Top Ten Virginia Beers - 2026

I love the end of July...our annual week at the beach in Florida is over, usually the temperature is starting to moderate (and it is a very pleasant mid 80s °F/upper 20s °C at the moment here), and in a couple of weeks Mrs V and the kids will begin their respective school years. It is also, obviously of course, Oktoberfest and pumpkin ale "season", at least for the package breweries that need their bottles in the stores as soon as possible, so yes, soon the leaves will start turning, and the happy dark days of autumn and winter will return.

For most years in recent Fuggled history, that has also meant time to post my annual list of the 10 Virginia brewed beers I have enjoyed the most in the last 12 months. For reasons that escape me right now, I skipped the list last year, but promised myself that I needed to get out more and bring the list back for 2026. I always say this, but it bears pointing out again, this is a purely subjective list, and as such will be heavy on the kind of beers I like drinking, so if you are looking for Virginia's most highly rated double IPA aged in gorilla snot barrels, you won't find that here. Hopefully though, the list will encourage you to go find some of the cracking brews we have in the Commonwealth, and in change from years passim, I will go in reverse order - you know, to heighten the tension and what not.

10. Alpine Goat Brewing: Pilsner

    Earlier this year, I wrote about finally getting back out to Alpine Goat Brewery in the Shenandoah Valley, having previously visited a couple of years back when a brewer transition was in progress. I hadn't expected it to take so long to get back, but when I did I found a brewery that ticks all the boxes for this mad Mitteleuropaphile. For most of that trip I was drinking their German style pilsner, and it hit all the right high notes. Obviously, as I had three or four pints in the course of our couple of hours there. We get over to the Valley pretty regularly these days, so soon I will introduce Mrs V to the delights of Alpine Goat, especially as their house beer is one of her favourite styles, kölsch. A welcome addition to this list!

9. Buffalo Mountain Brewery: Wolf Gang Vienna Lager

   Another new brewery to this list, and one that I stumbled upon by accident. Last autumn, I drove from my home in Central Virginia to the distant marches of Southwest Virginia to interview Diane Flynt for a Pellicle article about her work in orcharding and Virginia's cider scene. Rather than sit on the purgatory that is I-81, I took the Blue Ridge Parkway through Floyd County, and through the eponymous town itself. Having overestimated just how long it would take, myself and Mark (my regular photography collaborator) decided to stop in Floyd for a pint and a feed, thus ended up at Buffalo Mountain. Being a fan of Vienna style lagers in general, that was my choice. Pouring deep red, and being much more in the Mexican tradition of Vienna lager, this was a nice, suitably malty, but not syrupy pint. Not only was it a very decent pint, McDaniel's Tavern, the name for the brewery's taproom, is a delightful space that feels very much like a country pub from either the UK or Ireland.

8. Caboose Brewing: Voda Czech Style Pilsner

   I know you are surprised that it took this long for a Czech style pilsner to make its way onto this list. I can't remember if I have mentioned this before, but although I work remotely (or remotely work, haha!), my employer's main office is in Northern Virginia, in the city of McLean. At least once a quarter then, I have to go up there for team meetings, and an inevitable overnight stop, and invariably, as I am the team lead and get to decide where we have dinner, a visit to Caboose Brewing & Tavern in neighbouring Vienna. Thankfully the rest of the team like Caboose's food, and a couple of them also like good beer, so I am on safe ground. On one of our visits they had Voda on tap, "voda" of course is the Czech word for "water", and I drank it almost as such, even though it was far from watery and insipid, in fact it was lovely and hit the spot, with plenty of Saaz character to satisfy my cravings for hay, lemongrass, and the wonderful aroma of Czech meadows. A cracker, I hope it's around when I am up that way again soon.

7. Patch Brewing: Pylon Pilsner

   Not a new brewery to this list, but oddly a new beer (though a perennial in my annual review of the year in December), given that when I drag the kids off to run around in the field and playground at Patch, it is my go-to beer, usually in my ceramic pot that they graciously fill for me rather than having to deal with the plastic pots they use for the outside space. While this is listed as a German pilsner, the base malt is, I believe, actually Weyermann's Bohemian Pilsner, and so it has a touch more body and heft, coupled with a solid hop bite and floral character, it's really easy, and pleasurable drinking. Which reminds me, the kids need a play date with some of their friends soon.

