Already looking forward this year’s Microfestivus? Roanoke’s annual craft beer festival is marking its fifteenth anniversary this August, a proud birthday of sorts for an event with plenty of ways to toast the date. Personally, Microfest, which has grown to become one of the leading mid Atlantic events of its kind, has been marked on my own calendar for some time now. If the anticipation is getting to be a little much though, help is right around the corner. Organizers for Roanoke’s annual arts and crafts event, Festival In The Park, is planning on hoping to build upon the appeal of Microfestivus, and is showcasing a Microfest Preview along with its regular line up of activities next weekend, May 26th. Consider it a primer for the main event – yes, something to curb your appetite until August!
There will be all of the usual, wonderful reasons to attend Microfestivus – a chance to spend an afternoon tasting delicious craft beer outdoors with friends, the chance to find a new favorite beer or style, and for the true craft beer fan, a chance to sample something they perhaps haven’t had before. A number of Virginia based breweries will be featured, including Devils Backbone, Starr Hill, and Legend. Others on hand will include Heavy Seas, Victory Brewing and newcomer to the area Goose Island from Chicago, a bit of a legend among the craft beer scene. Among the beers which will be featured and are somewhat uncommon to find will be Legend’s Doppelbock, Victory’s Summer Love, and a brew from Starr Hill’s limited release collection, their All Access Saison.
A few more details are available at the Festival website here. There are few things better than spending an afternoon outside, tasting good beer with friends. Here in Roanoke, we won’t have to wait until August to do so – time to get ready for Microfest this coming weekend!
Some beers scream for attention. Internet hype builds around dozens if not more limited and annual releases every year, resulting in waiting lines for brewpubs to open on that special day – so much so you’d think they were giving away free beer (now that is a line I’d stand in!). They’re on everyone’s must have lists, and the list of added ingredients to augment their flavor grows longer with each release – jasmine, hot peppers, cocoa nibs, and on and on. The vibe around some of these releases seems to have a voice, and it’s whispering in your ear possibly right now – try this beer, you should really try this beer, until one day, there you are, and it’s in your hand, almost if it magically appeared out of nowhere.
Opened in 2011, 
Begun as a brewpub in Nelson County Virginia, Devils Backbone opened their production brewery in Lexington earlier this year, enabling them to produce and bottle their flagship Vienna style Lager for distribution. Another winner at the recent World Beer Cup, taking Gold within the Vienna category, Devils Backbone’s Vienna Lager balances a light caramel sweetness with a toasted bread crust flavor, low, barely-there bitterness, and what some perceive as a bit of nutty flavor. It all boils down, pun intended, to one incredibly flavorful but easy to drink beer, boasting flavors that are just rich enough to please but remains exceptionally clean tasting. Simply a beer any beer fan will want to consistently have around.
Although distribution is still growing for this brewery, fans of something a little more hoppy can only hope it reaches their area soon. Alpha Ale is a nice blend of both pine and fresh, grapefruit like hop flavors along a mild malt sweetness and a fairly dry finish. There is a definite amount of bitterness from the hops as well, but the hop flavor stands out, where other Pales fall short far too often. The brewery recently opened their current location in the last year, after operating out of a home brewing shop for a few years. It is only a few miles from the Devils Backbone brewpub location, and combined, make for a fun tasting excursion along what’s called Virginia’s “Brew Ridge Trail”.
Recognition can come in a variety of ways. Sometimes it’s a pat on the back, and other times it shows up in the form of sheer statistics. Certainly, craft brewers and fans alike deserve, especially considering craft beer’s continuing growth in popularity, a little fanfare. American Craft Beer Week, which officially started yesterday and will run through the 20th, is exactly that spotlight. Events are planned at breweries, brewpubs, and just about every other nook and corner that serves craft beer throughout the country. But the most sincere gestures are often the quiet, simple ones, when the gravity of the moment is understood without much being said. So specifically, what is American Craft Beer Week, and how can we all truly show our appreciation – yes, other than the clearly obvious one of simply drinking some amazing craft beer?
For those who are already immersed in craft beer, the self appointed craft beer geeks and fans, hop heads and dark beer lovers, the week is a chance to celebrate the “works” of those brewers. Perhaps that means revisiting one of those favorites, or trying something you’ve just gotten your hands on. Either way, the week offers events from tap takeovers to nationwide, synchronized cask tappings. Perhaps most importantly, perhaps the week will offer the new to craft beer curious a chance to find something that will absolutely blow their minds, and open a door.
Raw materials, plenty of skill, a white-hot flame – together, historically, they bring to mind accomplished creation. Hard work meets learned proficiency, on the most time honored level. In colonial Williamsburg, these age old skills are kept alive and always on demonstration. Metal meets metal as blacksmiths rhythmically ring out the timeless sound of a trade long past. Glass blowers fashion their wares with just a spin, a steady breath and more red hot heat, giving the magical quality of nearly instantaneous formation to the most practical of items. The setting couldn’t be more fitting for another local craftsman, Geoff Logan. Logan is a brewer, after all. An even more timeless craft than the blacksmith’s, the art of brewing is backlit by the same warm glow of history. But at Williamsburg Alewerks, at which Logan is the head brewer, that glow is not only lit by hundreds of years of antiquity and generations of brewers before him – it’s literally present. Whereas most breweries use an immersed heater or steam to brew, Logan employs a method based off of traditional English brewing techniques using direct fire. Just as the blacksmiths and glassblowers nearby, Logan fittingly combines his brewing skill and the raw materials of beer together, quite literally over that common third element, white-hot flame, to create his own version of a slightly different timeless art – well crafted beer.
Their newest release, Bitter Valentine, is an Imperial IPA that manages to stand out among the vast numbers of IPAs in the market today. According to Logan, Bitter Valentine’s flavor profile “is made up of citrus, stone-fruit, pine, and all around hop goodness balanced by a delicate malt backbone”. It is another Alewerks beer which is well balanced, although the main highlight is a mouthful of pleasant citrus flavors, including fleshy, juicy orange, tropical tastes, and a bit of grapefruit and ripe peach. Unlike what the name might imply, the bitterness is only a seam running through the citrus, bringing the drinker back to hops’ harsher reality here and there.
The Beer Road 