Around the World in Beers: Richmond

Last summer I took a road trip to Richmond, Virginia. With craft beer rising to popularity over the past ten years or so, most city tourism bureaus nowadays have a beer guide of some sort available on their website, but you can only imagine my thrill when I discovered Richmond’s Beer Trail and just how saturated the city is with breweries. The Scott’s Addition Historic District is a trendy section of the city full of revitalized warehouses and is home to nearly 10 breweries all within walking distance of each other – great for brewery-hopping. I covered a lot of ground while I was there, but feel like I didn’t even put a dent in it! Here are the brews I tried:

Center of the Universe Brewing (Ashland, VA)

With lunch at the Secret Sandwich Society in downtown Richmond, I tried Richmond Rally Cap from Center of the Universe Brewing in Ashland, VA just north of Richmond. The Richmond Rally Cap is a 5% refreshing grapefruit shandy and the official beer of the Richmond Flying Squirrels minor league baseball team (I was today years old when I learned this team existed but want to support them for their mascot alone).

Richbrau Brewing

Richbrau Brewing is located in downtown Richmond just steps from key attractions like the Edgar Allan Poe Museum. They’re situated in one of the oldest sections of the city, and as such try to weave local history into the names of their beers. I stopped in for a beer after an afternoon of wandering, and ironically landed on their beer called Wander, a 6.3% West Coast IPA hopped with Mosaic and Centennial hops that give it a juicy and piney flavor.

Triple Crossing Brewing Company

Across the downtown area sits one of three locations of Triple Crossing, a brewery founded on brewing beers that were rare in the craft brewing world at the time of their founding. Always a fan of smokey beers, I enjoyed their Smolder bock, a 6% “aggressively smoked” bock with beechwood smoked malts brewed in collaboration with Schilling Beer Co. in Littleton, NH.

Hardywood Park Craft Brewery

If you’re looking for a great restaurant in Richmond with a variety of craft beers on tap, look no further than Mekong Vietnamese Restaurant – their beer selection is as amazing as their food! With my delicious dinner I ordered the Pils from Hardywood Park Craft Brewery. Located a few minutes from Scott’s Addition, Hardywood is Richmond’s largest independently owned craft brewery. The Pils is one of their year-round offerings, a 5.2% classic German pilsner that is crisp and clean.

The Veil Brewing Company

On my second afternoon in Richmond, I did a little brewery crawl through Scott’s Addition. To make the most of what I could try, I stuck with mostly taster-size beers. Here are the three I tried at The Veil, relaxing in their outdoor patio space:

• Chug Chug Water Water – an 8% hazy double dry-hopped IPA that was fruity and bitter with notes of cantaloupe and lime
• Master Shredder – their 5.5% house hazy IPA that was hoppy and tropical
• Never Gonnagetit³ – the 5.3% triple-fruited version of their sour fruited gose with raspberry, boysenberry, and blackberry

Strangeways Brewing

Stop number two in Scott’s Addition was Strangeways Brewing, the third outpost of a brewery founded on a passion for exploring the unknown. I was highly satisfied with my trio of tasters that I selected:

• Albino Monkey White Ale – a spicy and sweet 5% witbier brewed with coriander, orange peels, lemon peels, white pepper, and Virginia wildflower honey
• Velvet Smoking Jacket – a 5.3% smoked ale with notes of apple and pear brewed with peat smoked barley to give it a smoky finish
• Rallenta Flemish Red Ale – a 5.3% sour Flanders ale made using mixed fermentation and matured in Italian oak barrels. It has tart apple and grape notes and a ton of funk.

Ardent Craft Ales

I ended my Scott’s Addition crawl at Ardent Craft Ales in their lovely beer garden sipping a glass of their Pineapple Mango Gose. At 4.5% and brewed with pineapple, mango, and passion fruit, this beer was the most refreshing finish to a hot summer day.

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Richmond ranks high for me in the beer cities I’ve been to, and I would love to go back and imbibe some more!