The Whale Outpost opening in East Asheville, offering rare beer, wine, mead and more

ASHEVILLE - The city's beer scene is progressing with the introduction of a new place to acquire rare, unique beers not brewed in the city.

Andrew Ross and Jesse Van Note, co-owners of The Whale: Craft Beer Collective, will open their fourth beer bar and store in East Asheville. The partners discovered a way to further complement a city already overflowing with craft beer by widening the offerings.

“What we wanted to do was bring a lot of trendy and hype beer from all over the country to Asheville to give access to it with no focus on local beer whatsoever,” Ross said.

This spring, The Whale Outpost will open with bottles, cans and draft beer, wine, cider, sake, mead, seltzer and a large nonalcoholic beer selection available in-house and to go. The Whale's selections change but menu updates are posted online.

The business is designed for guests to hang out for a drink or to “sip while you shop,” he said.

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The Whale Outpost is expected to open mid-spring at 2 Beverly Road in the Haw Creek neighborhood in East Asheville, near Tunnel Road. It will neighbor PennyCup Coffee and Creekside Taphouse.

The Whale has three established locations. In 2017, The Whale debuted at 507 Haywood Road in West Asheville, behind Haywood Common restaurant. In 2019, a second bar opened in Greenville, South Carolina. In 2021, the third opened in Charleston, South Carolina.

Previously, Ross and Van Note worked together at Wicked Weed Brewing. One day after their shift ended, they had a conversation over a beer about what the city was missing that would make it even better, Ross said.

“One of the things that were really missing in the beer scene — for being Beer City USA — was an approachable yet trending beer bar and beer retail,” Ross said.

They knew of a couple of bottle shops that also had beer on tap, but it missed the elements of a classic beer bar, he said.

The Whale was chosen as the name to drive their point home. The term “whale” refers to author Herman Melville's book “Moby Dick” and the mission to find the white whale, he said.

“The Whale is kind of a tongue-in-cheek homage to hard-to-find beers,” Ross said. “In the beer trading community, ‘whales’ are considered hard to find, one-off beers that people will trade for,” Ross said. “We serve hard-to-find new breweries and hype beers you don’t see anywhere else in Asheville.”

Each of The Whale’s locations has its own unique atmosphere and style, he said. The Haw Creek site will embrace the history and character of the building and serve modern-day residents.

“I live in Haw Creek, and it just felt like an underserved community for upscale beer and wine,” Ross said.

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Before The Whale Outpost, the address was that of Dalton Carpets. Ross has had a “fascination” for the building after hearing it possibly was once a station for the Pony Express. The historic details became the inspiration for the business’s name and décor.

“It’s got a lot of charm and character and it feels like old-world mercantile — like an old hardware store feeling. On this project, we wanted to keep that vibe alive,” he said.

The Haw Creek location will differ from the West Asheville one, as it will be more retail-focused and resident-driven.

“The Whale in West Asheville has become a great neighborhood hangout as well as a destination for beer lovers all over the country,” Ross said. “That really gives the people who are traveling from out of town the unique experience in Asheville that’s not based around going to a brewery. In East Asheville, we want to do the same thing for that neighborhood. I think it will be more neighborhood-focused in East Asheville just because of the locations. At the end of the day, we want to bring good beer to our neighborhood.”

The opening date and business hours are not confirmed.

For more about The Whale and updates on The Whale Outpost, visit thewhalecollective.com and follow on Instagram at @thewhaleoutpost.

Tiana Kennell is the food and dining reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA Today Network. Email her at tkennell@citizentimes.com or follow her on Twitter/Instagram @PrincessOfPage. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: The Whale expands with second Asheville beer bar opening soon