What’s On Tap

Innovation Brewing’s Daniel Hendrix.

For over a decade Innovation Brewing has been a staple of Jackson County. So when owners Nicole and Chip Owen decided to sell the business to spend more time with family, there was understandable cause for concern among their regulars. But they couldn’t have left it in better hands than Daniel Hendrix and his business partners, who were themselves regulars of the brewery.

WNC: How did you get into brewing?
Daniel Hendrix (DH): I used to be an audio engineer, I went to the Academy for Design and Technology in Tampa for that. I was touring and playing in bands for a number of years, but it kind of got old. So I started recording and working from home, but I realized that if I stayed behind a desk for too long I’d start to crumble. So I heard about a local brewery down the street where I was living in Odessa Florida and I reached out to them and they taught me everything from the ground up. In 2015 I got a job offer from Wicked Weed in Asheville so I moved up here in 2015 to work in their mixed culture barrel age program. 

WNC: How did you wind up at Innovation?
DH: I left there in 2018 to be an independent consultant, so I traveled around the country and got to do a lot of rewarding work. So when the former ownership of Innovation approached me about taking the reins, I was really interested and I started here as head of operations in September of 2023.

WNC: Is there anything brewing that we should look forward to?
DH: We’re always cranking our core beers—we’ve got a couple core IPAs, a blonde ale that we just absolutely love, and our hazy IPA. But I think the most interesting beers that we have now are coming out of our pub brewery where our head brewer there is really stepping up our lager game. We’ve been tapped to make the college beer for Western Carolina University, so we’ve created a pilsner for them called Paws’ Pils named for their catamount mascot named Paws. So we’re really excited about rolling that out. 

Innovation Brewing: 
414 W Main St., Sylva
(828) 586-9678 

40 Depot St., Dillsboro
(828) 226-0262

732 Centennial Dr., Cullowhee  
(828) 882-3035