Weekend Tastings

Friday, May 24
5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Live Music!
Horton Vineyards!
Beer Tastings!

Scrimshaw Pilsner
Summer Session Ale
Otter Creek Black IPA

Saturday, May 25
1:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Blue Mountain Lager
Fleur De Houblon

Sunday, May 26
1:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Specialty Beers – Stop in to find out what we are tasting!

Saturday, May 25, 2013
11:00 am – 7:00 pm
Massanutten Resort

www.valleyfestbeerandwine.com

ValleyFest, held on Memorial Day weekend, is the kick-off to summer! More than 4,000 people celebrate the holiday weekend at the festival, dancing to live music, sampling food, shopping for unique and handmade crafts, and enjoying quality wines and microbrews of the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia and beyond. Many varieties of beer and wine will be represented, from merlots and pinots to meads and maibocks. It’s all of the beer and wine you could possibly enjoy in one place!

Check out the beer and wine list here!

Tickets Now On Sale!

Available at www.valleyfestbeerandwine.com.
Early Bird and Advance tickets are also available at The General Store, The Market, Massanutten Concierge Desk, and the Harrisonburg/Rockingham Chamber of Commerce.

• Early Bird  |  $20 (Available through April 19)
• Advance  |  $25 (Available April 20 – May 24)
• At the Gate  |  $30
• Designated Driver  |  $10
• Kids 10 and under  |  FREE

Band Line-Up
The Hackens Boys  |  11:45 am – 1:00 pm
www.hackensboys.com  |  www.twitter.com/Hackensboys 

Bryan Elijah Smith & The Wildhearts  |  1:30 – 2:45 pm
www.bryanelijahsmith.com

Cazhmiere  |  3:15 – 4:45 pm
www.cazhmiere.net

Sons of Bill  |  5:15 – 6:45 pm
www.sonsofbill.com  |  www.facebook.com/sonsofbill  |  www.twitter.com/sonsofbill

Tickets are non-refundable. Rain or shine event. No outside food or beverages permitted. No pets or coolers. Please be prepared to present proper ID. Ticket price does not include food or beverages.

For additional information, visit www.valleyfestbeerandwine.com or contact Bekka Painter, Director of Communications for the Chamber of Commerce, at 540-434-3862 x 108 for additional information.

Strangeways Brewing’s RVA Bar Crawl Starts at Noon This Saturday!

Come out and taste Secret Batch 1 and Secret Batch 2 of RVA’s Newest…….Strangeways Brewing!

The beers will be available on draft at ALL of these fine establishments starting at Noon unless otherwise listed:
Capital Alehouse (ALL 3 RVA Locations/Downtown; Innsbrook; Midlothian)
Mekong
Mellow Mushroom
Sedona Taphouse
Joe’s Inn
Station 2
Sine
Don’t Look Back
Portrait House
Burger Bach
Tarrant’s
Olio
City Dogs-Fan
Sergio’s
Extra Billy’s
TJ’s (3:00)
Commercial Taphouse (4:00)
Comfort (4:00)
Fat Dragon (4:30)
Popkin Tavern (4:30)
Saison (5:00)
The Camel (5:00)
Rappahannock (5:00)
Blue Goat (5:30)
A.F.M. says, “Come Join the Troop”

This Saturday, we’re happy to have Favio Garcia of Lost Rhino Brewing Company in to sample some of the Ashburn brewery’s offerings. We’re celebrating this weeks release of Lost Rhino’s Rhino Chasers Pils and Face Plant IPA in cans, so we’ll have those beers open along with a couple of our favorite special releases from Lost Rhino.

Here’s what we should have to sample on Saturday:

Rhino Chasers Pils; 5.6% ABV:
The combination of Pilsner and Munich malts with American-grown Hallertau and Saaz hops makes Lost Rhino’s flagship beer a refreshing, balanced beer with a sweet backbone and cutting hop character.

Face Plant IPA; 6.2% ABV: With contemporary American IPA standard hops Cascade and Centennial you might expect Face Plant to attack the palate with aggressive citrus and bite, but you’d be mistaken. The use of whole-cone hops in a hopback imparts bold flavor and structure without excessive bitterness. If you like your IPA with just the right amount of malt complimenting the hops, try Face Plant.

Pretty In Pink; 5.8% ABV: The local brewery collaboration made to benefit breast cancer awarness is still around, and still tasty. Don’t miss this great Saison-style Ale made with pomegranate juice.

Looking forward to seeing you this weekend.

Cheers!

–Nick Anderson, your friendly neighborhood Beermonger

Looking for something patriotic to do this Memorial Day weekend? Join us at COTU to celebrate the release of Homefront IPA – a beer that gives back to the troops!

