9/2/2023 0 Comments Highland brewing downtown![]() ![]() You can’t put a value on that.”Īshburn is now Highland’s president and CEO, and her tenure has marked an era of rapid change, both for the company and the city of Asheville. “It was about being part of the community. “Other things became more important, and the brewery was one of those more important things,” Ashburn said in a 2018 interview with Business North Carolina magazine. Years later, after Ashburn built a thriving career in sales and marketing at a yearbook publisher in Charlotte, her father actually recruited her for a position at Highland however in the intervening years, the tables had turned: He could no longer afford her.īut blood is thicker than water, and, apparently, so is beer. He wanted her to find her own way, he told her. More than a decade earlier, Ashburn had applied for a position with her father’s company after graduating with a degree in journalism from UNC Chapel Hill, but her father turned her down. In 2011, Wong’s daughter, Leah Wong Ashburn, officially joined the team at Highland Brewery. While that superior quality persists, little else remains from those early days in the basement. Why? Because he was determined to produce a high-quality product on a consistent basis. Still, it took Wong eight years to break even. As the first legal brewery in western North Carolina following the repeal of Prohibition, you can imagine its allure. ![]() After forging a successful career in nuclear engineering, he later created an innovative nuclear-waste disposal company, then went on to found Highland Brewing Company, Asheville’s oldest independent brewery. Wong, the son of Chinese immigrants, grew up in Jamaica and moved to the United States to study civil engineering at Notre Dame University. In 1994, Oscar Wong began brewing beer in the basement of Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria in downtown Asheville. History is brewing again in downtown Asheville. ![]()
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