Here’s the official RVA Magazine guide to excellent craft breweries operating in Richmond and other Virginia localities. These 14 regional breweries ensure you never have to leave the state to quaff a hearty mug of high-quality beer.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE NEW ISSUE OF RVA MAGAZINE!
Here’s the official RVA Magazine guide to excellent craft breweries operating in Richmond and other Virginia localities. These 14 regional breweries ensure you never have to leave the state to quaff a hearty mug of high-quality beer.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE NEW ISSUE OF RVA MAGAZINE!
APOCALYPSE ALE WORKS
According to Mayan legend, the apocalypse was to fire up its engines on December 21st, 2012. Now taking into account that “apocalypse” literally translates as the lifting of a veil, and it was never prophesied to be an instantaneous occurrence, they might have been right. Stay with us here. Apocalypse Ale Works opened its keg lines in January 2013, and has unveiled some damn good beer since then. As the first brewery in Forest, Va since Thomas Jefferson set about the business of making hooch in the 1800’s, Apocalypse is certainly walking in some ancient footsteps. Coincidence? Who cares? The beer is damn good. Check out their Belgian Dubbel, the Lusty Maden, and let the veil lifting commence.
CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE (COTU) BREWING
Located twenty minutes north of RVA, Ashland has long considered itself the center of its own beery-eyed universe. Appropriate, then, that a brewery located there should self-apply such a distinction. COTU started filling kegs in November, 2012, and local beer geeks fell into orbit immediately. With a lineup of gravitationally inspiring, community-centric beers like Main Street Virginia Ale and Pocahoptas IPA, as well as a forthcoming El Duderino White Russian Stout brewed with eight different malts and whole vanilla beans (they really tie the thing together), if you don’t believe the universe rotates around this place, that’s just like, your opinion, man.
DEVIL’S BACKBONE BREWING CO.
One of Virginia’s most illustrious breweries can be found under the name Devils Backbone. Though the brewery only began in 2008, their line of beer has quickly put together a long list of accolades, awards, and medals, ranging from the Great American Beer Festival to the World Beer Cup. Taste their beer selection and it’s easy to see why they’ve been able to build such a strong name in such a short amount of time. Their Vienna Lager is an amber colored lager with a smooth malt flavor and a finish full of caramel and toasted nuts. The Wintergreen Weiss is a traditional Bavarian-style Hefeweizen that’s has a truly unmatched fruity finish full of banana and clove. For those wanting some adventure, if you venture up to their Lexington or Roseland locations to visit their brewery, you’ll be able to try their Mystery Beer as well. It will definitely please your palate, but keep your mind guessing.
EXTRA BILLY’S BREWERY
There is a special symbiotic relationship between barbecue and beer–a sort of Friends With Benefits arrangement of ritualistic and celebratory consumption. An air of festivity and tradition. And this makes sense; both are crafts taught by masters to initiates involving recipes unique, shrouded in secrecy, and generally wrapped in historical, familial, and autobiographical relevance. They both involve particular combinations of ingredients being held in large metal containers at precise temperatures for specific periods of time to allow for the alchemical process of their transformation into something greater than the sum of their parts–for them to give up the proverbial ghost, as it were. So it should be no surprise that in a land of tradition and innovation such as ours, a longstanding barbecue institution would also brew beer. And be damn good at it–their Citra Ass Down IPA just took home a gold medal from the 2013 Virginia Craft Brewers Cup.
HARDYWOOD PARK CRAFT BREWERY
Between a Gingerbread Stout awarded an elusive score of 100 points from Beer Advocate (and aptly described as “like freakin’ Christmas in a bottle”), a coffee stout brewed with Lamplighter Coffee, and an RVA IPA made with hops grown by a dedicated minion of religious followers for whom drinking the stuff just wasn’t enough, Hardywood belongs to a rare class of breweries both locally grown and widely known. Their mission, as they describe it, “is to become one of the most respected brewers in the United States through integrity in our ingredients and in our business practices, through respect for brewing heritage, and through the inspired creation of extraordinary beers.” Between an inventive, constantly evolving resume of wildly popular, beautifully crafted (if not at times downright weird – I’ve heard stories of a tequila barrel tripel) brews, and a regular schedule of art events, community improvement seminars, and shows at their brewery here in Richmond, they could just as easily move their mission statement under the heading “accomplishments.”
JAMES RIVER BREWING CO.
“Forged in history, brewed with abandon” reads the slogan of the James River Brewing Company, located in Scottsville, VA, twenty miles south of Charlottesville. This brewery, opened in 2012 by owners Chris Kyle & Dustin Caster, is quickly becoming the flagship of their hometown, whose tradition the brewery proudly proclaims. Tradition runs through their beer lines, including takes on traditional English & German recipes. The most popular is The Green Eyed Lady, a strong Belgian ale made with pistachios to deliver a taste that’s familiar yet unique. Other beers in their line include Fluvanna Fluss (hefeweisen), River Runner (English bitter), Germanna Cargo (dunkelweisen), and Ostara (imperial amber wheat). With this brewery taking up shop in an 1800s tobacco warehouse, the town of Scottsville is sure to see a renaissance in the coming years.
LEGEND BREWING CO.
It must have taken a certain amount of hop-infused gonads to name your brewery “Legend” from the get-go. Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy, though, because since its inception in 1994, that’s exactly what this place has become. With fast-expanding East Coast distribution, and a sturdy corral of mainline brews with a dedicated following (their Brown and Lager leap to mind), as well as a perpetual parade of increasingly complex and well-composed seasonals and one-offs like Vampire Red (a shockingly uncharacteristic beer crafted to strike a harmonious chord on the palate, and fear into the livers and hearts of those acquainted with Hollywood Cemetery lore), these brewers have certainly lived up to the prestige of their moniker.
