This weekend, it’s less about the newest beers to arrive on draft around town, but how you can enjoy them.
Starting today, Blue 5 in downtown Roanoke is offering growlers for their extensive line up of draft beer. Yes, that’s right – available today is the restaurant’s wide variety of craft and imported beers, but in 64 ounce to-go form. (Growlers at Towers also offers beer in this form as well, primarily their for own in house brewed Big Daddy’s beers.) There are quite a few reasons for enjoying a growler – you’d simply like to enjoy the beer at home, or you might want to pick up two or three for a party, or you’re hitting the road for the beach tomorrow and would like to take some good beer with you – the reasons are many. But when it comes down to it, getting beer to go is somehow inherently fun. You’ve always been able to take out food, right? Sixty four ounces of fresh, right from the tap beer, TO GO? Yes, please.
But instead of covering all the different reasons you might want to pick a growler up, because I’m sure everyone has their own, there’s a little something that needs to be reviewed. If you’re experienced in growlers and their subsequent fills, you can probably skip this part and head right over to pick up your beer. If not, you might want to remember a couple key points.
While beer to go is at the very least fun to pick up, and at the most, gives you the chance to either try something new or enjoy a favorite at home, growlers come with some potential pitfalls. Now, Blue 5 may be issuing a new growler every time you return for a refill. But in case they’re not, there are some items to remember, for anytime or anywhere you might have a growler refilled. So here it is, your Public Service Announcement for the day:
KEEP IT CLEAN. When done with a growler, make sure to rinse it with water as hot as you can probably make it. Quite frankly, if you are going to return to get refill of a growler with fresh beer at some point, taking in even a slightly “dirty” growler is almost akin to throwing money away. It’ll affect the flavor of the beer just as if you took a dirty glass out of the sink and poured beer from a bottle into it. There’s even some debate over whether to use any detergent at all to clean the growler. If you do, again, make sure it’s rinsed. And rinsed. And rinsed again. Personally, I’m fanatic over rinsing my growlers out.
DRINK IT QUICKLY. I’m not advocating downing a growler full of 7% IPA in a sitting, but the more often you twist that cap off and pour another beer, the more quickly the carbonation will fade and the oxygen which reaches the beer will begin to alter aroma and taste. Replace the cap as soon as possible after pouring, and tightly. As far as how long to keep one? It seems like a good rule of thumb is two days or so on an opened growler, or better yet, get the gang together to enjoy it all at once!
TRANSPORTATION AND STORING. Most beer bottles aren’t dark brown for kicks – sunlight is another enemy of fresh beer, so try to get it home quickly, and into the fridge just as fast. Treat it like a gallon of milk…but of course, it’s better.
It’s fresh beer, to-go.
It’s not easy to keep your eyes on the road here. When the blur of green pine trees passing by outside of the car window finally does reach a gap, it does so instantly, as if curtains on a stage have been yanked aside with one pull. The view that is revealed hardly needs any dramatic introduction. Gently sloping down and then running away from the road, a wide, green valley stretches far left and right, filling in to the furthest edges of one’s peripheral vision. Small hills randomly roll across the landscape as it seamlessly curves upwards into the mountains far away. Peaceful and welcoming, it looks like an enormous green blanket has been thrown over the valley, unfurled from one side as if over a bed, and allowed to gently fall across the entire land. This kind of postcard view takes the breath away, and fills one with speechless appreciation for such natural beauty. Among these hills and down the state roads which branch off now and again, you expect the farms, the quaint bed and breakfasts. So at first, it might seem that another particular trade which has become common here along Route 151 in Virginia’s Nelson County has rooted itself in an unlikely location. But given that at its most basic level, those who practice it work the most natural of elements – grain, hops, water, yeast – craft brewing immediately fits into the landscape. After all, the best examples of their work also have a tendency to leave one satisfyingly without words, after taking that delicious initial sip.
Perhaps the most notable event of all for the area will come this weekend, however. While not officially the center of Virginia’s growing craft beer scene, the Brew Ridge Trail may well feel like it on Saturday. The Virginia Craft Brewer’s Festival, held on the grounds at Devils Backbone, is the culminating event for the state’s first official Craft Beer Month. Roughly twenty five Virginia based craft breweries are scheduled to attend, each bringing examples of their craft beer for competition, but more importantly, to celebrate what is an increasingly popular craft beer scene in the state.
