New vegan Hendersonville brewery to promote animal protection

The region's latest craft brewery will combine craft beer with the owners' passion for protecting animals.

Sanctuary Brewing plans to open this summer at 147 First Ave. East in downtown Hendersonville. Owners Lisa McDonald and Joe Dinan will support local animal rescue groups and "a certain amount of the proceeds" from beer sales will go to those organizations. The 4,000-square-foot space just off Main Street was once a bakery.

In another twist, Sanctuary will be 100 percent vegan, meaning it will not produce bacon beer or milk stout and any food sold there will also be vegan. Nor will its beers include insinglass, a substance made of dried fish bladders and used by some breweries in the clarification of beers.

Sanctuary will be the third brewery in Henderson County, following Southern Appalachian in Hendersonville and the big Sierra Nevada plant in Mills River. McDonald and Dinan have a close working relationship with Southern Appalachian and "we have talked to them about doing a collaboration beer," she said.

McDonald has worked as a business consultant and Dinan is an experienced home brewer who previously was a server at Asheville's Thirsty Monk pub chain and a cellarman at Wicked Weed. They have dogs, cats and chickens and a desire to help animals. "We had these two passions and realized we could do both of them," she said.

Sanctuary will start with three flagships: an IPA, berliner weiss and coffee stout and look to do seasonal and small batch brews with crisp lighter beers in summer and more robust brews in colder months.

They haven not yet acquired a brewing system but are looking at a three barrel brewhouse similar to that used by Innovation Brewing in Sylva, Dinan said. "I'd like to get a mobile canning line in here by the end of the year and our own canning line by the third year," he said. To start, the beers will only be sold at the brewery, but distribution is in their plans by the second year, he said.

The couple is raising money for the project with a Go Fund Me campaign and as of Monday morning has received $3,230 toward a $10,000 goal.

The brew scene continues to explode in growth not just in Asheville and Buncombe County (home to 19 breweries) but elsewhere around the mountains. Waynesville has four breweries including the newest opening, Boojum Brewing. Lazy Hiker Brewing is opening in Franklin.

And more breweries are opening this year in Asheville including the big New Belgium site near downtown on the French Broad River, and Bhramari Brewhouse (originally called HiveMind) to be built behind the Orange Peel in the former Asheville Music School building. Hi-Wire and Wicked Weed are both building new production breweries. In all, almost four dozen breweries are located around the mountains employing hundreds of people.