East Flat Rock, NC. Yet again.

We are back in North Carolina for a reunion of the participants of last year’s dog training course. We had the day together before Barbara went off to a dinner with her friends, so we started with a fantastic Greek omelet at Kosta’s Restaurant in Fletcher, NC. We followed that up with a visit to the Sierra Nevada Brewery adjacent to the Asheville Airport.

The Brewery tours are evidently pretty popular, at least in the summer, because it turned out you needed reservations and they are booked about six weeks out. Bummer. We did the self-guided tour and had a good time anyway. They have a very large taproom and restaurant, but as nice as a beer sounded, it was still a little early for us to start drinking. We will save that for next time.

The Sierra Nevada Brewery story is one that I like. A couple guys start home brewing beer in their garage back in 1989 and after getting a couple of recipes right they thought that they might try to do it on a larger scale. They bought a storefront in Chico, CA and put together a ten-barrel operation. That grew and a taproom was added. Soon they were importing a salvaged 100-barrel brewing system from Germany. That facility was eventually doubled, and when demand continued to outstrip production, they built this beautiful new 200-barrel brewery here in North Carolina.

In this age where so many are looking for government handouts, or blaming everyone else for their financial situation, it is nice to read a story of a couple guys who went out there and made something happen. Thanks to them, not only were hundreds of jobs created, but also we all have some damned good beer to drink. God bless ‘em.