Safety Team Brewing

RVA ON TAP: 25 Legendary Years, Beer Fests at NASCAR, and the Wild & Weird

Caley Sturgill | April 10, 2019

Topics: beer, beer column, Castleburg Brewery, Center Of The Universe Brewing, Final Gravity, Fine Creek Brewing Company, Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, Jack Ryan Music Festival, Legend Brewing, richmond raceway, RVA beer, Safety Team Brewing, The Answer, The Veil Brewing Co., Triple Crossing Beer

What’s happening, craft beer lovers of RVA?! Welcome to this week’s RVA On Tap, RVA Magazine’s weekly 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 this week with beer releases and festivals, events, and other cool happenings around town — so hold on to your mugs!

Get ready to get out of the house, because there are so many good events this week you’re not gonna want to go home.

HAPPY 25TH, LEGEND! We’ve been waiting for this day for *months* and it’s finally here. Legend Brewing Company, Richmond’s OG craft brewery, is celebrating their quarter-century in trips around the sun with a huge banger this Saturday. Starting at noon and running all day, with free admission (so more money for beer!) you can head over to the Manchester brewery for live music, food, and brews. Bring your kids, bring your pups, and enjoy the day in the beer garden and looking over the James with one of our all-time faves here in town. For music, catch performances by The Remnants, Greater Richmond Pipes and Drums, Wade Reynolds, and Suggesting Rhythm. All food and beer is in-house from Legend, and it’s so good you won’t want to miss it. We’ll see you there!

*PHOTO: Richmond Raceway Craft Beer Fest*

If you like beer and cars, boy do I have the event for you (and me, especially me). This Saturday before the big Toyota Owners 400 night race under the lights, Richmond Raceway’s hosting their Craft Beer Fest to bring fans a taste of the city. There’s a lot going on at the track that day — like the beer fest, which is open to the public regardless of race tickets, as well as live mural painting, and tons more you’ll want to swing by early to catch.

Over at the fest, Richmond Raceway has partnered up with the Virginia Craft Brewers Guild to let fans try the flagship beers of breweries all across the state. The best part: unlimited tastes! RVA Magazine will be out doing live coverage from the race that day, so be sure to keep up with us on social media during the fun (@rvamag on Instagram and Facebook). I’ll make sure to tell you all our favorite brews from the fest when we come back for next week’s column, but I can tell you one thing now — knowing myself at a beer fest, it’s pretty hard to pick just one.

Happy birthday, Triple Crossing! Our Fulton Hill favorites are celebrating half a decade in business all weekend, and if we know anything about Triple Crossing, it’s that they’re one of the best. These guys are known for their perfectly-balanced brews packed with just the right amount of every flavor, and they’ve got five releases to commend their first five years.

Pabst is Prologue is first on the list. This mixed-culture Golden Ale measures at 5% ABV, full of white peaches and fruit to ring in the springtime for good (finally). Their special 5th anniversary lager, Jubilee Jubilaums Bier, is making its debut at the party. They’ve also got Just to Get a Rep DIPA, Space Falcon IPA, DDH Anniversary Falcon Smash IPA, and a few more TBA.

The releases start on Friday, and the party continues on into Saturday with ZZQ and one of my home bars, Cobra Cabana. BTW — if you haven’t tried Cobra’s food yet, you’re missing out. They’ve also got yerba mate (yeah, the real kind) that can pair with your favorite mixers, and y’all, Yerbajäger might just kill me this summer. TBA on that, too.

I meant it when I told you it’d be hard to pick your plans this weekend. Fine Creek Brewing Company’s Wild & Weird Festival is heading back to your favorite farm spot for their 2nd anniversary. Wild & Weird brings out the sour, the funky, and the best mixed-fermentation beers from around Virginia, from both breweries and cideries. A few names participating that you’ll recognize: Väsen Brewing Company, Steam Bell Beer Works, Ardent Craft Ales, Triple Crossing, Champion Brewing Company, Strangeways, and my loves at Hardywood Park Craft Brewery.

Head out to the festival from 1-5pm this Saturday to get tastes of gems like Hardywood’s Berlinner with Pine Needles & Rose Hips, Ardent’s Understanding of Bonds American White DSSOLVR Collab, and plenty more to get your tastebuds going.

