Craft Beer Bars and Breweries in Asheville
Asheville, North Carolina — updated August 22, 2026
Asheville's beer drinking splits between production taprooms on the South Slope and downtown bars that pour someone else's kegs. Here's how the highest-rated rooms compare, with the review counts behind each score.
Listings verified
Asheville's drinking geography is easy to read: the production taprooms cluster on the South Slope just below downtown, with satellites out toward Biltmore Village and West Asheville, while the bars along Patton Avenue and Battery Park pour what the breweries make. This list leads with the two rooms that actually brew, then works outward to the bars ranked highest by Google reviewers. Where the research turns up no detail on a beer list, that is said plainly rather than papered over.
1. Burial Beer Co. South Slope Taproom
The most heavily reviewed brewery taproom in this group, and the one at the center of the South Slope. Burial holds a 4.7 across 2,177 reviews, which is a settled score rather than an early-days average: a rating that survives that much traffic is telling you something durable about the place. The address, 40 Collier Ave, puts it inside the brewery district rather than on its edge, so it works as a first or last stop on a walking route. Expect the weekend crush that comes with being the best-known name on the block, and go early in the afternoon if a seat matters.
2. Hi-Wire Brewing - Biltmore Village
The other genuine brewery on the list, and the reason to point a beer afternoon south of downtown. Hi-Wire's Biltmore Village location at 2A Huntsman Pl carries a 4.7 from 407 reviews. That is a smaller sample than Burial's, so treat it as strong but less thoroughly tested, though 400-plus reviews is well past the point where a single bad night moves the number. Being in Biltmore Village rather than the South Slope makes it the easier stop if the day already includes the Biltmore area, and it keeps you out of the downtown parking scrum.
3. Haywood Common
The West Asheville entry, at 507 Haywood Rd, and the highest-volume non-brewery bar outside the downtown core. Haywood Common rates 4.6 from 954 reviews, a well-established score built on close to a thousand visits. The research turns up no specifics on what is on tap here, so this is a recommendation about the room and its record rather than about a particular pour. It earns a place on a beer itinerary mainly as the stop that gets you across the river and out of the tourist blocks, which is where a lot of Asheville drinking actually happens.
4. The Times Bar & Coffee Shop
The highest-rated bar in this group: 4.8 from 579 reviews at 56 Patton Ave, in the thick of downtown. Nearly 600 reviews is enough to call that score reliable rather than promising. The Times runs as both a coffee shop and a bar, which makes it the useful hinge in a day that starts with caffeine and ends with a drink. The brief includes no detail on its draft list, so come for a well-reviewed downtown bar rather than a specific beer, and note that a Patton Avenue address means it fills when downtown fills.
5. Luminosa
Also a 4.8, from 520 reviews, at 20 Battery Park Ave on the ground floor. That is a strong rating on a solid sample, just behind The Times on volume. Luminosa sits on one of downtown's busiest short blocks, which makes it a practical add to a walking circuit rather than a destination trip. As with the other downtown bars here, there is no documented beer program in the research, so it belongs on this list as a highly rated place to drink in the center of town, not as a taproom with a known lineup.
6. Cúrate Bar de Tapas
Last because it is the least beer-focused room here: a Spanish tapas bar at 13 Biltmore Ave, holding a 4.7 across 1,172 reviews. That is the second-largest sample on this list, so the score is thoroughly proven, and the ranking reflects fit with the beer premise rather than any doubt about quality. Cúrate is worth building into the evening as the food stop between taprooms, particularly since it sits on Biltmore Avenue within the downtown grid. Reservations are the usual approach at a bar this heavily reviewed.
What we left off
Two places from the earlier version were cut for not matching the premise. Old Europe Pastries on Broadway Street is a European patisserie and coffee shop, open in downtown Asheville since 1994, and its 4.7 from 2,408 reviews reflects pastry rather than beer. Jerusalem Garden Café at 78 Patton Ave, rated 4.6 from 2,434 reviews, is a Middle Eastern restaurant. Both are well reviewed and neither is a chain; they simply do not belong in a guide about where to drink beer.