6. Dynasty Brewing: Yorkshire Bitter

   On my previously mentioned regular trips to Northern Virginia, the only place on earth where the speed limit signs are aspirational, there is a British style pub that I love to get to called The Hawk and Griffin. Conveniently it is just a hop, skip, and a jump from Caboose. My primary reason for going is that they are a pretty fair bet for having some kind of cask ale available. When sitting myself at the bar on one such trip there was a pump clip with magical words "Yorkshire Bitter" on them, and on making sure there was a sparkler attached I knew what I wanted. Apparently it is hopped with just East Kent Goldings, and so there is plenty of that classic orange marmalade character, and without darker crystal malts it is very much a biscuity malt thing that dominates, and I thought it was lovely, served at proper cellar temperature to boot. I was a happy camper that night.

5. Selvedge Brewing: Chain Stitch

   It's pale, it's Germanic, it's damned well made, and when it is on tap at Selvedge then you can almost guarantee that I will have at least one pint of Chain Stitch. It's a beer that many times I have joked about needing to become the equivalent of a full kit wanker but for bike riding, prop my underused bike up next to one of the picnic tables out front, and just spend a sunny afternoon drinking. Hopped with the classic Halletauer Mittelfrüh and lagered until it damned well ready (the best kind of lagering process in my opinion), it is as close to Bavaria as you will get in Virginia. It is difficult to really opine about how much I love Chain Stitch, but often that first mouthful is followed by an exclamation of "echt!", and another Willibecher will soon be on its way...

4. Fine Creek Brewing: Farmhouse Lager

   Very few beers make it onto this list having only been drunk once. Very few beers only drunk once, make this kind of impression. Fine Creek are literally just up the road, a relatively quick and easy 45 minute drive, just round the corner from one of our favourite state parks for camping, and much to my shame we still haven't managed to make it to the brewery itself. However, Josh from Selvedge gave me a bottle of the Farmhouse Lager, and as I said in an Instagram post, it is the "perfect marriage of elegance and rusticity". If you can imagine sitting at a Franconian bierkeller drinking their local brew, I imagine it would have a similar effect on you, this was just a gorgeous beer - and I promise, Brian if you are reading this, we will get out there soon.

3. Superfly Brewing: Private Number (cask)

   It could be recency bias, it could be nostalgia having recently been back in the UK and had something of a revelation about bitters which have darker crystal malts in the grist, it could just be sheer glee at a Charlottesville brewery having an actual cask ale program headed up by brewers who get it. First though, let me tell you a story, the first time I had Private Number, several years ago, I was not a fan. I really wanted to be, because I think what Ed and co are doing at Superfly is fantastic, and best bitter is a style I love. That iteration just didn't work for me. Fast forward to Mrs V's birthday weekend and we headed over with friends to have fish and chips for lunch - SuperFly now has a chip van, and they have quickly become the default place for folks who know about these things to get their fish supper on. They also had Private Number of the beer engine, and I was keen to give it another chance. It took that chance with aplomb, laden with toffee, dark fruit, and rich fruit cake maltiness, balanced with a hefty hop bite to scrape the palate clean. Painfully easy to drink and drink it I did. I am looking forward to more of their cask offerings...

2. Selvedge Brewing: Coat Czech 12°

   That there is a new batch of Selvedge's dvanáctka hitting the taps next week makes my life just a little simpler. Every time I go to there these days, I struggle to decide which of the several superb Central European style lagers I want to drink first. Do I want Batiste, their German Pils? What about Chain Stitch, which I mentioned earlier? Do I fancy Vested Interest, a Franconian kellerbier? Decisions, decisions. Yes, I have got to the point where I just ask Erin to bring me a lager because I trust her judgement and honestly they are all magnificent. Once Coat Czech is back, that indecision will disappear because I know what I want first, not necessarily the only beer I will have, though there is always a strong possibility of that too (yay cans to takeaway for porch drinking). Coat Czech is the epitome of great Czech style lagers, decoction mashing for those subtle Maillard reaction flavours, masses and masses of Saaz hop character, with an almost sherbert like note that reminds me of Unětický Pivovar's superb 12°. I am confident that were you to serve this blind to any well regarded beer writer with extensive knowledge of Czech lager - looking at you guys, Evan and Max - they would not be able to tell it was brewed in far off Virginia.

