Author: timandjohnna

The name says it all – craft ales. Nothing too wild here. The Ardent Pilsner has a classic flavor with a smooth finish as did the Virginia Common lager. We were regreting our choices after discovering they released their seasonal Fest Bier earlier in the day. Notice the two beers in the picture below parked to the right: they accidently double poured our order. We call that alcohol abuse!

Now that I’ve got that ten-hour day behind me and a beer under my belt, my mind is in the right place to write again. This tap room is what I would call “shabby-shiek” decor just a block or so from the VCU campus. Serving only five different beers, we caught a break with the Pils and the Down On Main Street pale ale. Both were well balanced with just the right amount of hops and sweetness.

After a ten-hour work day I was told to relax at least for the first beer so here you go: Ciao Ragazzi pils and Wild Bill lager. That’s all you get.

Aside from the fact there is again no parking, this place has an interesting gaming theme with vintage pinball, skee ball and video games to play while you drink. It also has pool tables, plenty of indoor & outdoor seating as well as club-like music vibe. Not really our style of brewery but the beer is spot-on with their Bingo german lager and their Oktoberfest. The food is killer: we had the Original Phiily that rivals even some of the best we have had on our travels.

It’s open mic night starting at 6:00p but we won’t be singing any praises for this brewery. While the outdoor acommodations were spacious, the beer selection was not. They had six beers on tap and four were way outside our comfort zone so we resorted to the only two remaining that we thought were drinkable: the Synco mexican lager and the Bomb Shell blonde ale. For such a small beer selection, these two beers were surprisingly delightful.

The 2nd stop of our mini-tour puts us in a much better place only 10 minutes from the track. With a dozen beers of our liking and a real pizza kitchen, we relaxed with a Richmond Pale Lager and a German Pils after a long day of work madness. Stupid people can really make your day drag on even with a holiday-shortened work week.

Das ist die scheisse! Named in honor of the owner & brewmasters family heritage, this brewery has a balanced selection of fine craft beers sure to satisfy even the most sophisticated pallets. With tons of indoor seating, a stage for live entertainment and a dart board area, we were the first ones in the door at 5:00p when they opened to drink a Castleburg Cream Ale and a La Dam Du Lac blonde ale. Prost!

Our Richmond “mini tour” is not off to a good start. First, it took forever to find a park then the server provides us with a QR code for the food menu then tells us they are out of everything except pepperoni pizza and Shishito peppers. WTF? The Tiny Pils and the Czech Pale Lager beers were pretty decent but the pizza was something between Tombstone and brick-oven. To quote the great philosopher Forrest Gump: “that’s all I got to say ’bout that”.

Happy Labor Day! After leaving the track this morning, we decided to stop on our way to Richmond & check out a brewery along the way and camp for the night. Our stop takes us to a uniquely decorated and artsy-themed tap room serving up a wild list of beers ranging from German Chocolate Cake stout to Habanero Sour IPA. As tempting as they all sounded, we started out stayed in our lane with a One Year In Wilson pub ale but went a little off-course with the This Is Not A Smoked Corn lager. The pub ale was good as expected but the lager was, well, like drinking a roasted ear of corn fresh off the grill minus the butter & salt. Since this was the olny brewery in town, we couldn’t resist the temptation and went another round to try the Cake and the Zeitghost West Coast IPA. All we can say is WOW!

A quick, 15-minute jaunt from the track brings us to this farm-inspired brewery serving up some delicious brews and awesome brick-oven pizza. After a splash-n-go at the Darlington Moose, we eagerly made our way through the peanut fields to stop at the last brewery in the area before going into “lockdown” for the weekend. We drank an H&H american lager and a Royal Heist german lager before undulging in The Centennial pizza in what felt like someone’s barn out back. Everything was so good, we broke our own rule of only one beer per brewery and went another round to try the Kalmia pale ale and Bow Tie nut brown ale. We even met the Brewmaster and learned about their story behind beer naming & community involvement. A “must visit” if you are in the area or attend the Darlington race!