Asheville named a top-seven beer destination by the Travel Channel

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Another feather in our Beer City U.S.A. cap as Asheville gets more recognition from a major outlet, this time the Travel Channel.

Frankly, at this point it might be bigger news if someone made a list and we weren’t on it.

Shout-outs in this round go to Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, Thirsty Monk, Highland Brewing, and the Best Firkin Beer Festival.

The craft beer movement is on the rise, with more microbreweries popping up all over North America. With the recent “local motion” trend (where hotels, restaurants and bars are switching out big-name brands for local vendors), the public is getting a good taste of local beer scene. In fact, craft beer sales recently grew nearly 25% in the Southeast alone, and those numbers continue to rise. So gather up the boys, and head to these destinations that are fast becoming beer scene kings that offer some of the best suds in town.

Asheville, Beer City USA

They don’t call Asheville Beer City USA for the heck of it. The Southern city has 11 breweries — and counting! Asheville’s brewing community is diverse, with operations that range from the nanobrewery at the Thirsty Monk pub to the heavyweight Highland Brewing Company, the third largest brewery in the Southeast. What may be a testament to the growing beer scene here is that Sierra Nevada and New Belgium breweries will expand their East Coast expansions in Asheville later in 2012. The Best Firkin Beer Festival (named after the traditional beer cask, of course) made its debut in April 2012, and plenty other beer-centric events happen year-round.

The rest of the list includes L.A., Virginia, the Finger Lakes region, Atlanta, Toronto and Traverse City.

Read the whole thing here.