THERE'S SIERRA NEVADA IN MILLS RIVER, OSKAR BLUE IN BREVARD, SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN IN HENDERSONVILLE, AND NEW BELGIUM IN WEST ASHEVILLE...NOW A NEW CRAFT BEER MAKER PLANS TO OPEN UP IN FLETCHER

The latest town landing its own craft brewery will be Fletcher, where Blue Ghost Brewing looks to pour its first pints next year.

The Asheville Citizen-Times reports...

Named for the famous glowing Blue Ghost fireflies that flutter through Dupont State Forest, the brewery will be a community gathering spot in Fletcher, which has been without its own craft brewery, said founder Erik Weber. The location is an existing 4,000-square-foot building at 125 Underwood Road, not far from Asheville Regional Airport. Weber has ordered an American-made one barrel brewing system, but is hoping to expand to a 10-barrel system within a year, and then to open a farmhouse brewery.

"There is beer in Asheville and there is beer in Hendersonville, but there's not much in between," he said. "We want to create a natural ale trail" between the two cities, he said.

Weber, originally from Eire, Pennsylvania, formerly worked at Oskar Blues Brewery in Brevard. He studied brewing at Blue Ridge Community College, and then taught there. "I've wanted to open a brewery for 10 years," he said. "I wanted it to be more than a brewery." Blue Ghost will have outdoor spaces - one of them surrounding a century-old oak tree - and Weber plans to host a farmer's market at the site. The brewery will open without food offerings, "but within six months, we'll add a small kitchen and focus on gourmet pizzas," he said. He plans on delivering  pizzas and beer growlers to the many hotels and motels in the area.

Many new breweries run into issues finding a name that hasn't been claimed by someone else, but Weber thinks he has the rights to the Blue Ghost name. "That has been one of our biggest challenges," he said. "We had several other names that we loved, but Internet searches showed that some other brewery had it, or that it was used for a beer."

Blue Ghost will produce four core brews: a drinkable blonde ale, a traditional West Coast IPA, a pale ale and a stout. He also plans a changing Blue Ghost series of beers,

Blue Ghost is the latest craft brewery to emerge in Western North Carolina, where more than 40 brewing companies are now open,. With the arrival of new operations that are planned or are under construction, the area will have nearly 50 breweries including the national brands Sierra Nevada in Mills River, Oskar Blues in Brevard and New Belgium which is building in West Asheville.