Nantahala Brewing Company - Bryson City, NC

Hello all!

I hope you guys all had a great Labor Day, celebrating all things labor-y. I went camping with Matt's family on the Nantahala, and while there we went in to explore the adorable Bryson City.

One awesome thing about Bryson City: there is a brewery right downtown! So we obviously went, and sampled all of the beers on their menu. Never before have I had craft bear so reasonably price. a pint was only $4. That may seem steep for a Bud Light, but this was better than a Bud Light could ever be. It was high in alcohol (at least 5% on all but 1 beer) and had flavour, colour, and names aptly titled for the mountain region. The building was inside of an old warehouse, and had been finished to look like the outside of a cabin. Stairwells with natural coloured pine and balconies with beautiful detail in the railings. There were plenty of ways to have fun if you weren't happy sitting at one of their giant spool tables, you could play cornhole, darts, or giant Jenga (which I now totally want to make a set). You could tell the owners had a lot of passion for the beer and wanted the place to reflect it.

We were also able to get one of the owners to give us a tour of their facility. Be becoming the beer lover that I am, I found it facinating. I love going to small brewery's and seeing what they do to distinguish their beers from others. It's always something small that creates a great change in the brewing process.

We liked the place so much, we went back the next night. And of course, we made friends. While sitting outside drinking App Trail Pale Ale (me) and Dirt Girl Blonde (matt), we overheard some gentlemen in hiking clothes talking with an accent I couldn't place. After asking them about it and learning they are Polish that now live and work in Chicago, and are hiking along the app trail this weekend, we all became great friends. We learned Polish toasts, talked about English grammar, why the South has much better nature than Chicago, and all decided to meet up in Colorado to go skiing at the beginning of the year (no lie, we exchanged e-mails and everything).

Since they had hiked 3 miles into town just for pizza and beer (livin' the american dream!) they sent their girl to find them a ride. Unfortunately, the ride was some weird guy who made the U.S. Coast Guard look bad by wearing a giant medallion with the USCG symbol on a pucca shell necklace. So every time he walked away, we would laugh and everyone but Matt and I would say something Polish. and USCG boy actually thought we were Polish too. I guess our laughter had a European accent to it.