Day 286, Oct 13 / Blue Reserve Hop-Harvest Ale

Day 286 / October 13, 2011

Blue Reserve Wet-Hopped Hop-Harvest Edition

Blue Mountain Brewing Company / Afton, VA

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Riding the Brew Ridge Trail

I took a few days off before I start a new job next week.  On Wednesday, I took care of the doctors and car service appointments. And on Thursday and Friday, I convinced a friend (wasn’t too hard) to join me on a short road trip.  We decided to hit the Brew Ridge Trail -  a collection of (mostly) small breweries in and around Charlottesville, VA.

We took the long way, along the Skyline Drive.  It was a rainy and foggy morning, so the view was limited, but fortunately the road was not crowded at all.  Our first stop was the Blue Mountain Brewery, along Route 151 in Afton, VA.  It is the oldest and largest of the three breweries and brewpubs in the Shenandoah Valley along Route 151.  All three of these breweries are also in the middle of expansion – building bigger facilities to handle more production.

The current Blue Mountain location houses a production brewery, a brewpub, an event hall and a patio overlooking the foothills of the Shenandoah.

We started out with a sampler – nine 2 oz. mini-pilsner glasses of each of their beers on tap.  After I finished the sampler, I picked my favorite for a full glass.  The limited edition Blue Reserve Wet-Hopped Hop-Harvest Edition just won the Silver Medal in the American Belgian style category at the 2011 Great American Beer Festival.  I don’t think you could pick a fresher beer.  It was brewed in July, with fresh Cascade and Centennial hops grown on-site at the brewery, and Shenandoah deep well-drawn water.  Truly an excellent beer, and I think it’s only available at the brewpub.

Blue Mountain’s Summer Lovin’ also won Gold Medal in the English-Style Summer Ale category.  Blue Mountain distributes several of their beers in bottles and cans in Virginia and a few other states. 

We finished up, and we headed about 9 miles down the road to the Wild Wolf Brewing Company (and homebrew store).  More on that in an upcoming post!