LICKINGHOLE CREEK CRAFT BREWERY
Get your mind out of the gutter! This brewery is named after Little Lickinghole Creek, which runs through the Goochland family farm where they grow their own hops and barley and brew their beer with well water drawn from deep below their fields. If you’re unpersuaded by the veritable consciousness with which they conduct their business, they also donate $1 for every wholesale barrel, and $10 for every retail barrel sale, to nonprofit organizations. These folks specialize in Belgian style ales, and they impart to their beers a quality of undeniable freshness, as though a portrait of the landscape in which they were created. Check for their Short Pump Saison Virginia Farmhouse Ale, Magic Beaver Belgian Style Pale, and their hoppy foray, Gentleman Farmer Estate Hop Ale, around the Richmond area; they are Virginia sealed in a bottle, a taste of meditative rural calm in a fiercely urban local beer scene.
LOST RHINO BREWING COMPANY
With a name like Lost Rhino, you’d expect something different and unique; and up in Ashburn, brewers Matt Hagerman and Favio Garci are creating just that. The New River Pale Ale uses a variety of malts to create a sweet finish that balances a large mix of hops perfectly. The Face Plant IPA has a great floral aroma and rich herbal taste that’s generated by multiple kettle additions. Lost Rhino’s most popular would be their Rhino Chasers Pilsner, a golden lager with a creamy head that has a great spicy hop flavor. Perhaps the brewery’s most unique quality is their collaborations with other breweries and brewers that make for some truly creative beers, none more original than the Pretty In Pink Pomegranate Saison made in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month by four female brewers from four different breweries.
O’CONNOR BREWING CO.
Down in Norfolk, O’Connor Brewing Company offers beer crafted by someone whose love of beer goes back a long way. Kevin O’Connor began brewing beer in college, and after begging for a job at St. George Brewery, he got started learning the industry. After leaving St. George and spending time with Specialty Beverage, O’Connor began brewing beers in his backyard in the summer of 2009. The next year, O’Connor Brewing Company was born with those three backyard beers as their initial flagship lines. You can still find those three today, too: Green Can, a light-bodied Golden Ale that’s crisp & easy to drink; Red Nun, an Irish Red Ale with a robust malt backbone balanced with hops; and Norfolk Canyon, a Pale Ale that’s medium-bodied with a solid malt palate and pleasant hop finish. The brewery offers many more flagship beers, as well as seasonal offerings that can be found from Richmond to Hampton Roads.
STARR HILL BREWERY
The title of Virginia’s largest craft brewery belongs to Starr Hill, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The brewery offers several types of beer, the most popular of which is their Northern Lights IPA. The potent beer with a citrus-floral aroma and full-flavored bitterness is currently the best selling IPA in Virginia. Other favorites would include the unfiltered wheat beer The Love or the dry-hopped pale ale Grateful. Starr Hill’s current reach extends from Pennsylvania and New Jersey down to Tennessee and North Carolina, and the brewery has strong connections with the music scene, with its namesake being the historic Starr Hill Music Hall. They even participated in the first Bonnaroo event back in 2002. Founder Mark Thompson started the brewery in 1999, and with the slogan, “the gift of great beer,” Starr Hill has built a strong reputation throughout Virginia.
STRANGEWAYS BREWING
…is exactly that. Their beers are the fermented essence of something slightly mad and fearlessly, unapologetically weird. They mutter unintelligible profundities from the darkest corners of your palette. They dance in possessed gyrations from so many glasses like drunken carnies at a Wiccan rite. They swing across stylistic boundaries like an Albino MONKey (their irreverent yet traditionally adept Belgian white brewed with coriander, orange peel, and white pepper) on a trapeze, and stick the landing every time. Strangeways gives body to the weirdness of life in perpetuity, both with their beers (like the Phantasmic East Coast IPA, which has such a bizarrely sweet, Belgian quality, in uncustomary marriage with a smooth and somewhat reserved hoppiness, that it is reminiscent of absolutely nothing), and their dubious behavior, such as partnering with burlesque groups to transform their tasting room into a den of hedonistic indulgence. If you too infrequently unfurl your proverbial freak flag, just grab one of these concoctions. Those strange enough to know will understand.
THREE BROTHERS BREWING
A love of home-brewing and great beer lead to three brothers of Harrisonburg to start the aptly titled Three Brothers Brewing Company in December of 2012. Despite a young age, the brewery’s beers are already racking up awards, such as their double IPA The Admiral and the Rum Barrel Aged Belgian Dubbel, which took home the Bronze in the “Wood-and-Barrel-Aged Beer” category at the 2013 Great American Beer Festival this past October in Denver, CO. Other favorites include The Great Outdoors, a low-bitterness, crisp, and easy-drinking pale ale, and Hoptimization, an IPA with a clean citrus flavor yet aggressively bitter bite. The beer can be currently found from Northern Virginia down to Blacksburg and as far east as Richmond.
WILD WOLF BREWING COMPANY
On the Brew Ridge Trail in Nellysford, you’ll find the “home of howling good food & beer,” Wild Wolf Brewing Company. Here you’ll find truly original beers crafted by brewmaster Danny Wolf–whose talent was honed at Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago, America’s oldest brewing school, as well a month long program in Europe. Wolf’s skill-set has led to the creation of some of Virginia’s most unique beers such as the Alpha Ale, an American pale ale with a well-rounded hop & malt character that’s perfectly crafted for all beer lovers. Their Blonde Hunny Ale is another popular line; an unfiltered Belgian wheat ale that’s sweetened with honey and packed with a special spice blend for an extra kick. Wild Wolf began in 2011 in the Wintergreen area and in April 2013, the brewery began packaging their beers to make their way into stores across Virginia.