Would you believe it if I told you The Answer Brewpub won ANOTHER award this year? Of course you would, because The Answer’s the best! Like Legend, The Answer has had a lot to do with building the craft beer scene in Richmond that is now recognized across the nation — and this brewery is no stranger to awards of its own. From being named one of the best breweries in the country to making one of Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine’s favorite beers of 2018, if you want to know where to get a good brew, everyone knows the answer is The Answer.

This time around, The Answer was named USA Today’s best brewery in America… and they won by a lot. In its bracket for the gold, our River City hometown brewers were chosen by 71 percent of voters over their rival.

We would never expect anything less. Congrats again, guys, and I know we’ll be saying congrats for all the awards coming in 2019. Keep being awesome!

Hardywood’s releasing their Capital Trail Pale Ale for #FreshCanFriday this week, brewed with Falconer’s Flight, Willamette, and Mandarina Bavaria hops. This palate-invigorating recipe starts off with refreshing citrus flavors and finishes “pleasantly dry,” and it’s good for the environment, too. Every purchase of a Capital Trail Pale Ale supports the link between Richmond and Jamestown, preserving and enhancing our state’s 52-mile long walking and biking path. Raise your can in honor of the foundation, Hardywood says, and in honor of your next adventure.

Hey! Remember when I made my mountain-famous ham biscuits for the Southern Food Fest at Center of the Universe? Well, I won! And not only did I get a super sweet shirt that you’ll see me rocking all summer, I also got to eat some of the best damn food I have ever tasted. And I really, really mean that.

Y’all, I got a half pound of pulled pork from Grandpa Eddie’s Alabama Ribbs & BBQ and that stuff was so good I inhaled it in about a minute. I have never tasted better BBQ in all my days in Virginia. Go get some. Or else. I also finally got to try Capitol Waffle Shop, and you know what it’s like when you go to grandma’s house for Thanksgiving and those fall-spiced, warm baked apples are making you drool over the smell from the living room? Capitol Waffle shop basically did that with fucking peaches, dude. It was incredible. Capitol Waffle Shop literally put sliced-up, warm, cinnamon-ey glazey peaches on a waffle with whipped cream and syrup, and it’s been three weeks and I can’t stop thinking about it. It should be a crime for anybody who hasn’t had it to go another week without trying this place.

*Anyway,* there’s more good stuff happening at Center of the Universe this week. They’re dropping their Crazy Bet Imperial Red Ale this Saturday, and this variation was brewed over at Origin Beer Lab. It’s got a balanced bitterness and intense aroma from its Nugget and caramel malts. Crazy Bet is named after the Crazy Bet herself, Richmond’s Elizabeth Van Lew, the 1800s abolitionist and philanthropist, who both “built and operated an extensive spy ring for the Union Army during the Civil War.” Do yourself a favor and read more about this gal, and do us all a favor and give her beer a try this weekend.

Friends and fans of Greek Mythology, Final Gravity Brewing Co. has the brew for you. Cassiopeia is fresh to the taps this Friday, and she is absolutely *made* for this weather. With delicate-but-strong aromas of melon, coconut, pine, peach, and whispers of pineapple, according to the brewers, this gal goes down the hatch with a smooth bitterness. You’ll also catch flavors of lemongrass and tangerine to accompany this “heavenly congregation” of radiant flavors to captivate your senses — and let’s be real, who doesn’t love a goddess?

The Veil Brewing Co. dropped Grape Berry Tastee last night, a smoothie-style sour ale. This delicious dessert in a can was brewed with milk sugar (yum!), concord grapes, and blackberries to bring you the creamy-goodness of a berry shake to top off a perfect summer day. I can taste this just thinking about it. Be sure to swing by soon, because we all know The Veil is a local treasure, and everyone will be looking for a taste!

The 2nd Annual Jack Ryan Music Festival is also coming up this Saturday, with several local favorites from Richmond heading out to serve up brews. Look forward to seeing Intermission Beer Company, Kindred Spirit Brewing, Lickinghole Creek Craft Brewery, and Steam Bell Beer Works — and lots of great bands like Old Dogs, New Tricks Bluegrass Band, Timber Revival, Josh Lief, The Steel Tips, and Jack Ryan & His Band.

