Day 288, Oct 15 / American Lager

Day 288 / October 15, 2011

American Lager

Wild Wolf Brewing Company  /  Nellysford, VA

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Should’ve Gone with the Alpha Ale

Wild Wolf is the newest and smallest of the breweries on the Brew Ridge Trail.  In fact, Wild Wolf is currently mainly a homebrew shop, with a nano-brewery in the back.  But that will all change on 11/11/11.  That’s the scheduled opening date for Wild Wolf’s new brewpub and brewing facility, just a mile down the road in a converted old schoolhouse.  And the homebrew shop will move into an old tobacco barn on the property.

The business was started by Danny Wolf, an avid home brewer, and his mother Mary.  A blessing of patience upon you both!

Wild Wolf currently only sells growlers at their shop, and offers customers two tiny samples to each customer.   I sampled the Fresh Hop Alpha Ale and the Black Wolf IBA (Black Ale).  Both were pretty good, but I didn’t think I’d want to bring home a growler (or half growler) of either.  So I got a half growler of the American Lager – I figured I couldn’t go wrong with that, right?

I kept the growler on ice for 24 hours and opened it up Saturday night.  It poured with almost no head into the glass.  To be honest, as I drank it, I wasn’t sure if I was drinking beer or cider.  The taste was a little sweet, with no noticeable malt or hop tastes, and it was a little flat too.  I’ll let Danny and his Mom work on their consistency before I make my next visit to Wild Wolf on the Brew Ridge Trail.

Day 287, Oct 14 / Vienna Lager

Day 287 / October 14, 2011

Vienna Lager

Devil’s Backbone Brewing Co. /  Roseland, VA

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Beware the Beer Bear

At the foot of the mountain that the Wintergreen resort sits on is the Devil’s Backbone brewery, smokehouse, brewpub and festival grounds.  The mountain lodge building holds the brewhouse and restaurant, the smokehouse is attached, and on the other side of the parking lot is the festival grounds.  On Columbus Day weekend, the festival grounds hosted hundreds of campers and music fans, with 3 days of music headlined by the Infamous Stringdusters.

The building is home to several taxidermied (is that a word?) animals, possibly caught by the owner of the place.  High above the hostess stand is the beer bear, guarding a keg of Devil’s Backbone beer.

This was our third stop on The Brew Ridge Trail, and by now, we were hungry!  Anything on the menu that says “smoked” is smoked in-house, including bacon, turkey, pork barbecue and ham.  I had a turkey and bacon sandwich on ciabatta, and it was excellent.  I had an Ale of Fergus Scottish-style ale with lunch  and it was quite good.  But the Blue Mountain Fresh Hopped Ale was Thursday’s beer of the day, so I got a growler of Devil’s Backbone Vienna Lager to go.

We cracked open the Vienna Lager at the hotel Friday afternoon, after a round of trap shooting earlier in the day.  (Rule of thumb: Shoot first, drink second.)  The Vienna Lager was a crisp, malty beer that was quite enjoyable.  It was darker than you might expect for a lager, but that is indicative of the style (in fact, Negro Modelo and Dos Equis are Vienna Lager style beers).

I’ll also give a shout out to a beer store (and small restaurant) in Charlottesville that’s as good as any I’ve come across.  Beer Run is tucked away on a side street on the east end of town.  They have about 12 beers on tap at any given time, a limited food menu (they were cooking up a seafood stew when we were there), and a tremendous selection of bottled beers from around the country and the world.  It’s a must-stop for beer fans travelling through the area.  I’ll be back in Charlottesville in November – can I pick you up anything?

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!