Asheville-area brewers discontent with potential big brewery incentives
Sierra Nevada’s Ken Grossman is coming to Asheville to meet with the Asheville Brewers Alliance this week. Ought to be an interesting meeting…
Lyda said some local breweries are unhappy about the incentive offer Sierra Nevada has received from Henderson County, and the brewers alliance recently took out a full-page ad in the Mountain Xpress opposing New Belgium’s request for special tax breaks to set up shop here.
More here >> BlueRidgeNow.com.
Breweries: New Belgium Brewing Co., Sierra Nevada Brewing
You have a bunch of tiny brewers operating on a razor thin profit that have made Asheville the brewing area it has become and revitalized downtown/tourism, and now an already established extremely profitable brewery comes in and gets incentives from the county? This is literally the exact same stuff that microbreweries like SN and NB complain about with AB/In-Bev.
One thing to note is that the way the Henderson County incentives (according to the commissioners) would be structured is more like a “rebate.” Not necessarily, hey, let’s give out $3.75 million but if they pour in $115 million into the project, they can get some of that money back.
Fundamentally, I do not understand how if Sierra Nevada has the capital or means to credit for funds to put $115MM into a new brewery that they need $3.75MM from any public source.
Fine, don’t give it to them. Watch them go somewhere else.
Would that make you feel better?
It would make the small microbrewers that put Asheville on the beer map and revitalized downtown feel better…