1. Selvedge Brewing: Spoolboy 10°

   Take pretty much everything I just wrote about Coat Czech and add a couple of caveats for Spoolboy: it won't be on tap next week, and when it is on tap I almost exclusively the beer I drink. Desítka, that's a 10° lager (regardless of colour technically speaking) for the non-Czech speakers of the world is just my preferred Czech beer "style" (ugh, I hate that word when it comes to Czech beer). Again with the decoction mashing, again with extensive lagering until it is good and ready to be on tap, Spoolboy hits every spot that a great desítka does. Yes it is ridiculously easy to drink, yes it positively reeks of Czech hop goodness, yes you will never only have one, and yes it has the Mrs V seal of approval. There was a point when it was on tap that Mrs V and I would be lost in a revelry of Czech Ostalgia (not a typo) for our years in the Czech Republic. It was a beer that took us, even after 17 years in Virginia and neither of us being actually Czech, home. It is the beer that we dragged many of our Czech, and Czech adjacent friends to Selvedge to try, and watch as their faces almost instantly go full on Anton Ego. Byla to dokonalost.

So there we are, my (revived) annual list of the beers I have enjoyed most in the last 12 months - as subjective and lager centric as always, anyone would think I had a type...

Top Ten Virginia Beers - 2023

It's been quite the jet-set month has July. At the beginning of the month, plus a couple of days at the end of June, my family and I traipsed our way up to and around Iceland for 10 days (quite possibly the best holiday I have ever had) and now we are down in central Florida. While my wife and kids have fun on the beach, I am working so as not to completely use up all my holiday time, still I can't complain as the view from the window is one of a couple of palm trees and the Atlantic ocean.

As usual at this time of year, I like to take a pause and decide on what have been the ten best beers from Virginia that I have drunk in the last 12 months. The list is entirely subjective, and likely doesn't feature hype breweries making hazies, bastardised sours with fake fruit flavor syrups, or pastry stouts simply because I don't enjoy that shit. This is, after all, the Fuggled Top Ten Virginia Beers, purely subjective, entirely my opinion, and I make no apologies for that. 

With that said, let's dive into my Virginian drinking highlights...

