Walking up to a tap list with 20 options and no context is one of the more disorienting moments of a first brewery visit. Everything sounds interesting. Nothing sounds familiar. You don’t want to order a full pint of something you won’t enjoy, but you also don’t want to ask five questions and hold up the bar.
Tasting flights at Asheville breweries solve that problem. They’re designed exactly for this situation: a structured way to try several beers in small amounts, figure out what you like, and make better decisions with the rest of the day. This guide explains how tasting flights work, what to expect at the bar, how to pace yourself, and what questions actually make sense to ask.
What a Tasting Flight Actually Is
A tasting flight is a set of small beer samples served together, typically on a wooden paddle or a small tray. Each sample is a fraction of a full pint, usually 3 to 5 ounces. The idea is to try a range of styles side by side so you can compare them directly and decide what you want more of.
Tasting flights at Asheville breweries are standard at almost every taproom in the city. They’re not a special request or an unusual order. Walk up to the bar, ask about flights, and the conversation moves from there.
The samples are usually arranged from lightest to darkest, or lowest to highest alcohol content. That order matters. Starting with a heavy stout and moving to a pale ale scrambles your palate. Light to dark preserves your ability to taste each beer clearly.
Flight Sizes and Pour Volumes
Tasting flights at Asheville breweries vary slightly by location, but most follow a similar structure.
Number of beers: Four to six samples is the standard. Some taprooms offer fixed flights of four, some let you pick up to six, and a few go as high as eight. For a first-timer, four is enough to learn what you like without overwhelming your palate or your afternoon.
Pour size per sample: Most Asheville taprooms pour 4 ounces. Some pour 3 ounces. A few pour 5. Before you sit down with a flight of six 4-ounce pours, do the math: that’s 24 ounces of beer, which is roughly two full pints. On an empty stomach, that’s a lot. On a full one, it’s manageable. Either way, know what you’re working with before you start.
Total alcohol: Sample sizes are small, but ABV varies significantly across a flight. A 4-ounce pour of a 9% double IPA delivers the same alcohol as a 4-ounce pour of a 4.5% session ale — plus 100 percent more if your flight includes high-ABV beers. Factor that into your pacing.
At Hillman Beer, the tasting flight guide walks through how to build a flight around the current tap list and which beers anchor the lineup. The Hillman ESB, a three-time GABF medalist, including a Gold in 2019, belongs on any first-visit flight.
What Tasting Flights Cost at Asheville Breweries
Tasting flights at Asheville breweries generally run $10 to $18 for a four to six-beer set. The price depends on the number of samples, the pour size, and whether any higher-priced specialty or barrel-aged beers are included.
Some taprooms price flights as a flat fee for the set. Others price per sample and let you pick your own combination from the tap list. Ask which pricing model applies before you order, so there are no surprises when the tab comes.
A flight is almost always more cost-effective than buying individual pints if your goal is to sample a wide range. If you’re at a taproom with 20 taps and you want to understand what’s there, a $14 flight of five samples gets you further than a $9 pint of one beer.
Tip on flights the same way you would on a full pint. The bartender poured, described, and served each sample. A dollar per beer in the flight is a reasonable baseline, or 20 percent of the total tab.
How to Order Tasting Flights Without Overthinking It
The bar at a craft taproom is not a test. Bartenders at Asheville breweries constantly talk through their tap lists. It’s part of the job. Here’s a simple framework that works every time.
Step 1: Look at the tap list before you reach the bar. Most taprooms post their current taps on a board or a screen. Scan it for a few seconds to get oriented before you’re standing in front of someone waiting for your order.
Step 2: Ask if flights are available. Not every taproom formats its menu the same way. Some list flights explicitly; others are happy to do them but don’t advertise it. Just ask: “Do you do tasting flights?”
Step 3: Tell the bartender what you like. You don’t need beer vocabulary for this. “I usually drink light beer,” “I like fruity things,” “I can’t stand anything too bitter,” and “I want to try something I’ve never had before” are all useful directions. Any of those gives a good bartender enough to work with.
Step 4: Ask one practical question. The most useful question at any taproom is: “What would you start with?” It opens the conversation without committing to a full order and usually produces a recommendation that reflects what’s actually good on draft that day.
