People often ask me how I stay so slim drinking as much beer as I do. After LMAO at the idea of being considered “slim,” I generally answer something about not eating fast food, watching what I eat, and exercising. Admittedly, that last part is often a challenging routine to maintain, but we’ve developed something we like to call “Hike-n-Beer.” Basically, it’s a hike followed by a session of beer drinking. During the summer Chris and I hike with the dogs and drink beer afterwards almost every weekend, but it doesn’t really become Hike-n-Beer unless we’re joined by friends.
We try to maintain this routine even while on our trips and hiking is one of the easiest forms of exercise while traveling. Our Western North Carolina itinerary included a hike in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park with our friends and fellow beer trekkers, Matt and Michelle.
The morning after Wednesday’s Urban Beer Hike in Asheville, we were all moving a little slow. Even so, we managed to pile ourselves in the car and drive over an hour to the park. Driving in Western North Carolina is a beautiful sight–clean, fresh air, lots of green grass, and loads of trees lining the road. It was also an interesting experience to drive through Cherokee, a town at the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the headquarters of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
Interspersed with vintage motels we passed shops that sold “1,000 styles of moccasins,” “authentic Indian crafts,” and “rat cheese.” We had no idea what that last thing was, but it just didn’t sound right to us.
We started our 6-mile hike at a trail head located in a campground. It started out slow and we meandered on a path along the river. Leaves frequently fell from the canopy of trees above, a sign that fall had arrived. Before we knew it, however, the terrain turned steep and the uphill climb seemed to go on forever. The tree cover was beautiful, but even at the top, we could only get slight glimpses of the mountains and valley below because the trees blocked the view. From what I could see, the mountains were covered in green with patches of rust here and there. Give it another few weeks and the mountain sides will be an amazing display of bright red fall foliage. The lack of full view was okay, though, because by the time we reached the top, we all had beer on the brain. It wasn’t lingering we had in mind, but rather getting to the beer part of Hike-n-Beer.
After two and a half hours, we were back at the car and a short time after that, we arrived at our first stop: Heinzelmännchen Brewery in Sylva, North Carolina.
Sylva is a small historic town of around 3,000 people; the perfect location for a quaint brewery with a gnome for a logo and “Your Gnometown Brewery” for a motto. Heinzelmännchen had several beers available to taste, including the Weise Gnome Hefeweizen (described as a “clear wheat ale”), Middleworld Brown Ale (a light-bodied malty brew), and the Black Forest Stout, which was a Schwarzbier.
We enjoyed our samples while wandering around the brewery (Chris especially liked the flag that read “Chillin’ with my gnomies”) and chatting with Deiter, the bräumeister. He even suggested a tasty little cafe for lunch where we could get the brewery’s Gnarly Gnome, a Black IPA not available at the brewery for tasting.
Heinzelmännchen Brewery bills itself as the “beer brewed for food” and they offer a cookbook of their favorite recipes for sale, as well as offer monthly food and beer pairing events. While the beers weren’t quite as authentically German as we were expecting (and I hoping), they were solid and tasted refreshing after our hike.
After lunch at the City Lights Cafe up the street, we were back on the road and headed to Bryson City and Nantahala Brewing. Located on across from the Great Smoky Mountain railroad stop, Nantahala is housed in a large quonset hut that is divided into several businesses, including the brewery, a bar, and a kayak rental company.
Inside, Nantahala was huge with the feel of an airplane hangar. With more than enough floor space, a long bar and a large projector television, the bartender assured us that during football games, the place is packed. The tourist season is almost over, however, and having been open only since March, the bartender wasn’t sure what business would look like in the slow season.
Nantahala had all three of their year-round brews available for tasting. Chris especially liked their flagship beer, Noon Day IPA, a 6% brew with a piney hop flavor. In addition to the Dirty Girl Blonde Ale and Summer Wheat seasonal offerings, they served a Belgian Extra Pale Ale, their App Trail Extra Pale ale fermented with Belgian yeast. This was a popular one with our group.
The beers at Nantahala were tasty and the atmosphere fun and playful, but we were losing steam fast. The hike, sun, and beer had all caught up with us. During the ride back to Asheville, I thought it might be time to add an a new part to our Hike-n-Beer: Hike-n-Beer-n-Sleep.