1. Port City Brewing - Franconian Kellerbier (5.0%). - for the fourth year in a row, Franconian Kellerbier is either top of the list or second, though for 2023 it returns to the number 1 slot. Each spring I look forward to its release, and as ever I bought a couple of cases once it was available. The beer itself has a delightful rusticity that I find delightful, especially when I am sat on my deck dealing with the first harvests from my gardens, often shelling peas. If I had a single complaint about Franconian Kellerbier it would be that it isn't part of the permanent lineup, but I guess we all need things to look forward to in life.
2. Wheatland Spring Brewing - Found Artifacts (4.8%). - the number 1 beer in my 2022 list, I have enjoyed Found Artifacts several times in the last 12 months and it would have taken top spot again this year but for Port City. I love the work that John and the folks at Wheatland Spring are doing up in Northern Virginia, especially as a brewery growing the vast majority of the ingredients they use. Despite being an unfiltered beer, Found Artifacts showcases the very real benefits of extended lagering to produce a pale lager of such poise and balance that I would defy any central European friend of mine not to think it superb.
3. Devils Backbone Brewing - Yourn 10°. - I have said this many times, but Devils Backbone are still one of the best breweries in Virginia, full stop, end of story, I don't give a shit about your big beer business bogeyman arguments. Jason makes incredible beer, and his recent Czech inspired 10° pale lager was right up there with the very best beers that he has put out in 15 years on the brewing deck behind the bar at Basecamp. Decocted, fermented in an open fermenter, and then given extensive lagering in their horizontal lager tanks, Yourn is brewed with so much fidelity to its Czech inspiration that drinking it is like being transported back to rural Czechia, drinking in the villages, in the heartland of Czech beer culture, and there is not an ounce of hyperbole in that statement.
4. Port City Brewing - Porter (7.2%). - let me be honest with you, I probably only drink Port City Porter a couple of times a year, usually in the depths of winter, and if the weather is being favourably unfavourable, next to a roaring log fire, yet most years it makes my list of the 10 best Virginia brewed beers. Port City Porter is, in my unhumble opinion, one of the best porters being brewed in the world today, let alonge just Virginia or even the US. A complex beast dripping with unsweetened cocoa, espresso, and even an umaminess that reminds me of traditionally made soy sauce (forget your mass produced sachets from your local Chinese restaurant), all in a beguiling package that makes it too easy to forget that it is pretty hefty at 7.2%, not a session beer, but certainly a delight.
5. Black Narrows Brewing - How Bout It (4.2%). - A new brewery to the list, and a new kind of beer in some ways. I have never been a big fan of corn in my beer, I find it lends an oily, slick, sweetness that I just find disagreeable, the same could be said about bourbon. But, malt the corn and you get a very different beast, the sweetness dissipates and what is left in it's wake is a very subtle nuttiness, kind of like an almond. Now, put that malted corn in the hands of a true artisanal brewer like Josh Chapman up on Chincoteague Island and what you get is an American Light Lager that is quite frankly, fecking awesome. I love the story behind the beer, so much so I wrote an article about it for Pellicle, and I love the beer too
6. Decipher Brewing - 80/-. - Unhumble opinion time again. Most American brewed "Scottish" ales are shit, a riotous mess of crystal, chocolate, and black malts that would never see the light of the mash tun actually in Scotland, and we haven't even got around to talking about the use of peat malt (we don't, so feck off with your "traditional peated flavor" bullshit). Decipher though get it right, and get it right with aplomb. The star here is drinkability, a Scottish export is not supposed to be sweet, it is supposed to have balance, be something that lubricates the social setting, that looks glorious in the glass, and the Burtons get it. Now, I have to admit to a touch of bias, because anyone that is willing to do something daft like put an 80/- on a Lukr tap to try and replicate the old Scottish Aitken font because some loony Scotsman in Virginia suggests it must be a top bloke. It helps that they make such cracking beer too.
7. Reason Beer - Barrel Aged Inexorable Stout. - assuming that you have cleaned up the spillage from you choking on your drink at the presence of barrel aged stout weighing in at 10.5% making it onto this list, let me tell you story. Mrs V plays the fiddle, and once a month or so, her teacher invites her to take part in an Irish music session at a local restaurant/pub. If we can find a babysitter to look after the twins, I will tag along and allow myself a couple of hours of reading with a pint. Usually I drink whatever the best lager they have available is, but on this particular Sunday I fancied the porter on the menu. The barmaid told me that they were out of the porter, but that they had a stout, so in the absence of strength denoting adjectives I agreed. Along came this beast, and I thought to myself, why not, just the one. Just the one is all it took to remind me that done well, barrel aging an imperial stout can lead to a great drinking experience. A definite slow sipper rather than my regular chugging session beers, I sat with my book, a brew that unlocked more dimensions than a dungeon master as it warmed, revealing cocoa, chocolate, coffee, vanilla, and a whole melange of tastes, all to the soundtrack of excellent folk tunes.
8. Devils Backbone - Alt Bier (5.8%). - I've been a fan of the altbier style of beer since having a half litre of Schumacher Alt at an arts festival in Berlin. Dry, bitter, intensely hoppy, and with all the sweetness you expect of central European malts (i.e. not the fecking syrupy mess of crystal malt), bundled into a very pintable package, it is a woefully undervalued style in the US. Thank goodness then for Jason and his love of central European beers, and his commitment to making them as authentically as possible, with open fermentation and horizontal lagering. Also thank goodness for Jason sending me texts to let me know when Alt Bier is on tap - come on marketing people of breweries everywhere, keep your websites and social media up to date with what is on tap. A couple of time this year we've made the 60 minute drive to Basecamp purely on the basis that Alt Bier was on tap, and both times I have sat there drinking great beer and being immensely happy that Devils Backbone is one of my local breweries.
9. Selvedge Brewing - Tweed (5.3%). - once upon a time there was a Munich dunkel style lager brewed in Charlottesville that I absolutely adored, then the brewery making it changed brewer, and the dunkel was no more. A good dunkel is a rare beast, a cracking one with a fascinating yeast strain that elevates the malts is worth chasing. Selvedge are a new brewery to this list, and I have really only started going there in the last 12 months, since they hired a former Champion Brewing brewer who started making the kind of beers I love - you know the drill, bottom fermented, extensively lagered, no silly shit. Tweed is very much a classic Munich dunkel, but with the added wrinkle of using the TUM-35 yeast strain, which originated in Franconia and was thought lost until re-discovered in a yeast bank archive. Perhaps it is purely a figment of my imagination but used in a dunkel, TUM-35 adds a character somewhat like rustic country style rye bread that you find in Central Europe, a basket of which accompanies practically every meal, add to that the crusty bread of Munich malts, and the subtle Nutella of something like Carafa, Tweed is a glass full of comfort and cheer, and I am already looking forward to its return.
10. Patch Brewing - CU Later Copper Ale (4.4%). - every now and again you have to disagree with the brewer of a beer. If you look at Patch's Untappd page for this beer, it is listed as an Extra Special Bitter, though purely on strength I would argue it is closer to a Best Bitter, but that is not my quibble. My quibble, which is purely semantic I am sure, is that CU Later is an excellent example of a mild ale - though of course if there is one beer style likely to cause more confusion among many than the notion of "bitter" being a good thing (bollocks to Keystone Light and their anti-bitterness marketing) is the very existence of Mild. While CU Later does tread a fine line between a mild and the kind of best bitter you find in London and the South East, it is definitely in the excellent, moreish, I need another pint of this camp. During December, I found several excuses to wander by the brewery, it's only 7 miles up the road, and have a few pints with mates, it's what beer is really all about after all.

