Back in June, Charlie Papazian, a well known and respected beer expert in the US of A, conducted an online poll to decide which city will be titled ‘Beer City, USA’

After more than 16,000 votes, there was more or less a tie for first, between Portland, Oregon and Asheville, North Carolina. Charlie opted to make both cities winners, and more or less decided on one being Beer City West Coast, and the other being Beer City East Coast. Now, I don’t know a whole lot of Portland beers, but I do know Rogue, and I find it to be rather delicious. On the other hand, being born and raised and currently still living in Asheville, I have the breweries here practically on speed-dial. The results of the poll were not really a surprise to me, as I have long considered Asheville to have the best beer in the world. I say with conviction to many of my Pub Crawl customers, that our primary micro-breweries here can go toe-to-toe with the best breweries in the world. These staples of Asheville beer-culture are as follows:

Highland Brewing Company - The original Asheville micro-brewery.

Pisgah Brewing Company - Maker of my favorite beer that I have ever tried, the Valdese Coffee Stout.

French Broad Brewing Company - Maker of one of the finest Porters I’ve tasted.

Asheville Brewing Company - Maker of my favorite Scottish ale.

Wedge Brewing Company - Maker of the only Pale Ale I drink, and my favorite Belgian Wit.

And those are just the ones within fifteen miles of downtown Asheville! We also have opening up here in the near future, Craggy Brewing Company and Lexington Avenue Brewery. I have tasted some Craggy concoctions, and have found them to be quite appealing in the true Asheville fashion.

But considering that this is the last day of July, the Charlie Papazian poll is old news. It is simply brought up because recently there was another poll, this one from Imbibe Magazine, to decide which city has the best craft beer in the country. Once again, Asheville and Portland came out on top, but this time, Asheville had more than triple the votes of Portland. Granted, there was not an incredibly high turn out for the vote, only 740 total.

Regardless, it shows that Asheville is gaining more and more notoriety as one of the premiere beer cities in the country, if not the world.

Featuring prominently in Charlie’s poll is great, but winning in Imbibe, one of the leading print magazines in the country for the alcohol culture, is phenomenal. The next time I go out, I will be grabbing a local draft, and the toast will be to you, Asheville. Congratulations on being Beer City, USA. May you hold the title for many years to come.

I’d like to extend a warm welcome to our newest contributing editor here at CULTURE OF SPIRITS, my good friend Christopher McCollum. He’ll be aiding in efforts to keep the cultural elite well-informed, as well as helping keep another foot down against prevailing nastiness like Prohibition and the like.

Welcome Chris! For editorial queries, he can be reached at chris@cultureofspirits.com.

The Raleigh News and Observer reported yesterday that top-shelf liquor prices in North Carolina will begin to fall drastically as of August 1, 2009, as the depression crunch continues forcing consumers to opt against buying high-quality liquors. In order to boost sales, brands like Grey Goose are slashing prices competitively as incentives for buyers.

“High-end booze has been taking a sales hit as consumers have increasingly turned to bargain-priced liquor,” wrote journalist Mark Johnson. “Distillers of the good stuff are chopping their prices to hang on to recession-weary customers.”

In reality, “free market in action” may not be the best way to describe this instance of sudden price drops, since the prices of the various available brands themselves aren’t the only factors working against consumers of quality spirits. With economic constraints greatly limiting expendable income, regular consumers and frequent buyers are literally being forced to trade quality for quantity. Therefore, long term effects resulting from prices falling, especially in this case, may not look so good in terms of state revenue.

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