Craft Beer in Waynesville, NC: What We’re Pouring at 41 Depot Street

You can get craft beer in downtown Waynesville at our shop, Axe and Awl Leatherworks, at 41 Depot Street. We keep more than ten beers in cans and three on draft, plus wine, cider, local soda, non-alcoholic beer, and THC mocktails. We’re open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 to 5 and Sunday from 11 to 4. Order a drink and take your time with the belts and bags.

Our building went up in 1908. It has been a café, a typewriter repair shop, and a bottling facility. Pouring drinks in it again feels about right.

What craft beer can you get at Axe and Awl?

We keep more than ten beers in cans, three on draft, and two ciders. The list turns with the season and aims for range, so there is something for whoever walks in. These are the three we’re featuring this fall, and we’ve had every one of them more than once.

Good Company Festbier

A festbier is the golden lager brewed for Oktoberfest season. This one is light bodied but still malty, and it doesn’t lean too hard in any one direction. It’s an easy first pick, and it fits the cool fall afternoons we’ve been having. Burlington Beer Co. is fast becoming one of our favorite breweries.

Burlington lists it at 5.5% ABV, with notes of biscuit and honey (Untappd).

We’re Out of Peanut Butter Frank

Roasty, with a subtle sweetness from the peanut butter. The peanut butter is there, but it doesn’t take over. It goes with just about anything and won’t weigh you down.

Divine Barrel builds it on a chocolate-leaning porter base, at 6.8% ABV (iPourIt).

Cereal for Dinner

This is the one on draft. It carries toasted almond and coconut, and a touch of milk sugar makes it slightly sweet without wearing on you. It drinks light, so it works as the first beer of the day or the last.

Edmunds Oast brews it with vanilla bean, coconut, almonds, and lactose, at 5% ABV (Untappd).

Do you pour wine?

Yes. We pour five wines, with more coming soon. Right now we’re featuring Reunion Malbec, from Mendoza, Argentina. It has a nice spice to it and a full body that somehow doesn’t feel heavy. It’s one of the better Malbecs we’ve had, and it suits the colder months. We pour it mostly by the glass, and we’re happy to open a bottle.

The winery notes plum, cherry, and chocolate, from a single estate vineyard in the Uco Valley (Bitter Pops).

What if you don’t drink alcohol?

You’ve got options. We carry two non-alcoholic IPAs from Burial Beer Co. in Asheville, Liquid Death sparkling water, and sodas from Waynesville Soda Jerks, made by our friends here in town. Our favorite is the Apple Rosemary.

THC mocktails

We also carry two THC mocktails from BLNCD Naturals, a women-owned company in Minneapolis that makes its products with organic hemp grown in the Midwest (source). The Prickly Pear Bee’s Knees mixes prickly pear, lemon, and honey, with 10 mg of THC and 10 mg of CBG per can. The Cranberry Pomegranate Mule is built on cranberry, pomegranate, ginger, and lime, with 10 mg of THC per can (source).

These two are new on the shelf, and we haven’t cracked one open ourselves yet. So if you get to one before we do, pull up a seat at the bar and tell us how it is. We’d like to hear it, and we’ll probably be having one with you soon. You must be 21 or older to buy them.

Can you have a drink while you shop?

Yes, and we encourage it. Carry a drink through the store while you look around, or take a seat at the bar in the retail store if you just want a new spot for an afternoon drink. Nobody has to buy a belt.

• Tuesday through Saturday: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Sunday: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
• Monday: closed

Where else can you get craft beer in Waynesville?

Three of our neighbors are worth the stop, and we send people to all of them. Start with a drink here, then make an afternoon of it.

• Blue Ridge Beer Hub. Right on Main Street, with 16 taps and plenty of beer to take home. It’s locally run and veteran-owned, and dogs are welcome. If one of our beers wins you over, this is where to stock the fridge.
• Boojum Brewing. Also on Main Street, at 50 North Main. Sixteen taps of their own rotating beer, a full kitchen, and a back deck with mountain air. The 21-and-up Gem Bar sits just below the taproom.
• Frog Level Brewing. Waynesville’s first craft brewery, at 56 Commerce Street in the historic Frog Level district. It pours from 21 taps, has a beer garden right on the creek, and is home base for its sister brand, 7 Clans Brewing.

For more of our team’s favorite spots around town, see Staff Picks: Where to Go Around Waynesville This Fall.

What do you need to set up a bar at home?

A shaker, a jigger, good garnishes, and something to set the glass on. We carry all four, in the shop and online. The shakers and jiggers are the same ones we use behind our own cocktail bar and in our own homes. The coasters we make ourselves.

• Bull In China weighted shakers. Well made and built to last, the kind of shaker professionals reach for. A good one is the start of mixing real cocktails at home.
• Japanese jiggers. The tall, narrow cup makes a measured pour easier to see and hit.
• Filthy Foods garnishes and bloody mary mix. We carry their pickle olives, pepper olives, blue cheese olives, pimento olives, and cocktail onions. Our favorite is the blue cheese. The bloody mary mix is the best store-bought mix we’ve had: you can read every ingredient on the label, see them when you pour, and the bits of horseradish are the best part. Give it a gentle shake, pour, and add the liquor of your choice. We like it with tequila, which makes it a Bloody Maria.
• Our leather coasters. Made by our team from full-grain, vegetable-tanned American leather, four inches across and about a quarter inch thick. The leather takes the sweat off a cold glass and darkens as it’s used, so a set looks better on a bar top or table a few years in than it did the first day. Round or square, in four leather colors, heat embossed with one of our marks. Matching sets of four are available online. The mix and match set and the gold foil embossed set of four are in the store only, which is one more reason to stop by.

Come in for one

Waynesville was built by people who made things by hand, and we like to think a good afternoon on Depot Street still looks like that. Walk the shop, try on a belt, have a beer. The list turns with the season, so the next visit will likely pour something new.

Come see us at 41 Depot Street.