Hi-Wire Brewing marks 13 years with limited Anniversary Helles lager
Hi-Wire marked 13 years with a 5.1% Helles, a restrained anniversary beer that fits craft’s shift back to polished lagers and clean malt.
Hi-Wire Brewing marked its 13th anniversary with Anniversary Helles, a limited-edition Munich-style lager that lands in the part of craft beer many breweries are rediscovering: balanced, polished, and easy to drink without trying to impress with brute force.
The beer was brewed at 5.1% ABV and 20 IBU, then packed in 4-packs of 16-ounce cans. Hi-Wire described it as a Munich-style lager made with German malt and traditional hops, and the beer’s profile leans into biscuit and warm bread rather than hop flash. In a market that spent years rewarding louder and sweeter releases, that makes the choice feel deliberate. A well-built Helles says something specific about the brewer’s hand: if the beer is this simple, the process has to be clean.
That restraint also fits Hi-Wire’s own story. The Asheville brewery said it began in July 2013 on South Slope, when founders Adam Charnack and Chris Frosaker took over a closed local brewery’s lease and equipment and opened in a 2,700-square-foot specialty brewery. Since then, Hi-Wire has expanded from that small footprint to taprooms in Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Wilmington, and Knoxville. Its packaged lineup has changed too, from the first cans in 2016 to a full move into 16-ounce cans in 2022.
The anniversary release arrived alongside a broader branding reset. Hi-Wire said the refresh took more than eight months and brought back stronger circus-rooted visuals in 2025, a move that shows up clearly on Anniversary Helles packaging. The can uses cream and blue, bold typography, vertical striping, and the familiar tightrope walker logo, along with the line Brewed in Asheville Since 2013. It is not subtle, but it is disciplined, the kind of package design that frames the beer as both a milestone and a marker of continuity.
That continuity matters after a rough stretch. Hi-Wire said Hurricane Helene inundated its River Arts District flagship with 15 feet of floodwater in 2024, and the brewery later closed taprooms in Nashville, Birmingham, Cincinnati, and Louisville before reopening the RAD location in 2025. Against that backdrop, Anniversary Helles reads like a statement of recovery as much as celebration. Hi-Wire did not reach for a barrel-aged monster or a haze bomb to mark 13 years. It chose a lager that demands technical precision, and that choice says plenty about where the brewery, and craft beer itself, seems to be heading.
Know something we missed? Have a correction or additional information?
Submit a Tip
