Come Out And Wish A Happy Anniversary To One Of Virginia’s Own.

Anniversaries naturally lend themselves to healthy doses of reflection. Where you’ve been, where you’re going, where you are now. Tomorrow, Virginia’s Starr Hill Brewery will be celebrating their 11^th anniversary, on the appropriate date of 11/11/11. Looking back, I can personally recall a particular, if not somewhat fuzzy memory from roughly three years ago in which Starr Hill makes an appearance, with no small amount of personal importance attached. Long before the lure of craft beer had fully taken hold of me, but with a curiosity beginning to slowly stir within, I had noticed Starr Hill Brewery’s beers on grocery stores shelves – their distinctive circled star logo is still hard to miss today. Always one to support the regional and local, and knowing that the brewery was from Virginia, eventually, curiosities led to actual purchases, and the brewery’s “Jomo” Lager was one of the first microbrewery beers I tried.

But three years ago, I was just getting started. Starr Hill had been brewing for several years, had become well established in the region, and had since moved from a downtown Charlottesville location to a larger production facility in nearby Crozet. Their beers had already gained plenty of fans – their Amber Ale, the Dark Starr Stout, and the Jomo. Before the relocation, the brewery shared their address with the legendary music hall of the same name, and I can only imagine their reputation for good beer spread easily on the words of visiting musicians. Starr Hill’s selection would grow, from their Northern Lights IPA to their Hefeweizen, “The Love”, all the way up to the most recent seasonal “Boxcar”, the brewery’s pumpkin Porter, and their fairly new Imperial IPA “Double Platinum”. Over this past summer, Starr Hill also took a stroll down (very distant) memory lane and brewed a beer based off of a Thomas Jefferson recipe called Monticello Reserve. Over the years, Starr Hill has earned numerous awards at the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup.

Anniversaries are a fitting and perfect time for reflection, but that feeling of satisfaction that warms us when doing so is a cumulative feeling, mixing past with the present, and often shows up when one part of a fulfilling journey is looked back on in sweet celebration. Tomorrow, Starr Hill looks back on eleven years of brewing well made craft beer, and ahead to a future that hopefully holds more of the same. Here in Roanoke, Blue 5 Restaurant downtown is holding an anniversary party for the brewery, and several of Starr Hills’ beers will be on hand, including their 11.11.11 Anniversary Ale/Amber Lights. Lucky for us beer lovers, moments of reflection often call for a well made, cold beer to be in hand – it somehow adds to the moment, right? Tomorrow, just which brewery’s beers to reach for and toast that moment with will be an easy decision to make. Cheers.

Take a look at Starr Hills website and the Blue 5 Restaurant website