The Godfather of Asheville Craft Beer: How Oscar Wong Built Beer City USA
Long before Asheville, North Carolina, earned its reputation as one of the best beer towns in the country, it was just a quiet mountain city where a retired engineer decided to try his hand at a hobby. That hobby became Highland Brewing Company, and the man behind it, Oscar P. Wong, became known as the “Godfather of Asheville Craft Beer.”
Highland’s beloved founder passed away on May 25, 2025, at 84 years old, leaving behind a legacy that reshaped an entire city’s identity. To understand how much Asheville owes to him, it helps to go back to where his story began.
From Jamaica to the Blue Ridge Mountains
Oscar’s path to founding North Carolina’s first craft brewery since Prohibition was anything but conventional. The son of Chinese immigrants, he was born and raised in Jamaica before moving to the United States to study civil engineering at the University of Notre Dame. He went on to build a successful career as an engineer, eventually founding his own consulting firm.
After Oscar retired in the early 1990s, his wife, Anna, encouraged him to pick up a new hobby. Around that same time, Oscar was approached about starting a brewery. He agreed, but on one condition: he wanted to do it in Asheville, the mountain city where he and Anna had already set their sights on eventually settling down. What started as a low-key, post-retirement hobby turned into something nobody, including Oscar himself, could have predicted: the spark that lit up an entire regional beer culture.
A Brewery Born in a Basement
Highland Brewing Company got its start in a modest, rustic basement beneath Barley’s Taproom and Pizzeria in downtown Asheville. Oscar handled much of the early brewing and bottling by hand, running the operation on a shoestring while slowly convincing skeptical distributors and drinkers that craft beer was worth taking seriously.
By founding Highland in 1994, Oscar launched Asheville’s first brewery since Prohibition, and in doing so, unknowingly set off a craft beer revolution that would ripple across the entire Southeast. As he later put it, his original expectation was modest: he figured the city might eventually support two or three breweries, similar to how small towns in Europe support local beer traditions. He had no idea how far it would actually go.
The bet paid off because Oscar refused to cut corners on quality. In his own words, Highland “dumped a lot of beer in the beginning” rather than sell anything that didn’t meet its standards, an approach to consistency and craftsmanship that helped win over both drinkers and the distributors who eventually opened doors to wider markets.
Sparking Beer City USA
What Oscar started as a one-brewery experiment eventually turned Asheville into a four-time winner of the Beer City USA title, a designation that helped draw national attention and eventually convinced larger players like Sierra Nevada and New Belgium Brewing to build East Coast operations in the region. Today, Asheville is home to dozens of breweries, ranging from tiny nano-breweries to sour-and-wild-ale specialists, along with numerous beer festivals, brewery tours, and a rate of breweries per capita among the highest in the country.
The economic ripple effects have been enormous. By the time of his passing, the craft beer industry Oscar helped ignite had grown into a business with over a billion dollars in annual economic impact on Asheville, along with thousands of jobs across the region.
Where the “Godfather” Nickname Came From
Oscar’s famous nickname traces back to Asheville beer journalist Tony Kiss, who covered the local beer scene from its earliest days. Since Oscar was the city’s first craft brewer and Kiss was its first dedicated beer reporter, the title stuck. Oscar later joked that he’d also heard himself called the “Grandfather of Craft Beer,” a version he liked considerably less, “But I guess I am old enough to be that.”
A Family Business, and a Legacy of Relationships
In 2015, Oscar handed the reins of Highland to his daughter, Leah Wong Ashburn, who became the brewery’s President and CEO. The move reflected something Oscar valued as much as the beer itself: the people around him. He was known for a simple philosophy that guided both his business and his life: “Personal relationships are the currency of life.”
That approach extended well beyond the brewery. Oscar served on the Board of Trustees at UNC Asheville, and following his passing, the university dedicated a memorial garden in his honor. He was also deeply involved in the Asheville community through organizations like the Boy Scouts of America’s Daniel Boone Council.
Recognition From the Industry and the State
Oscar’s contributions didn’t go unnoticed by his peers or by the state of North Carolina. In 2020, the Brewers Association named him the recipient of its national Recognition Award, an honor given to individuals whose “inspiration, enthusiasm, and support have contributed to the craft brewing movement.” Oscar learned the news during a virtual staff meeting, arranged by his daughter, and was visibly moved as he raised a beer in celebration.
Three years later, in May 2023, Governor of North Carolina awarded Oscar the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the state’s highest civilian honor, recognizing his extraordinary service and impact. A commemorative plaque was later unveiled at Barley’s, marking the very basement where Highland Brewing, and Asheville’s modern beer scene, first began.
A Lasting Toast
Today, Highland still honors Oscar’s memory in small, personal ways, including bringing back his favorite beer as Oscar’s Oatmeal Porter, featuring his signature and original recipe. But his real legacy is bigger than any one beer. It’s visible every time someone walks into a brewery in Asheville, orders a pint, and settles in among strangers who, thanks to the culture Oscar helped build, feel a little more like neighbors.
Oscar Wong never set out to build “Beer City USA.” He just wanted to make good beer and give people a place to gather around it. In doing that, he changed Asheville forever.