Big time set for Hi-Wire’s Big Top

ASHEVILLE, NC — Circus acts, rare one-off brews, carnival games, free brewery tours, live music, food trucks, and more will highlight the grand opening of Hi-Wire Brewing Company’s Biltmore Big Top production brewery and tasting room. The event kicks off at 5:00 P.M. this Saturday, July 25.

Final preparations have been underway for the past couple weeks, and the brewery site is still a beehive of activity. The high-speed bottling line was the last major piece being installed during the final days leading up to Saturday’s big event.

Brewing on the new 30-barrel brewhouse has begun. Having just arrived back in mid-May, the German-made brewhouse was installed as quickly as possible so beer production could begin.

The brewing schedule has been full as the brewery fills its many fermentation tanks in preparation to begin bottling operations. The facility will make all Hi-Wire’s core brands and seasonals. On the Monday morning prior to Saturday’s opening, a batch of Hi-Pitch India Pale Ale was being brewed. That’s the beer the brewery calls a western North Carolina West Coast-style IPA with huge citrus aromas and balanced body and bitterness.

To ferment the wort coming out of the new brewhouse, the brewery installed a bunch of beautiful 90-barrel fermentation tanks that take up about half of the back side of the building. It will take three runs of the brewhouse to fill each 90-barrel fermenter tank.

After fermentation is completed, the beer will be sent to the super-efficient, high-speed bottling line and packaged in 12-oz bottles. The bottles, in turn, will be loaded into six-pack carriers, packed in case cartons, and prepared for shipping out to the market.

Bringing all production in-house

The Big Top installation will allow the brewery to produce and bottle all its own product, as well as provide the capacity to expand distribution across North Carolina and to other states. Formerly, several of Hi-Wire’s more popular bottled beers were produced under contact by Lazy Magnolia Brewing Company in Kiln, Mississippi.

Bringing all beer production and bottling home to Asheville is a big step forward for Hi-Wire, which desires to become a major Asheville brewery.

Prior to starting up the Big Top brewery, the company brewed on a small system at its downtown Asheville brewery/tasting room location. That system’s production capacity has been maxed out for some time.

Hi-Wire’s two-year-old downtown tasting room brewery will remain open but will shift its focus to making one-offs, experimental, and special, small-batch beers. The Big Top brewhouse is ten times the size of Hi-Wire’s original downtown brewhouse.

Circus-themed tasting room open to the action

Located at one end of the Big Top brewery building, the tasting room is open to the production facility, sitting just past the bottling and packaging area. It’s colorful circus-themed tables and architectural decorations make it a fun place to observe all the brewery action.

Hi-Wire features four approachable year-round “Main Attraction” beers – Prime Time Pale, Hi-Pitch IPA, Bed of Nails Brown, and Hi-Wire Lager. Add to that line-up of rotating series of seasonals, such as the upcoming Zirkusfest Oktoberfest Lager, and you have a lot to look forward to when visiting the new tasting room.

Once open, tours of the new facility will be offered daily.  Later, Big Top will also have an outdoor beer garden area.

Take a look around the Biltmore Big Top

The outdoor grain silo holds the primary malted barley used in most Hi-Wire beers.

Each beer has its own recipe or malt bill of base malt and specialty malts that give different tastes, colors, and character to the forthcoming beer.

The mill room contains the grist mill that grinds the base and specialty malts into grist that is then fed into the mash tun, which is the first vessel of the four-vessel brewhouse.

The spacious, 26,000+ sq. ft. facility gives the brewery room to grow production over time. Its multiple loading docks provide great access for receiving supplies and shipping out packaged beer.

The new facility is located at Two Huntsman Place in the Biltmore Village area of Asheville, directly behind Appalachian Vintner’s bottle shop.  It is about one half mile away from the Biltmore Estate and less than two miles from High Wire’s downtown Asheville brewery.

It should prove to be another must-see attraction for craft beer tourists and locals alike.

More details and hours of operation of both facilities are listed on the brewery’s website and Facebook page.