“The Southeast craft-beer scene is changing very aggressively, but we still tend to be the last people to get what’s new and trendy in craft beer.” That’s what Walt Dickinson, the head blender at Wicked Weed Brewing in Asheville, North Carolina, had to say about craft beer in the southern United States a year ago.
Arguably, though, Walt and the team at Wicked Weed repudiate that statement as one of the region’s most cutting-edge and talked-about breweries in the country’s craft-beer scene. It all started when Walt’s brother and Wicked Weed co-owner, Luke, went on a tour of Dogfish Head in Delaware. “I was completely enamored with the idea of a brewery,” he says. So he started volunteering at Dogfish Head and ended up working in the tasting room for a few years. During that time he brewed his first all-grain batch of beer with Sam Calagione, a claim that just about every beer geek on Earth wishes he or she could make.
Fast-forward to 2012 when Luke and Walt opened Wicked Weed in Asheville’s South Slope neighborhood. “Our focus was—and is always—on producing big, unique flavors,” says Luke. One of these beers is the Freak of Nature Double IPA, a bold West Coast–style shrine to the hops. It’s dry hopped with more than three pounds of hops per barrel, which creates the beer’s dank, citrus-forward aroma.