he wanted to pursue.”
Bottego said he plans to be done with the construction work by Thanksgiving.
“I know he’s going through all the due diligence and licensing,” he said of Golliher. “My concern is obviously the construction.”
Golliher both have fulltime jobs now.
“We’ll eventually do this fulltime,” he said. “We’ll be hiring a brewer to take care of the brewing operation we’ll have kind of a taproom manager to oversee the taproom activities. This thing’s kind of a family affair for us. It’s me, my wife and son. Home brewing is kind of a weekend passion for us.”
They plan to be open 4- 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, noon-midnight Friday and Saturday and Sunday afternoon until 8 p.m.
Golliher likes the location.
“I always tell everybody, ‘Do you know where the hot dog place is and they say ‘oh yeah, yeah.’”

The owners have no plans for food other than offering snacks for sale and possibly partnering with food trucks. They hope to open in late November or early December.
The family is considering calling the public side of the house the Busy Bend Taproom.