Asheville Brewing Company - Downtown

The arrival of my dad for a day and a half meant more dining out. This time we actually went out since we do not yet have a table or chairs to eat on, and my dad wanted to see downtown Asheville - which I don't think he cared much for the crazy hippy, far left scene. I enjoy it for the local offerings and let the crazy crazies be themselves since I have not been forced into crazy poetry recitals or weird gigs where the band sings about how "We should let everyone do whatever they want and be who they want to be...except killing people. Killing people is wrong!" The fact that adding that disclaimer was necessary was the humorous part. I guess I was there for that.

So tonight we tried the second of three pizza places on my List so far, Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company in downtown. The Merrimon Ave. location has a theatre, whereas the Coxe location does not. As they brew their own beer (they are a brewery), I also wanted to try the beer on tap since the Asheville local craft beer scene is so good. The five of us ordered the Napoleon Dynamite Sticks ("Pizza shell with garlic butter & cheese, cut in strips and served with our homemade marinara sauce."), a pepperoni pizza with parmigiano dough (for P, Bean Counter and mom to share), and an onion, mushroom, tofu and provolone pizza with black peppercorn dough and red sauce. For the beer I chose their Shiva.

Napoleon Dynamite Sticks: Ordered for P's sake. With the butter and cheese I did not try much. They aren't sticking in my mind, so maybe there were just ok?

Pizza: I tried the crust on the parmigiano dough pizza - definitely a parmigiano cheese flavor which gave it a more buttery feel. I can see why P liked it so much. It was really good, but probably not something I would order on a pizza specifically for myself. The black peppercorn pizza I shared with Bean Counter. Its taste wasn't as pronounced as much as the Parimgiano dough until you got to the crust and dough by itself. The peppercorn gave it a very slightly different taste with, surprise, a black pepper hint. It was good in that it played a background note and didn't hammer the pepper home into your noise and throat. The other notable here was the tofu. Many places that offer tofu dishes do so as an after thought, a side note, and without much understanding of what to do with it. That usually results in a poorly used ingredient and without much imagination: "Throw the cubed tofu on there as is. That'll make the vegetarians happy." Asheville Brewing Company did a good ingredient in their tofu. It was marinated in something more than just a sauce to give tofu taste, and played good with the pizza.

Beer: The Shiva was good. But honestly I'll have to go back to try it again as P was nearing the end of being agreeable. I didn't get to focus much on it or really enjoy it. But it is supposed to be an American IPA - which I thought was supposed to be less of what an IPA is supposed to be in that it is way more hoppy. Told hold me to it, but I think it was not as hoppy as a typical American IPA. Instead it was more of a traditional IPA, more pale, and good citrus flavors.