USA, NC: Cellarest Beer Project hoping to launch in Asheville come March

For years, the building on the corner of Haywood Road and Richmond Avenue in West Asheville was a tire shop, WLOS reported on February 15.

Come March, it will be Asheville’s newest brewery: Cellarest Beer Project.

“After a year of a build-out and two years before that of planning, we are in the home stretch right now,” said Cellarest Beer Project co-founder Harrison Fahrer.

When bars and breweries were unable to serve guests during the midst of the pandemic, Fahrer said "porch beers" became the new way of winding down.

“We hope this becomes the new porch,” Fahrer said.

He and his business partner, Mark Goodwin, are putting the final touches on Cellarest.

The pair plan to serve their own beer made on-site, while offering a laid back atmosphere with outside seating and local musicians.

“Just being able to get together and have a beer, have a conversation,” Fahrer said.

The new business owners will have some navigating to do, like operating a brewery in a time of restrictions due to the pandemic.

"With COVID, the half capacity right now because we are not a large building -- our half capacity is 20," Fahrer said. "That does put a little bit of strain on us especially as a new business."

He said sense of community is something that he and friends have missed over the last year, and that he hopes the brewery can provide that for people.

“It was all based on having a solid community -- a group of friends, people to talk to at the end of a hard day," Fahrer said. "So now we are kind of at the tail-end of a pandemic thinking, perfect time for a brewery."

The owners said they plan to have soft openings starting this week and plan to be fully open by March.

Cellarest Beer Project is located at 395 Haywood Road in Asheville.

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