Virginia Beer Tour 2012-Part 1

Sorry for the lack of posts recently, I had to travel to Virginia on business, but it was not all business, as you might expect. There is a lot of good micro brewed beer out there, in addition to an abundant supply of Yuenglings, which makes me happy, as you already know. See here.

There are fine breweries right there where I was, and I was able to visit and sample, as well as a couple more from a little further away plus a Maryland brewery too that I was able to try at the local places. The local grocery stores provided some good ones, especially the Martin's near my hotel which offered a make your own six-pack, which I managed to fill with all local micro brews too. I resisted the three different Newcastle's that were being offered, just for the sake of this writing space.

Overall they really try hard to come up with their own styles and tastes, and while some are more popular than others, they are all mostly good.

I was able to sample these here, and this is a good sampling of what was out there. I was leaning a little towards the Starr Hill, as you might tell, but since they were really the only Micro I could find a few years ago when I was there (see here) I wanted to stay with them. But unexpectedly I found all these others too, so they were all worth a try.

And, when I got down to tasting them, these others were really better than the Starr Hills for the most part. Plus they used a lot of imagination. Over all, I enjoyed the pale ales and the golden ales, and was so-so with the porters and stouts, mainly because they really load them up.

The beers I sampled were from: Starr Hill (Charlottesville) , Devils Backbone (nearby), Legend (Richmond), Heavy Seas (Baltimore), Wild Wolf (nearby), Blue Mountain (nearby), Dominion ( Dover DE), Yuenglings (PA).

The places I visited included Mill Street Grill, with a decent beer list, the Clocktower and a couple breweries. This was really a great beer area and worth returning to. I like the fun they have there and the variety they display too.

I will post more reviews in the coming days of these beers and the locations too. I always include the Yuenglings, because although they are not a micro, I cant get them here so drink them a plenty there. See the big cans here in my hotel fridge along with a six of Northern Lights (Starr Hill). 24 oz! Hello!