Local or for Locals?

It is a mere 7.2 miles, via the back roads of Virginia, from my house to my local brewery, Patch Brewing, by far the quickest and easiest place for me to get to for a pint. I took advantage of this fact several times this holiday season, whether it was afternoon drinkies with my neighbour on Christmas Eve, getting my boys out of the house to run around in the kids play area on Boxing Day, or just having an afternoon drink with Mrs V and the boys whilst playing ludo in the main bar.

Patch has been open for a little over a year now, housed in a former VFW hall on something like 15 acres of land just outside Gordonsville. Their plans include things such as pick you own berries and walking trails in the woods to complement the existing pair of bars, I am a big fan of the outside space though it is sadly closed for winter right now. The brewery itself, and the main tap room area, are housed in the actual VFW hall, an open space with dartboards, a juke box, and trestle tables that remind me of central European beer halls.

When it comes to the beer itself, Erik is really starting to come into his own now that he has his brewhouse set up and has been brewing on it for about 6 months. Erik's previous job was working at the Devils Backbone Brewing Basecamp, and before that at Three Notch'd Brewing in Charlottesville. As such, he has worked under two of the best brewers I know in Jason Oliver and Dave Warwick respectively. An example of this would be his porter that I recently tried again over the holidays having not been wildly impressed when I had it on opening, it was excellent. Testament to the fact that it pays to give a brewer time to work out how to make his system work for him before passing judgement.

It was on my Christmas Eve trip to Patch that I was stood at the bar, there was basically no one there other than myself, my neighbour, and the general manager, who was tending the bar that day. I've know the GM for quite some time now, initially through the local homebrew club, but also as he has been in the beer industry for the best part of a decade I think at this point. The rest of the bar staff know me as a pilsner drinker, and Erik's Pylon Pilsner is definitely my most regular tipple at Patch, but the GM knew what I was there for, their "copper ale", which in my mind treads a fine line between dark mild and the kind of darker best bitter you get in the south of England.

As we chatted, I asked what the brewery's top sellers are. Pylon comes second to Lempicky Light Lager, an American light lager brewed with Murphy & Rude malted corn. When I tried it in the early days of autumn, having stumbled over the name several times (it is lem-piky, not the lem-pitz-ky my Czech brain reads it as), I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, nicely refreshing, not wildly bitter, but also not bland in the slightest. In discussing the Lempicky, the GM noted that part of Patch's ethos is to make beer "for local people" rather than just being "local" by virtue of proximity.