If you’ve had your hopes up for Safety Team Brewing Company to open up in Northside, we’re sorry to report that they won’t be going through with the new spot. Opening something as large-scale as a brewery is no easy feat, and after getting into the ins and outs of construction planning, it looks like the location is a no-go for now. Brookland Park will stay a little bit dryer for a little bit longer, and the old Quick Splash Car Wash will be vacant until further notice.

Even more releases are on their way this Friday, with Castleburg’s Kingslayer TIPA. This triple-banger is sure to make you hazy, and at 10% ABV, I think it’s fair to say it’ll slay most people that drink it. Kingslayer started off with a “massive amount of Irish pale malt” and flaked wheat, then treated to an “absurd amount of El Dorado hops.” This guy was conditioned over 20lbs per barrel with pineapple puree to bring out the natural fruity flavors in these hops, and it is a seriously-powerful brew.

“The king is dead, long live the Kingslayer!”

That’s it for this week’s RVA On Tap! As your 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!

Where Will We Live When The Entire City’s Been Gentrified?

Marilyn Drew Necci | July 31, 2018

Topics: Blackwell, Brookland Park Boulevard, food deserts, gentrification, Manchester Historic District, median household income, Michael Hild, Safety Team Brewing, Savage Apparel, style weekly, The Dogtown Dish, Urban Capital Collaborative

Late last fall, my wife and I moved into our first house. We had gotten married a couple of months before and were really excited to get out of a tiny bedroom in a house full of roommates. We ended up renting a house in the Brookland Park neighborhood, just a bit north of the downtown area, and we really liked it. But almost as soon as we moved in, we started seeing ominous signs of gentrification creeping into our neighborhood.

You might think this is ironic — a white lady worrying about gentrification in the traditionally African-American neighborhood she’s moved into. And you’re right; there’s an extent to which my wife and I are part of the gentrification process. But I’m a trans woman married to another woman. Both of us have independent-contractor jobs that pay well below the city’s average per capita income. We live paycheck to paycheck, unable to establish a significant credit history.

All of these factors make it almost impossible for us to move into this city’s traditionally white neighborhoods, which are dominated by upwardly-mobile middle-class families with what people like to call “real jobs.” If we want to rent from a company that won’t screen us out during the application process, we have to rent from the same landlords that are willing to rent to working-class families of color. There really isn’t anywhere else we can afford to live.

But once the sort of younger middle-class white hipster types start seeing people like us — queer people, artists, and other cultural outsiders who thrive on lower income requirements (and, it must be said, are predominantly white) — on the streets of a particular neighborhood, they start feeling safe there, when they wouldn’t necessarily have before. Soon, the young white entrepreneurs with college degrees and access to startup capital are making plans for the area.

That process is already underway in Brookland Park. Richmond BizSense recently reported on development groups who are in the process of building a brewery and a “business accelerator” on a two-block stretch of Brookland Park Boulevard, just west of North Avenue. Earlier this year, plans were revealed — again by BizSense — for a $14 million apartment complex at the other end of Brookland Park Boulevard, right next to the intersection known as Six Points.

It’s clear what motivates such projects. Developers are watching the massive boom taking place in Scott’s Addition, spurred mainly by condos and breweries. They want in. And while it may be too late to buy into Scott’s Addition, they’re looking for places where the land is still cheap. A working-class African-American neighborhood on Northside definitely fits the bill.

Here’s the problem: unlike Scott’s Addition a decade ago, Brookland Park is not empty. There are already black-owned businesses lining the dozen or so blocks of Brookland Park Boulevard between Griffin and Barton Avenues. The intersection of Brookland Park Boulevard and North Avenue is downright busy during daylight hours. Granted, not every storefront is occupied, but many are, and residents of the neighborhood can be seen frequenting them on a daily basis.

Regardless, property values are not high, and developers noticing the northward progress of VCU students and youthful post-graduates into the area are jumping at the chance to snatch up undervalued buildings and get the gentrification process started. At the moment, the getting is good — Safety Team Brewing and Urban Capital Collaborative got their parcels of land, and the buildings that sit on them, for $25,000 each.

Savage Apparel bought their previous location, at the corner of Brookland Park Boulevard and Hanes Avenue, for $105,000 in March 2017. Less than 18 months later, they decided to move two blocks up the street, and were able to sell their old building for $250,000 — a 238 percent value increase in under a year and a half. It seems buildings around here get more valuable if white-owned companies occupy them.

