M: Food and Beer City USA

I have definitely been MIA lately, I won’t lie I have A LOT going on this month and next! Showers to host, wedding festivities to host (for my BF), a wedding to go to, parties to bake LOTS of cupcakes for, and of course a small vacation was snuck in there =) So my posts may not be quite as frequent due to all of these factors (because lets face it, sometimes with so much going on, you just don’t have time to be making gourmet meals or baking for fun!), but I did want to share a little of the hubs’ and my vacay in Asheville, NC.

We had an amazing time – we stayed in a beautiful cottage on top of Elk Mountain that was only 10 minutes from downtown. It was perfection! Our view:

I also don’t think it’s a secret that the hubs is a HUGE beer fanatic. I won’t lie, that was a pretty big reason why Asheville has been at the top of our travel list =) No wonder it was voted Beer City USA in 2010! So there was lots of this:

And a little of this:

Oh, don’t forget this:

My favorite places? By far the Thirsty Monk was our favorite bar, with its Belgian beer bar downstairs and numerous amazing microbrews upstairs.

Favorite place to eat? The Tupelo Honey Café – Ah-mazing! I even bought a container of their honey and a bag of their organic free trade coffee to take home.

All in all? Asheville was definitely one of the most laid back, beautiful, fun places we’ve visited. The mountains were breath-taking and I immediately felt comfortable and at-home there! They thrive on local commerce and heavily promote local, sustainable, organic products. Oh, and the beer? Yea, seriously fantastic. If you go, don’t forget to stop by Wedge, one of the local breweries that’s pretty small and doesn’t distribute, but their Russian Imperial Stout is out of this world and their other beers were right up there with it.

So, needless to say the hubs and I have already begun planning our next Asheville trip. I’m thinking in the fall because I’m not sure we can wait until next year! And so I leave you with this little piece of wisdom from the Thirsty Monk:

Cheers!