I have to admit I really like that approach, as well as the fact that the malted corn used in Lempicky is grown and malted locally too, with Murphy & Rude being less than 20 miles from the brewery. Outside of bigger urban areas, Gordonsville proper has a population of about 1500, and away from major tourist haunts, breweries need to cater more closely to the tastes of the local populace, and as such have a broad selection of styles rather than going deep into a particular style. In Charlottesville you can afford to have your taps dominated by IPAs because you are always going to have transient business by virtue of it being the local major hub and a tourist destination.

This also got me thinking about how so many of the beer styles we love and take for granted are a combination of location in a physical sense and locale in a population sense. Take Pilsner Urquell, its location has insanely soft water, which extracts less colour from malt than the hard water of London, for example, and is a key element in what made it such a revolutionary beer. Yet, from my understanding of the history, the brewery was started because the people of Plzeň were drinking more and more imported lager type beer from Bavaria. The good burghers of the city basically decided they wanted a slice of the action, and thus gave the people something they wanted, and the world a new beer style into the bargain.

When I was a student, back in the dim and distant past of the 20th century, one of the things that came up in homiletics classes - yes, I studied to be a preacher - was the importance of understanding your audience, which is basically analogous to understanding your customer. When the majority of your customers come from your locale, presenting them with something they understand and like is key. Sure they may never become a dedicated craft drinker with a penchant for hazy IPAs, but if they become a loyal drinker of your light lager then you have gained both a customer and an advocate, and that can only be a good thing.

Being "local" is all good and well, but I feel as though being "for locals" is better.

Places New...to Me

I am sure I have mentioned this several times, but I am an abysmal beer tourist. I do have a rule that I like to give a new brewery at least 6 months before visiting so they can get the hang of their equipment and start churning out the best beers they are able to. If brewing systems were just plug and play, we wouldn't need brewers now would we? The problem with my 6 month rule is that I am not strict about getting to places once that 6 months is up, and so there are a handful of breweries in central Virginia that I haven't visited because, well, like I said, I am an abysmal beer tourist.

Recently though, I have resolved to try and be better at getting to some of the newer breweries within easy reach of my house, as a result of which I have found a few places that have become, or are very likely to become, fairly regular hangouts.

Patch Brewing is just on the outskirts of Gordonsville, basically a large village that for some reason gets to call itself a town. It is not the first brewery in Gordonsville, that honour goes to Champion Icehouse, but it is the one that I go to with way more regularity. Housed in a former Veterans of Foreign Wars building, they have, I think, 14 acres of land, and plans to basically become a beer hall, beer garden, pick your own berry farm, and several other things all rolled into one. The brewer, Erik, spent several years working under the tutelage of Jason Oliver at Devils Backbone Basecamp, and so you know he knows what he is doing.

Despite being open since October 2021, they have only recently got their own brewing equipment installed (yay COVID!), and so have been brewing at Devils Backbone. Erik has clearly brought some of the Devils Backbone influence to his equipment with him, with horizontal lagering tanks being part of the setup - maybe I am crazy but horizontal tanks are just nicer to look at that endless rows of CCVs. My first trip to Patch was actually last November, when they had only been open for about 6 weeks, as my best mate was in town and we'd been hiking in the Shenandoah National Park, along with my neighbour, stop 1 was so horrific that I will never grace the place with my presence again. It was our second stop of the day before heading home for continued boozing around the fire pit. Being something like a 7 minute drive from my house to the brewery, it is supremely convenient, and I have several friends who work there, so it is always good to get along for a pint, or three.

On the beer front, their Pylon Pilsner is a good, solid German style pilsner, replete with the requisite, at least in my world, noble hop bitterness that so many other pilsners seem to shy away from. I also have a soft spot for their brown ale, A Stone in the Woods. Hopefully this weekend I will find some time to venture out into the remnants of Hurricane Ian as it impacts central Virginia and try their new märzen, Germanna, and a dunkelweizen (a rarity in the US) called 1714 for the year the first German colonists came to Orange County.

Heading into Charlottesville, one new name on the Fuggled Top Ten Virginian Beers this year was Decipher Brewing, and I can tell you now that they will be featuring quite a bit for the annual Fuggled Review of the Year in December. But first a story. As you may recall, I made a batch of my homebrew best bitter with Murphy & Rude Malting Company back in the late spring, using just their malts - which have now become the standard for that recipe as they improved it so much. On the day that I was due to go and try the beer with Jeff and co at the malthouse, Mrs V and I arrived early, so wandered up to Decipher Brewing for a quick pint whilst waiting for Jeff. There were still 10 minutes to opening time, but the bar staff that day welcomed us in and soon enough a pint of their 80/- Scottish ale was sitting in front of me, and I loved it. When I saw that they had a Czech style pale lager coming soon, I naturally inquired as to dates, and resolved that the following Friday I would get along to give it a bash, and I loved it.

