Day 289, Oct 16 / Jomo Lager

Day 289 / October 16, 2011

Jomo Lager

Starr Hill Brewing Company  / Crozet, VA

A

NG

P

G

VG

O

The Fools on the Hill

Starr Hill is the largest brewery on the Brew Ridge Trail, established as a brewpub in 1999 in downtown Charlottesville and named after the neighborhood it was in.  In 2005, the brewery moved to a larger production facility in nearby Crozet.  The facility looks like it has held several different businesses before it was refitted to become a working brewery.  The tasting room is actually a bar in the middle of the brewery floor, right near the bottling line.

Starr Hill offers the full sampling experience, giving you a 3 ounce sample of each of their beers for free, starting with the lightest and moving to the fullest bodied beer.  A couple interesting beers that we sampled:

Boxcar Pumpkin Porter:  Starr Hill’s brewery is right on a railroad line, so I’m guessing this is named for the boxcars running down the line.  I’m generally not a fan of pumpkin ales, but the pumpkin taste in this one was very understated, most likely because of the strong taste of the porter.

The entrance to Starr Hill

Monticello Reserve:  This ale was produced in limited quantities and released on President’s Day.  It is only available in 750ml bottles and at the tasting room.  The recipe is an attempt to recreate beer brewed at Monticello by Thomas Jefferson and his wife Martha, using corn and wheat with light hopping.  The result is a sweet wheat beer, good for a taste, but not much more (IMHO).

I brought home a six pack of Starr Hill’s Jomo Lager, which used to be their best seller.  That title has since gone to their Northern Lights IPA.  In my opinion, Jomo is a little more than a lager – it’s got more body and hop character than you’d expect in a lager, and pours a slightly cloudy amber color.  I could see this as a good sessionable beer.

I also want to give a shout out to one other stop we made on The Brew Ridge Trail.  South Street Brewery is a full service restaurant and brewpub located 1 block off the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville.  We had dinner at the bar there one night, and of course a couple beers.  And you know that lady you sometimes run into at a restaurant?  The one with the ear-splitting guffaw / cackle that she lets out every 43 seconds?  Yeah, she was there, too.

South Street Brewery