Step 5: Let them arrange the samples. The bartender knows which order makes the most sense for your specific flight. If they line them up and tell you to start on the left, start on the left.
How to Pace Yourself Through a Flight
Tasting flights at Asheville breweries are a sampling tool, not a race. The goal is to learn something about each beer, not to finish as fast as possible.
Drink in order. Left to right, light to dark. The arrangement is intentional. Jumping around disrupts your palate and makes comparison harder.
Take a break between samples. A sip of water between each beer clears your palate. Most taprooms have water available at the bar or will bring it with your flight. Use it. This is especially important if your flight includes anything hop-forward or high-ABV, both of which linger longer and influence how the next sample tastes.
Don’t feel obligated to finish everything. If something isn’t working for you, leave it. Tasting flights at Asheville breweries are exploratory. You’re allowed to discover you don’t like something and move on. No one is keeping score.
Eat alongside your flight. Hillman Beer runs a full pub kitchen with house-made food and locally sourced ingredients. Ordering something to eat while you work through a flight is standard practice and improves the experience. The pub food at Hillman Beer is built for exactly this kind of pairing situation. Even something small changes how your palate handles the range of flavors in a multi-beer flight.
Questions Worth Asking the Bartender
The best bartenders at Asheville taprooms have tried everything on the tap list and have opinions about it. Use that. These questions consistently produce useful answers:
“What’s popular right now?” Tells you what the regulars are ordering, which is usually a reliable signal.
“What’s unique to this brewery?” Every taproom has something they make that you can’t get anywhere else. That’s usually worth trying, even if it’s outside your usual preference.
“What would you pair with food?” If you’re planning to eat, this question gets you a beer that works with a meal rather than against it. The food-and-beer pairing approach at Hillman Beer is a useful example of how breweries think about this.
“Is there anything you’d skip today?” This is the honest question. Sometimes a tap isn’t pouring at its best. A bartender who’s forthcoming about that is telling you something worth knowing.
“What’s the ABV on that one?” Ask this for anything you’re uncertain about. High-ABV beers don’t always taste strong. Knowing the number lets you calibrate your pacing.
Tasting Flights vs. Full Pints: When to Switch
Tasting flights at Asheville breweries are the right starting move at a new taproom. But at some point in the day, you’ll find something you want more of. That’s when you switch to a pint.
The general rule: flight first, print if something earns it. If you finish a flight and nothing grabbed you, move to the next stop. If one sample in the flight genuinely stood out, order a full pint of that beer, sit down properly, and drink it slowly.
On a full Asheville brewery tour covering three to five stops, flights at the early stops and a pint or two at whichever taproom you like best is a structure that holds up across the whole day without ending it too early.
At Hillman Beer, the ESB earns an upgrade from a sample to a pint for most first-timers. It’s the beer that won a GABF Gold Medal, and it holds up through a full 16-ounce pour in a way that many beers don’t.
FAQ:
How many tasting flights should I order in a day?
One flight per stop is the standard approach. If you’re hitting three to five breweries on your Asheville brewery tour, one flight at each gives you enough exposure without drinking more than your body can comfortably process. Add food, add water, and the day stays functional.
What if I don’t finish my flight?
Leave what you don’t want. No taproom expects you to finish every sample, and no bartender will take it personally. Tasting flights at Asheville breweries are sampling tools. If you’ve sampled it and you know it’s not for you, that’s the information you came for.
Do tasting flights include non-alcoholic options?
Some taprooms include cider or NA beers in their flight options. Ask when you order if that’s relevant. Hillman Beer serves cider and seltzer alongside the beer lineup, and a flight that mixes styles — including non-beer options — is a reasonable ask at most taprooms.
Start With a Flight, Stay for a Pint
Tasting flights at Asheville breweries are the lowest-risk, highest-information way to begin any brewery visit. Four ounces of five different beers tells you more about a taproom than any tap list description. It also gives you a clear answer to the question that matters most: what do I actually want to drink right now?
At Hillman Beer, the answer usually involves the ESB at some point. Start with the flight, find out for yourself, and order the pint when you’re ready.