Saaz, lots of Saaz, that's how I would describe Krypto, in the case of the picture above poured from a Lukr tap. This is a very, very respectable Czech style pale lager, if I were to quibble (what? Beer bloggers quibbling? Never!) then I would say that it would be even better with a decoction, or two, chucked into the mash schedule for some Maillard reactions to fill out the malt profile a little. Sitting in their little garden area with a pint after work on a Friday afternoon has become something of a thing for me in recent months. The beer is very good, as evidenced by their taking the Virginia Craft Brewers' crown this year, the ambience is chilled out, laid back, and decidedly unsceney (Mrs V and I have a shared aversion to places that become scenes). Oh, and they did a grodziskie, and I loved it.

Oh, and they did a smoked bock, and I loved it.

Decipher are one of only 4 Virginia breweries that are pouring at the Great American Beer Festival next week, so if you are there, check them out - I believe they will be pouring Krypto and the smoked bock.

Last week I got a message on Instagram from the brewer at Selvedge Brewing, also in Charlottlesville, just round the corner from Decipher actually. The message, accompanied by a picture of a fine looking glass of beer, was to tell me that they were releasing a German style festbier and that he knows I do a big Oktoberfest (märzen and festbiers) tasting around this time year, come on down and try the wares...

A couple of days later I tested positive for COVID, so that had to go on hold until the 10 days of quarantine were over. With that suitably out of the way, I finally made it to Selvedge, which is located in a renovated wool mill, in the Woolen Mills area of the city. Think repurposed 19th century brick and glass built factory and you'll get a sense of how it looks, as a fan of industrial architecture, I loved the high ceilings and light streaming in through the windows. There was an outdoor event going on when I was there, thankfully the inside bar was empty, so I pulled up a seat and ordered a pint of Tracht...

What a lovely beer it is. The crackeriness of pilsner malt, the sweet bready malt of Munich, and hops, a good amount of hops for a clean bitterness, if I remember rightly from Perle, and dollops of Hallertau Mittelfrüh for a slightly spicy finish. While I was sat at the bar, Josh, the brewer, came and sat for a chat and we discussed his plans for the brewery, having only taken the reins in the summer. From what I understand there will be a new larger location in the near future, and he plans to make authentic lagers a central theme of the brewery - any guesses how excited I am at that?

Naturally I tried a couple of the other beers on tap. Poplin is an Italian Pilsner - admittedly a style that seems a little contrived to me, if dry hopping a German pilsner a la Tipopils makes it Italian, does that mean Port City's dry hopping of their Czech style pale lager, Downright Pilsner, makes it a Virginia Pilsner? Either way, Poplin is a veritable carousel of noble hop flavour and aroma that I rather enjoyed, though I have to admit to following it up with another Tracht. 

One of the beer styles that I often find annoying in the US is Kölsch, I just find that they don't live up to the bright, sparkling, refreshing beer that the breweries of Cologne churn out, Selvedge's Linen bucks that trend, and is glorious into the bargain. Mrs V is a fan of the Kölsch style, so I look forward to getting a baby sitter to deal with the twins, so we can have a date afternoon/evening. As we sat discussing the merits of decoction mashing, open fermentation, and the like, Josh mentioned that it took being in Cologne for 16 hours to really get a sense of what Kölsch should be, and how important authentic yeast is to the style, pointing out that many a US brewery just uses good old neutral Chico...and thus it made sense why I found it disappointing over here. For fear of being type cast, I followed it up with another Tracht, did I mention yet that it is a lovely festbier, and hopefully there will be some still knocking around this weekend.

Each of the three breweries here have been open since at least last November, and in Decipher's case for a few years now, but as I said, I am an abysmal beer tourist, even on my own front door. I am glad though that we have them, and when I talk to folks working in them about their plans, I feel like times are going to be good ahead for this unbashed lager boy.