** I thought that given that we’re a full month plus some into 2013, that I’d re-post this one from back in August of last year. If you live in and around Roanoke, and love craft beer, perhaps the thought of an Official Roanoke Beer Week has come to you too. At any rate, here are my thoughts on the matter, which basically are…the Star City deserves one!**
In the cozy Grandin Village area, for example, several craft beer selections wrap themselves neatly around the T intersection of Grandin Road and Memorial Ave, concentrated in only a one and a half block range in either direction. Centrally located in the middle of it all is Local Roots Restaurant, with its large ambrosia maple bar which seems to almost anchor the area, and more importantly the taps of only craft ales and lagers behind it. Just about a block and a half away sits Italian eatery Jimmy Sardines and their predominantly six lines of flowing craft beer. Almost directly across the street from Local Roots, the seafood themed Surf N Turf Grill, and a couple more. On a recent afternoon, I counted seventeen craft beers between these locations, all within a barely three block area. But if this type of concentration in such a small amount of space is impressive, the rate at which the restaurants switch out the beers for new ones to try – or at least how often their regular visitors want them to – is perhaps even more notable. At Local Roots, Manager Brian Sallade has enjoyed making a name for the restaurant as a craft beer destination in town, but is quick to point out “that our beer-loving guests are always seeking something new to drink. Bar guests will actually call me out if we’ve had a brew on tap for ‘too long’”. What might seem like a slight logistical problem for the establishments is simply another key sign of a growing craft beer scene. Once locations which serve the beer become established, one of the most basic features of the national craft beer scene – incredible variety of styles – becomes something the restaurants both enjoy supplying, and also must cater to. Describing those regulars who are always craving something new and different to try than what has been on draft for “too long”, Sallade continues, [they] “will actually order that particular beer in hopes of kicking the keg and having it replaced with something they’ve never tried – happy regardless, because beer is in hand.” For these customers, even more choices – and beers to try – are coming. Yet another restaurant, so far dubbed the “1906 Ale House” is in the works, to be situated between Local Roots and Jimmy Sardines. (2013: Of course, 1906 is now up for business, and doing quite well!)
Roanoke’s second main concentration of craft beer on tap is also in an area which features more than a touch of quaintness, although it easily spreads out over a much larger area. As any Star City resident will tell you, downtown Roanoke, and especially the area surrounding the farmer’s market area, is also one of the city’s primary attractions. Everything from festivals to the regular Saturday morning offerings of local farmers is held there. But downtown Roanoke is steadily making itself into a destination for those who enjoy craft beer, as stepping off of the street into one of the many restaurants around Market Square means finding plenty of it on draft. Assisted by the configuration and relatively cozy size of the market area itself, you can practically see one location while standing on the doorstep of another. For example, enjoying a Virginia brewed Wild Wolf Scotch Ale from a window table at Blues BBQ and Company gives you a perfect view of Awful Arthur’s, located straight across the street and home to beers locally brewed by Big Daddy’s Brewing, like their Dark Side Porter. Just a few store fronts away, you can easily make out the tables sitting outside Fork In The Market, which upon its recent opening dedicated all but one or two of their taps to craft beer, such as Breckenridge’s “471” IPA. This close proximity of the restaurants has always, as it does with any downtown market area, added to the inviting feel of downtown itself. But it also seems to perfectly fit in with what some might say is a similar, “locally grown” feel that most craft breweries seem to have (no matter how large the brewery actually is).
But the craft beer doesn’t stop flowing at the edges of the Roanoke market area. A couple blocks away is Corned Beef and Company’s sprawling layout, which moves sideways from original bar to band area to pool room, and then upwards towards a rooftop dining area, each section either having its own bar, many with craft beer selections among the tap handles. Martin’s Downtown Bar & Grille and The Quarter are both easy walks, where you can find still several more at either. Edging the downtown area but still only about five blocks from its center sits Blue 5 Restaurant, with its city leading and head spinning 46 taps of predominantly craft beer. In case you were keeping score, along with the additional restaurants with one or two taps here and there, the number of craft beer taps in downtown Roanoke falls somewhere north of eighty – it’s easy to lose count. And while the number of choices at the largest, Blue 5, is a popular topic of conversation among the craft beer curious in the area, the events the restaurant holds are just as notable. After all, craft beer weeks are all about the beer, but are organized around events occurring throughout the week to showcase them. Blue 5 already hosts popular craft beer events such as “Steal the Pint” nights and seasonal beer kickoffs from time to time, as well as features the occasional cask ale. The success and popularity of such events may make for one very happy happy-hour today, but they could also signal that Roanoke is on the cusp of deserving a full week of them soon.
Held each annually each summer, Roanoke’s craft beer festival has been growing healthily in attendance over its fifteen years. Last year, gate ticket sales were cut off mid afternoon as the venue, downtown’s Elmwood Park, reached capacity. This year, the festival was moved to a more open area downtown, and the craft curious responded. Prior to the event, ticket sales were moving roughly three times faster than the previous year, and early returns on attendance are showing that nearly four thousand folks came out to sample craft beer and socialize. Should Roanoke Craft Beer Week begin to truly formalize, a target audience for marketing seems to be available, ready, and willing to turn out, at least on that kind of scale. The popularity of Microfestivus, like almost all craft beer festivals, is part extensive craft beer tasting and part massive social event. Those same beer fans who pack downtown for the festival each year should be the same ones interested in similar events, held of course on a much smaller scale, for just a couple hours at a restaurant or bar, if given all the right reasons. One or two special beer releases, live entertainment, and appearances by brewery representatives can all add to the overall excitement.
And those locations are growing even as we speak. In addition to Roanoke Railhouse Brewery, another, Parkway Brewing, is just getting started in Salem. A third, Flying Mouse Brewery, has recently acquired a site in nearby Daleville. Near downtown, the folks who run popular Roanoke restaurant Wildflour Café are opening up a new project, the Wasena City Tap Room and Grill, and promise to feature thirty or more beers on draft. One of the downtown apartment complexes, The Lofts at West Station, is planning an on-site restaurant with quite a few of their own. Even restaurants which might not spring to mind as being craft beer destinations are getting in on the act. Macados in Salem was an event location for the Devils Backbone rollout week, and even Buffalo Wild Wings in Roanoke County has moved several of their taps over to craft beer in the last year.
The Beer Road 