USA, NC: Canarchy Craft Brewery Collective to open a brewpub in Asheville

The Canarchy Craft Brewery Collective is expanding its presence in North Carolina, Brewbound reported.

The Fireman Capital-backed brewery rollup — which includes Oskar Blues, Cigar City, Deep Ellum Brewing, Three Weavers, Perrin Brewing and the Utah Brewers Cooperative (Wasatch and Squatters) — announced on November 15 plans to open a brewpub — in Asheville, about 30 miles north of Oskar Blues’ production facility in Brevard.

Dubbed “The Canarchy Collaboratory,” the new outpost will occupy the soon-to-close Lexington Avenue Brewery (LAB) space.

Canarchy president Matt Fraser told Brewbound that LAB would likely continue operating through the end of the year, and that Canarchy would take over the space on January 2. The company plans to reopen the location in March 2019 after undergoing renovations.

“For the Oskar Blues brand, North Carolina became our second biggest state pretty much over night after building the brewery,” he said. “We want to be big in our backyards. North Carolina is a home market for Canarchy, and it’s a fantastic community with a lot of tourism. And it’s a great beer town.”

In a press release, LAB owner Mike Healy explained that he was “looking for a change” after running the brewpub for nine years and recently becoming a father.

“I believe I’m leaving LAB in good hands with Canarchy – they have experience running successful brewpubs,” said Healy, who will now be Canarchy’s landlord. “Plus, they’ll put time and resources into creating exciting new brews and experiences for craft beer drinkers in Asheville.”

According to Fraser, Canarchy will make a “substantial investment” to increase the brewing capacity by 15 percent and more than double the seating capacity in a move that will enable the company to serve upwards of 250 guests at a time.

“We’re doing a full remodel of the place, so we’ll be investing some good dollars,” said Fraser, who declined to share specific financial details.

Leading the operation will be Cigar City brewmaster Wayne Wambles, who lives in North Carolina. Wambles had been splitting time between Cigar City’s Tampa facility and Oskar Blues’ Brevard location, while also traveling the globe to create collaboration beers.

“So Wayne’s day-to-day isn’t going to change drastically from what it is now,” Fraser said. “He’ll hopefully be doing a lot of those collaborations from partnerships across the globe in Asheville itself, in the Collaboratory.”

“Having brewed well over 150 collaborations in my career, I know the value that those projects bring to both drinkers and brewers,” Wambles said, via a press release. “It’s a mutual exploration of culture, raw materials and process that exceeds the act of simply breaking bread with friends and colleagues.”

When The Collaboratory opens in March, the pub’s 20 taps will pour existing Canarchy core products (such as Cigar City Jai Alai and Oskar Blues Dale’s Pale Ale), existing collaboration beers and limited-edition, small-batch collaborations from breweries in the Asheville area and beyond, Canarchy CMO Patrick Dougherty told Brewbound.

“There will definitely be some collabs and beers that you can only get there,” he said.

Canarchy isn’t the only craft brewery collective to launch a co-branded brewery and taproom in North Carolina.

Artisanal Brewing Ventures (ABV), the family office-backed holding company formed in early 2016 via the merger of Victory Brewing and Southern Tier, opened Brewers at 4001 Yancey in Charlotte this past summer. That facility currently brews and sells offerings from Southern Tier and Victory, and will be adding Sixpoint Brewery products following last week’s acquisition of the company.

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