What’s happening, craft beer lovers of RVA?! Welcome to this week’s RVA On Tap, RVA Magazine’s weekly craft beer column for all your craft beer-related events, releases, festivals, and all the booze news your hearts desire.
If you missed the last column, you can check that out here. Our kegs are overflowing with news this week, from beer releases to festivals, events, and other cool happenings around town — so hold on to your mugs!
Last week, we started into spooky brews and fall flavors as the summer ends. We’ve got more coming up on the Halloween theme, which is music to my ears, and a few warm weather beers to finish out the season.
Stoked to see a good blood orange flavor outside of drinking a San Pellegrino this week (Prickly Pear is the unsung hero there, y’all) with Three Notch’d Brewing Co.’s Scream Forest Blood Orange IPA. The Scott’s Addition brewery dropped this new beer last week and had a blast with the photo shoot. It’s brewed in collaboration with Creepy Hollow Scream Park, which, upon further investigation, looks like an awesome haunted house for most adults and about a week’s worth of nightmares for me. Scream Forest is dry hopped with Mosaic hops for a hearty orange favor that’s “bloody delicious,” so swing by Three Notch’d and give it a try. *Lab coats not included.
Our friends at Legend Brewing Co. dove into history last weekend with this Norfolk Experiment Imperial Stout. According to Legend (nice), the folklore behind this beer is based on a rumored U.S. Navy experiment during WWII about teleportation and time travel between Philadelphia and Norfolk on the USS Eldridge. In response, the Navy said, “What time travel?” — so conspiracy theorists, now’s your time to shine.
Norfolk Experiment as a beer sounds like a great chilly weather drink, full of coffee, dried fruit, toast malt, and warming alcohol. This 11.6% ABV stout sounds about as intense as its folklore.
The Answer Brewpub released a major throwback this week with this 80’s Mike Tyson arcade game-inspired IPA, Let’s Get Physical. The collaboration beer with Calusa Brewing from Sarasota, FL showed its roots with fruity Citra and Cascade hops in the kettle, then dry hopped with more herbal Galaxy, Motueka, and Mosaic. It’s “silky smooth” and it’s straight out of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!, a 1987 Nintendo boxing video game which had such a cult following to which it’s still revealing secrets 30 years later.
The Veil brought new meaning to cookies and milk this week with their Salted Caramel + Oreo Hornswoggler, a robust chocolate milk stout complete with actual salted caramel and Oreo cookies. It’s making me hungry, and you can check it out this Saturday at their Lager World event for the brewery’s first Oktoberfest-style jammer. They’re also releasing Deathless, a Märzen Lager brewed over three months and fresh to the taps this weekend.
Over at Ardent, another end-of-summer brew is on deck with Plum Gose. The wheat-based, kettle-soured gose is perfectly pink. It comes with a touch of saltiness and a pleasant acidity, according to the brewers, in true gose style. Also fresh at the brewery is the collab Baltic Porter with Precarious Beer Project. Taps are running out on the Williamsburg porter visiting RVA, so get ‘em while you can!
That’s it for this week’s RVA On Tap! As your new weekly columnist, I’m here to take all your beer releases, event info, ideas and questions. If you’re a brewer, send me your release info at [email protected], and if you’re a beer enthusiast, drop me a line anytime to talk booze. Catch y’all next week!
