{"id":13371,"date":"2018-02-19T14:00:54","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T19:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beverly-hanks.com\/blog\/?p=13371"},"modified":"2018-02-19T14:00:54","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T19:00:54","slug":"bearwaters-brewing-canton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.naibeverly-hanks.com\/blog\/bearwaters-brewing-canton\/","title":{"rendered":"Pints in Paper Town: BearWaters Brewing Reopens in Canton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pints
\nDriving around downtown Canton on a recent weekend, it was weird to have a hard time finding a parking space. In most Western North Carolina communities during the busy summer tourist season, this is the norm. But, for the blue-collar paper mill town of Canton<\/a>, finding a parking spot has never been an issue.
\nThat is, until now.
\nIn the last couple of years, several businesses have popped up in downtown Canton, once again breathing life into a community many looked at as \u201cdead\u201d and \u201cout of business.\u201d But one business was missing, especially when seemingly every single nearby town had one: a brewery.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a new chapter in my life, a new beginning,\u201d said BearWaters Brewing<\/a> co-owner\/brewmaster Kevin Sandefur. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty much a dream realized, to finally open a full-size brewery with production and distribution, [and] a real destination taproom with a restaurant.\u201d
\nFor the last four years, BearWaters was located in Waynesville. But with an increasing need for space and also finding out their property would soon become a Publix supermarket, the brewery started to look for new digs last year. At that time, the Canton town officials were putting feelers out to finally bring a brewery into their downtown. The brewery and the town worked together to make the long-held dream a reality.
\nWith their official grand opening in June 2017, every parking spot within walking distance of BearWaters on Park Street was filled, every single hand hoisting high a craft beer in celebration of a new day in the long and bountiful industrial history of Canton.
\n\u201cWe kind of said this early on when we made this decision [to relocate to Canton]. The town and our company, I think we both have a tenacious and scrappy nature. We\u2019re both fiercely loyal to what we do,\u201d Sandefur said. \u201cThere\u2019s been many times that Canton has been written off\u2014\u2018done\u2019 or \u2018over\u2019\u2014and together this is a new beginning for both of us. The mill workers that come over here every day to check on the progress and the town officials, we all feel this sense of hope that we\u2019re going to create this symbiotic relationship to start a new beginning.\u201d
\nOvertaking an 11,000-square-foot, two-level building in downtown right on the Pigeon River, the brewery will kick things up a notch with its new 20-barrel system, which includes five 20-barrel fermenters and three brite tanks.
\nAiming to harness the property\u2019s potential, BearWaters built a river access point for kayakers and tubers looking to stop by for a beverage. They also added a restaurant, the Pigeon River Grille<\/a>, which features gourmet dishes and southern-inspired favorites. Haywood County businessman Richard Miller (of The Classic Wineseller and Church Street Depot in Waynesville) opened the gastro-pub within the facility. Sandefur noted the cellar below will contain BearWater\u2019s barrel-aging program.
\n\u201cThe Town of Canton is so pumped about this. I think they really expect this to be a catalyst for more growth in the downtown corridor,\u201d Sandefur said. \u201cIt\u2019s being looked at as an anchor business to attract future business to be put around this showcase brewery. We\u2019re seeing a lot of professionals from Asheville [coming here]. It\u2019s definitely an exciting time for the town. We feel very fortunate to have this opportunity\u2014the building is absolutely perfect for what we want to do.\u201d
\n <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely an exciting time for [Canton]. We feel very fortunate to have this opportunity \u2014 the building is absolutely perfect for what we want to do.\u201d \u2014Kevin Sandefur, BearWaters Brewing co-owner<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 
\nWhen Sandefur was looking for new investors, he found a special bond and kinship with Art O\u2019Neil, who saw the promise of BearWaters and became a co-owner.
\nWandering around the brewery, it\u2019s surreal to see such a vivacious and jovial energy permeating through downtown Canton. For years, perhaps even decades, those fighting for Canton, those in the town\u2019s corner, have been saying \u201csomeday, someday.\u201d You begin to realize that \u201csomeday\u201d is actually today\u2014right here and now.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been a journey that definitely has had its twists and turns, and there were definitely times where we didn\u2019t know if we\u2019d make it or not. But with lots of perseverance and determination, we kept fighting and fighting, and we got our breakthrough,\u201d Sandefur said. \u201cI\u2019ve fallen in love with the building. It\u2019s overwhelming and turned out way beyond my expectations. If you focus on what\u2019s at the end of the road, it can happen\u2014[BearWaters] is living proof of that. I\u2019ve had a lot of false starts, but to cross over the goal line, it\u2019s like, \u2018My god, this can be done.\u2019\u201d
\n 
\nThis post is adapted from our annual <\/i>Welcome to Western North Carolina magazine. <\/i>Click here<\/i><\/a> to read more online, or <\/i>click here<\/i><\/a> to order your own free copy.<\/i>
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Driving around downtown Canton on a recent weekend, it was weird to have a hard time finding a parking space. In most Western North Carolina communities during the busy summer tourist season, this is the norm. But, for the blue-collar paper mill town of Canton, finding a parking spot has never been an issue. That… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,2],"tags":[3,39,95,7],"class_list":["post-13371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buy-local","category-commercial","tag-commercial","tag-craft-brewing","tag-welcome-magazine","tag-wnc-businesses"],"acf":[],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naibeverly-hanks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naibeverly-hanks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naibeverly-hanks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naibeverly-hanks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naibeverly-hanks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.naibeverly-hanks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naibeverly-hanks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.naibeverly-hanks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naibeverly-hanks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.naibeverly-hanks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}