Virginia - Northern Virginia Breweries and Road Trips

I visited Blue Lab Brewery in Lexington, VA this past weekend. Unfortunately we couldn't take a tour, but they have a small tasting room and the wives of the two guys who run the brewery were there to educate us about their beers. They were extremely nice and answered a bunch of questions that our group had. We got to try their Fresh Hop IPA that they made with recently harvested hops from Southwestern VA. It was not as bitter and had more aroma than their normal IPA. More proof that good breweries are popping up all over the map, even in sleepy small towns (perhaps especially in sleepy small towns) like Lexington. If you are ever on I81, take a short detour and give them a visit.

Sign out front of Blue Lab Brewing in Lexington, VA.

Ok, let's get to the Northern VA breweries.

Port City Brewing, Alexandria. Started in January 2011. Their slogan is "Brewing Great Local Beer for People Around Here." Ugh. Gotta work out the slogan kinks. They are new though, so I'll cut them some slack. They make an IPA, a  Pale Ale, a Porter, and a Witbier, whose labels are use the same logo but with different label colors. They are distributed in D.C. and VA.

Shenandoah Brewing, Alexandria. They are a brewery, brewpub, and B.O.P. (Brewery on Premise). Their four beers (Pale Ale, Red, Scottish Ale, and Oatmeal Stout) are available in VA and D.C.

Lost Rhino, Ashburn. Old Dominion Brewing used to be Virginia's most successful and prominent brewery. Then they outgrew their location and relocated to Delaware. Lost Rhino was started by people who used to work at Old Dominion and they bought back the old brewery equipment in order to start making their own beer. Seeing as how they have some big time experience and a slogan like "Experience the Adventure and the Awesomeness" I expect that they will do pretty well. Their Face Plant IPA has a picture of a BMX biker ditching his bike and about to smash his face into the ground. They have four beers, the IPA, a Marzen (Oktoberfest style), a Pale Ale, and a Pilsner. I really like their logos. It seems that currently they only fill growlers at the brewery, but they probably distribute to bars in the D.C. area.

Blue and Gray Brewing, Fredericksburg. Good God, the website is a disaster. All caps white text on a blue background. It looks like it was designed in Geocities. (If you don't remember Geocities, you didn't mess around with the interwebs enough in the mid ninety's.) Wow. I've never had the beer, but I hope it wasn't brewed in 1994. They run a brewpub that was opened in 2002, and before that they contract brewed at other breweries. They have four year round beers and five other beers. The most interesting I saw was a Chocolate Raspberry Stout. I'll give them a try, but I'm starting to like them less. Their description for their Fred Red Ale is "Fred Red is the best beer you've ever tried." Problem is, they only distribute in the Fredericksburg area, so most of us have probably never tried it. Dang.

Holy Brew Brewing Co, Leesburg. They make two brews; Heavenly Light and Purgatory Pilsner. The Heavenly Light says it's brewed with corn and a small bit of hops and "is highly carbonated and light in body, this product lends itself to a highly thirst quenching profile." Anytime you hear thirst quenching, high carbonation and light body in the same description, be very skeptical that it's going to be good. It's 3.8% ABV and Purgatory Pilsner is 4.3% ABV, so it seems to me that these guys are trying to take away from the Bud/Miller/Coors Market. That's fine by me, but I won't be helping them out. Distributed in VA and D.C. if you are interested.

Road Trips:

I might be a little bit biased, but there are a lot of cool things to do in Virginia. If you're visiting the Northern Virginia breweries they are all within about an hours drive to D.C., so you can visit the museums on the National Mall. From the farthest North down to the farthest South brewery it's about a 6 hour drive on I-81 which, for an Interstate, has some good scenery. Take Skyline Drive through the mountains for at least some of the trip. It goes slow, but the views, especially in the fall, are great. Make a stop in Blacksburg to see Virginia Tech, which is one of my favorite college campuses. There is a bar called Rivermill in Blacksburg that has a great craft beer selection. From there you can cut across the Southern part of the state and go to the VA Beach region. There you can fish, do historical stuff at Williamsburg, or chill at the beach. Virginia is a lot bigger than it seems, so to get a decent feel for all three regions and have time to check out the breweries definitely would require at least 5-7 days.