The Beer Road

At the Chaos Mountain steal the pint event happening at Blue 5 tomorrow night, two new beers will be featured alongside the brewery’s “core” beers.  So in addition to their Belgian Blonde style Cheeky Monkey, Mad Hopper IPA, and Squatch Scotch Ale, also available will be their new Biere de Garde style ale, “Toulouse To Trek”, which was rolled out only at the brewery last weekend, and their Quadrupel, “4 Mad Chefs”.

Biere de Gardes often are mentioned in the same breath as Saison style ales, with one often noted difference that they may be just slightly ‘maltier’, or a bit sweeter, than most saisons, which are often quite dry.  And of course, quads are Belgian style ales are often darkly colored beers, brownish to a ruddy brownish red, and are moderately sweet and rich in flavor, often featuring those kinds of “phenoloic” or “estery” flavors and aromas Belgian yeast strains are known to have a hand in creating, which equal out to those banana like, almost bubblegum like tastes that we know from these kinds of beers.  Adding to their complexity, they are also often known to feature dark fruit like flavors, comparable to raisins, figs, or plums.  Medium bodied and usually high in alcohol content, they are delicious and slightly dangerous sippers.

I also noted on Monday that some of Champion Brewery’s (Charlottesville) beers have begun to filter into the Roanoke market.  Last weekend, Blue 5 put their “Killer Kolsch” on draft.  Cans of this beer as well as their very good “Missile” IPA may begin to start showing up this weekend in the area, at local bottle shops, next weekend at the possible latest.

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Support for Stone Brewing to open their East Coast brewery in Roanoke continues to gain momentum, as the Facebook group promoting the idea “Stone Brewing: Yes Roanoke Is Worthy” reached two thousand “likes” in the last day or so.  Among the events the page is helping promote is a Stone tap takeover, being held tomorrow night at the Wasena City Tap Room (May 21) from 6 to 9pm.  From a post on that very page, the beers apparently scheduled to make an appearance are Stone’s classic IPA, Imperial Russian Stout, Stone’s new Saison, and their Sprocket Bier, which is a take on a kolsch style beer, including rye and darker malts, making for a pitch as night, slightly ashy, slightly citrusy, and finally, slightly spicy (think very light pepper) tasting beer.  It’s well done and makes for an easy drinking beer as well.

Also on the calendar, Chaos Mountain Brewing will be featured at a tap takeover event at Blue 5 this Friday, May 23^rd.  Coming right off the heels of releasing a new beer this past week, a Biere de Garde, Chaos Mountain Brewing mentioned via their Facebook page that two more new entries to their line-up will be likely debuting this week.  Such news is definitely worth a big Cheers to Brew Master Will Landry and crew, as new beer from our local breweries is always worth celebrating.

Big Lick Brewing continues to post updates on their steady progress to open in downtown Roanoke.  It looks like the brewery is hoping to be open by June or July, and have recently posted a few photos online of recent work done to their location.  Follow their Facebook page here!

Not to be passed over, this past weekend, a beer from a brewery that’s a personal favorite of mine was added to Blue 5’s taps. “Killer Kolsch”, from Champion Brewing in Charlottesville, is still on tap at the downtown restaurant.  Here’s hoping that this is a sign of many more of Champion’s solid tasting beers will be heading our way in the near future.

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There was a time when one of the last places you might expect to find marking a week like American Craft Beer Week would’ve been one of those end of the work week, usually held downtown, social/music/I’ve made it to Friday so please give me a beer type gatherings.  After all, I think it’s safe to say that historically, the beer selection at events such as Roanoke’s First Fridays (or insert name of city and whatever the event is called in your town) has predominantly featured more “macro” type choices, even if the event happens to occur during the single week that the ever growing, hard to ignore American craft beer community is supposed to be celebrating all that is wonderful about, well, craft beer.  Now, this is not a criticism of either the beer made by folks like Anheuser-Busch, or Miller, or Coors Brewing companies, nor it is a criticism of these kinds of events.  Let’s face it, it’s just what typically sells.  Yet, if you were a craft beer fan at one of these events and wanted to a craft beer, usually you would consider yourself happy to find one or two choices, even on a week such as this, that could be considered truly craft.

So it struck a chord with me last night when I read the beer choices available at tonight’s First Fridays event in downtown Roanoke.  Yes, again, it is American Craft Beer Week, and yes, that is the primary driving force behind tonight’s availability of so much craft beer.  But the number of such beer selections has been growing steadily for some time now at events like First Fridays.  And true, having so many regional breweries nearby adds to the charm of offering beers (and reinforces the safe bet of being able to sell them) from the likes of Devils Backbone, Legend, and Starr Hill, and is even more so true when those choices are even more local, such as beers from recently opened Chaos Mountain.  And yes, it is a great way to get those brewery’s names out there, especially when they’re new to the scene.  But the fact that the number of craft beer choices at events such as these seems to be growing, I would think, is certainly a sign of the times.  No longer the kind of event where only macro brewery produced beer – the Buds, Bud Lights, and the like – is being offered, save for one or two craft selections (thank goodness for Legend Brown through the years, right?).  First Fridays type events seem to be making the same choice that many restaurants make these days.  There are enough folks out there that want a larger selection of beer, of craft beer, and it would be wise to offer it.

So if you are a craft beer fan, as you line up to the closest beer truck tonight at First Fridays, ticket in hand and glad to have survived your week, take a look at all the choices.  Yes, it’s American Craft Beer Week, so if you’re curious about something new, perhaps celebrate by trying something that looks and sounds good.  But take a moment and think about how an event such as this – one that historically, I think it’s safe to say, has always been a predominantly macro brewed beer kind of celebration – is now helping celebrate American Craft Beer Week.  Because tonight, you’ll have more than the usual number of choices.  But should you come out to the next event of this kind, you might notice that there are still more than a few craft selections to be found, more than you might remember having seen before – definitely a sign of where craft beer is now, and most certainly, of things to come.

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In case you haven’t seen it yet, here is the list of craft available tonight, according to the Facebook page for tonight’s First Fridays : Starr Hill Grateful, Devils Backbone Gold Leaf Lager, Three Brothers The Great Outdoors Pale Ale, Legend Brown Ale, Apocalypse Golden Censer, Sunken City Dam Lager, Victory Summer Love, Soaring Ridge White Top White Ale, Chaos Mountain Mad Hopper & Bold Rock Hard Cider Virginia Draft.

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Any celebration is inherently a time to celebrate both the positive aspects of what’s new and to spend some time revisiting memories of times past.  For American Craft Beer Week, I always think of this in terms of finding new favorite beers but also going back to remember old favorites as well.  It tends to give a sense of things coming full circle.  For Soaring Ridge Craft Brewers, one of Roanoke’s newest breweries, today’s Grand Opening couldn’t have been scheduled any better, as it does just that.  As many Roanoke craft curious may well know, Soaring Ridge has ties to the past, as Brew Master Sean Osborne was the man behind Big Daddy’s Brewing, and therefore behind such familiar beers as Trail Head Nut Brown Ale, and the pale ale Virginia Creeper.  Those beers – indeed, along with a few new ones – will be the focus of their Grand Opening ribbon cutting ceremony happening today, according to a post on their Facebook page, at 4:30pm.  So come out and celebrate American Craft Beer Week in Roanoke by getting a taste of an old favorite, as well as perhaps finding a new one, all while toasting Soaring Ridge’s official opening.

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