Patio Vibes/Cold Mountain Release

Nov. 14. 4:30-8 p.m. WECO Bottle & Biergarten. 626 Meeting St., West Columbia. facebook.com/wecobiergarten.

WECO Bottle & Biergarten
626 Meeting St.
West Columbia, SC 29169
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Neither The Whig, which closed after a 17-year run in downtown Columbia last year, nor WECO Bottle & Biergarten, which opened in West Columbia in 2019, are breweries. 

But the forthcoming Patio Vibes Dark Lager, brewed by Asheville’s Highland Brewing Company in collaboration with WECO, isn’t the first beer Phill Blair, the owner who has led both Midlands drinking institutions for the majority of the past two decades, has helped to create.

When The Whig turned 10, the bar brewed a beer in collaboration with massive Boston craft brewery Redhook (whose ESB was a hallmark of the basement speakeasy’s tap wall). When the moon covered the sun for a total eclipse in Columbia two years later, The Whig brewed a beer in collaboration with Catawba Brewing (another titan of the Asheville craft beer scene whose White Zombie was also frequently seen at the bar).

Highland continues the trend of Blair’s bars collaborating with major breweries — per Charlotte Business Journal, Highland produced more barrels of beer (38,123) than any other North Carolina brewery in 2022, beating No. 2 Sycamore by nearly 10,000 barrels.

And as with the previous collaborations, Blair attributes WECO getting the opportunity to providing a reliable and large account for the brewery that is consistently easy to work with.

He noted that Highland’s flagship Gaelic Ale was on at The Whig for the entire time it existed and never leaves the outside bar on the patio that outlooks WECO’s spacious beer garden.

“So when you add those two timelines together, we’ve basically had Highland on tap for 20 years,” Blair said, mentioning the idea of creating a beer together was floated by a Highland rep who lived in Columbia. “It’s a brand we really like. A lot of our regulars here, Gaelic Ale is like all they drink. It is their go-to beer. So we always have it on tap.”

Indeed, though Blair’s bars have seen some of the area’s more high-profile beer collaborations, they all extend from natural trends and tastes. The Highland brew is a Czech dark lager, a favorite style of Blair’s, and such darker European lagers do well among the beer lovers who frequent his West Columbia establishment.

This particular collaboration beer will line up with a Highland beer for which WECO has put on some of the more visible local celebrations — the brewery’s ever-anticipated, quick-to-sell-out Cold Mountain spiced winter ale. As ever, WECO will feature some of the rare Cold Mountain variants that are released each year (such as the coconut and imperial versions).

The Tuesday release celebration will feature Los Chicanos, a favorite food truck among the bar’s staff and regulars.

Before the beer premieres at WECO, it will be available Nov. 10 at the Columbia Museum of Art’s Arts & Draughts event, and Blair said he hopes there will be enough on hand for it to be the house beer at the bar for a couple weeks.

Blair posited that the lager is a collaboration that makes sense for both parties. A neighborhood bottle shop and bar partnering with a big brand like Highland raises an eye among those who know beer, and for Highland, it could perhaps give them a dose of indie cred.

“If you’re a person who thinks Highland is too big of a brewery, and you’re not into trying their beers, because you see it at like a grocery store, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is a small batch product that we help make with them, so maybe give it a shot,’” he said.

As to how making Patio Vibes ranks among the other collaboration beers he’s worked on, Blair called it the most educational.

“Those guys were super, like, serious about making the beer unique and good,” he said. “They wanted to source the malts locally. And there was way more back and forth with this beer than anything else we’ve done. So hopefully the product comes out to be something that we really, really like, that is representative of the beer we like.”

The team at WECO Bottle & Biergarten visited Highland Brewing Company in Asheville to collaborate on a new beer.