Homefront IPA is a West Coast style IPA, brewed with orange peel and aged on Louisville Slugger bats donated by none other than Louisville Slugger. After the beer is brewed, the bats will be dried and auctioned off. 100% of the proceeds for the beer and the auctioned off bats will go to Operation Homefront. Last year, with the help of 6 participating breweries and other organizations that donated the hops and grains used to make the beer, Hops for Heroes (the name of the organization in charge of planning and coordinating everything for Homefront IPA) was able to raise $165,000 dollars for Operation Homefront.

Live music from Tristan Thorndyke and his band!

Food trucks: Curbside Creations & Slideways Mobile Bistro

Read our recent blog on Homefront IPA here or check out the Hops for Heroes website here.

This Saturday……..
We’ll be kicking off RVA newest Brewery……….
STRANGEWAYS BREWERY on Dabney Road, just 2 miles from Mekong
We’ll be release 2 of there flagship beers….
Neil from Strangeways told us not to reveal the style and name of the beer until Saturday………

According to our CBO
the beers taste incredibly fresh and dry
He’s a BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG FAN

We kick off the official start of summer with English Summer Ale – our 2011 Great American Beer Festival Bronze medal winner.

Join us as we celebrate the bounty of the Chesapeake Bay with Devils Backbone Striped Bass Pale Ale. Founders Steve & Heidi Crandall will be on hand as we present a check donation to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Great Beer Deserves Clean Water –Devils Backbone Striped Bass Pale Ale Project

Lexington, VA May 20, 2013: Devils Backbone Brewing Company is pleased to announce the second annual release of their collaboration with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Striped Bass Pale Ale. Devils Backbone and their partnering distributors have raised $50,000 for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s educational awareness programs since the project’s inception last year.

Devils Backbone Founder Steve Crandall and his wife Heidi are stewards of the land. The streams and springs on their farm in Nelson County, VA are fenced off from livestock with water troughs built by the helping hands of the Virginia’s conversation program back in 1985. The Crandall’s take great pride in preserving their land and natural habitat in ways that preserve the Chesapeake Bay. The abundant water sources in the mountains around their home and Devils Backbone’s breweries eventually run to the bay, so the Striped Bass Pale Ale project is personal for them.

Striped Bass Pale Ale was fittingly spawned on an island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay while fishing for stripers in near gale force winds. Steve Crandall, a fully committed outdoorsman, wanted to create a beer that would satisfy your thirst while enjoying the outdoors but also help protect local waters. The crisp American Striped Bass Pale Ale is packaged in aluminum cans with recyclable toppers to be packable, portable and 100% recyclable.

Devils Backbone Brewing Company’s commitment to clean water and a healthy environment gives them and their distributor-partners in Virginia, DC and Maryland, a unique opportunity to support the efforts of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The program received support from five of their distributor partners: Virginia Eagle Distributing (Verona, VA); Brown Distributing (Richmond, VA); Hoffman Beverage Company (Virginia Beach, VA); Guiffre Distributing (Alexandria, VA); and Katcef Brothers, Inc (Annapolis, MD).

Chesapeake Bay Foundation, whose mission to “Save the Bay” extends thru out the Bay’s watershed and into the Blue Ridge Mountains, is actively working with the region’s landowners, businesses, residents, and local governments to restore and protect water quality in Virginia’s streams, rivers, and the Chesapeake Bay.

Striped Bass Pale Ale has an active QR code on the can that leads the consumer to an informative page for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the need for “clean water”.

Devils Backbone Brewing Company is a regional Craft Brewery with two locations in the Virginia Heartland. The Basecamp Brewpub, a full service restaurant with on-premise brewery, opened its doors in 2008 and the Outpost, a full-scale production facility, began operations in 2012. Steven Crandall founded the company and Jason Oliver leads the brewing operations. At their Basecamp Brewpub, they have crafted well over 100 different styles of beer, approximately 15 of which have been scaled up for production and distribution from the Outpost facility. The company currently distributes its beers through wholesalers across the State of Virginia, Washington DC and in parts of Maryland. In its four-year existence, the company has been awarded 22 medals at the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup. Additionally, the Company was named 2010 Champion Brewery and Brewmaster Small Brewpub at the World Beer Cup and 2012 Small Brewpub and Small Brewpub Brewer of the Year at the Great American Beer Festival. Their best-selling Vienna Lager won gold medals at both the 2012 World Beer Cup and the 2012Great American Beer Festival.

Join us for Cask Wednesday with our Defender APA with Simcoe hops and Fresno’s chilis

7 Devilish Days of Duvel
Fredericksburg location
Starting on Wed, May 29th and ending Monday June 3rd
One special Duvel beer tapped each day and paired
with a unique Duvel Belgian Glass.

Pouring: Duvel, Maredsous Triple, McChouffe, La Chouffe, Ommegang Witte, De Konick Amber and Ommmegang Art of Darkness