When property values take a jump because new businesses seeking a middle-class (and, again, predominantly white) clientele move into the neighborhood, it’s only a matter of time before the local residents can’t afford the rent anymore, and longtime area businesses are pushed out in favor of hip new establishments brought to you by the next wave of middle-class entrepreneurs.

This is a cycle we’ve seen in Richmond for years now — one that’s been chasing me from one neighborhood to another in pursuit of affordable rents for over a decade. A laundry list of Richmond neighborhoods — The Fan, Oregon Hill, Scott’s Addition, Church Hill, Manchester — have been gentrified out of my price range since the early 2000s. But it’s not even myself or my wife I worry about. We have cars, we can afford to commute to our jobs from more far-flung locales. What happens to Brookland Park residents who rely on public transit when they suddenly find themselves having to move significantly farther away from their jobs just to find affordable rent?

The working poor aren’t exactly at the forefront of most people’s minds when they think about the revitalization of lower-income neighborhoods in Richmond. And who can blame them? The majority of Richmond’s residents don’t have a ton of disposable income to throw around. According to the 2010 US census, median household income inside the city limits was around $38,000; neighboring Henrico and Chesterfield counties had median household incomes of $60,000 and $71,000, respectively. For businesses within the city, attracting those county-dwellers into town with fun, quirky places to spend an evening is the surest way to make businesses profitable.

That said, it seems the question of what actually will benefit those living within the Richmond city limits isn’t asked nearly often enough — and local press carries a share of the blame, too often taking an overly credulous attitude toward any announcement of urban redevelopment. Style Weekly’s recent Best Of Richmond issue gave an award for “Best Revivalist Couple” to hedge fund CEO Michael Hild and his wife, Laura Dyer Hild, citing their work as property owners in the quickly-gentrifying South Richmond neighborhood of Manchester.

Speaking of the responsibilities of local press, Hild is also the head writer for The Dogtown Dish, a local web publication that has non-coincidentally expressed very positive views about developments that would directly serve its creator’s economic interests. In addition to multiple glowing reports about businesses the Hilds are involved in, the site also reports about a “development boom” in Manchester, and pushes the Richmond Redevelopment Housing Authority toward “developing the enormous swath of properties it holds in its portfolio.” Reports like this might read differently once you know who’s writing them.

Of course, one aspect of that work involved a push to extend the Manchester Residential and Commercial Historic District (and its corresponding tax credits for developers) into the Blackwell area, which borders Manchester to the west, and is still a lower-income neighborhood — one considered by The Reinvestment Fund to be a food desert. One of the Hilds’ plans to revitalize Blackwell was to reopen the long-shuttered Community Pride location between Bainbridge and Hull Streets. They didn’t announce plans for the building when they purchased it, but other buildings they’ve purchased in the area now host a brewpub and an upscale donut shop, so it seems unlikely that bringing an inexpensive neighborhood grocery store to a neighborhood in need of one was at the top of their list.

The Hilds’ future plans for development in the area may very well come to naught, though; a recent decision by the Virginia Board of Historic Resources, to delay considerations of expanding the Manchester Historic District into Blackwell until its potential impact on the community can be further studied, is a sign of progress. It shows that the voices of community residents and advocates are starting to reach powerful people who previously only had ears for developers. The Hilds responded to this decision by declaring that they would be aborting plans to invest $250 million into the area. This certainly isn’t the most positive result possible, but if that investment would ultimately have made Blackwell unaffordable for its residents, it’s hard to see it going away as an entirely bad thing.

From Blackwell to Brookland Park and beyond, the City of Richmond’s issues with gentrification need to be addressed. As a newly-married queer woman just trying to afford the rent, I don’t have any big ideas for solutions. But I know of a few questions that area developers — and those who watch over and report on their actions — should be asking. What happens to working-class residents when their neighborhoods are gentrified? Where do the minimum-wage workers that staff drugstores and fast-food joints go when they can’t afford to live within a ten-mile radius of their jobs?

Most importantly, what can those with power over Richmond’s future do to put those who actually live within the city limits first? Urban redevelopment is good, and it’s hard to have a problem with businesses moving into long-vacant buildings. But before we all thoughtlessly praise upscale businesses for capitalizing on tax credits and low property values, we need to consider how those who actually live in the area will be affected.

Photos by Sara Wheeler