The Beer Road

Chaos Mountain’s Will Landry with his Microfestivus award

A couple of craft beer related events gets the Roanoke area back into the swing of things post Microfestivus.  According to their Facebook page, tonight (Aug 13), Jack Brown’s is having a steal the pint event featuring Bluegrass Brewing Company.  The details of the event mention the appearance of at least one beer which looks fairly uncommon, the brewery’s “Barbarian Honey” ale, a strong ale given an addition of (obviously) honey and apparently a collection of spices.  Considering the reviews found online, it’s a sipper of a beer at around 8.3% abv, and most mention that it manages to reign in any sweetness you might expect pretty well.

Roanoke’s kick-off-the-weekend celebration First Friday’s continues to not only feature craft beer but smartly vary the selection week to week.  This Friday’­­s event will showcase winning beers from last weekend’s Microfestivus, including ­­­­Chaos Mountain’s 4 Mad Chefs, winner of the Belgian style award, Victory’s Dirt Wolf (winner for IPA), and Apocalypse Ale Works’ Golden Censor wheat ale.

Friday also means that Roanoke’s newest beer (and, ok, wine) store, Barrel Chest, will be opening on Route 419.  The store has been in the works for some time now, and most notably will be offering a selection of several beers on draft, which the store should rotate regularly.  Check out the store’s Facebook page for their first draft list, which includes a version of J.W. Lees’ Harvest Ale, a well respected English Barleywine, and the Alvinne (Picobrouwerij Alvinne) Calvados Barrel Aged Melchior.  Call it a strong ale, a Belgian strong, a winter (as the brewery website alludes to), or whatever, this ale was held in barrels that once stored both Cognac and apple brandy, and scores nearly a 90 on both BeerAdvocate and RateBeer.com.  You may want to get a taste of this one.

~ by thebeerroad on August 13, 2014.

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