Beer News: East Coast > West Coast, sweet labels, and interesting ciders

Enough beer news this week to keep you afloat through this most beery of holiday weekends.

March 13, 2015; 10:40 AM • by Ross Catrow

Earlier this week, Style Weekly reported that a West Coast brewery, specifically one of the top-30 craft breweries in the country by volume, was considering Richmond as the site for their East Coast expansion. Because I like a good mystery and an excuse to Google with purpose, I put together this list of the West Coast craft breweries in the top 40. Yesterday, the RTD reported that “sources” have named Ballast Point as next brewery that’s about to fall in love with Richmond.

The Bros at Beer Advocate give Ballast Point’s Sculpin IPA a perfect 100. Assuming both Stone Brewing Co. and Ballast Point end up brewing beer in Richmond, that’d give RVA five beers with perfect BA scores: Stone’s Oak Arrogant Bastard Ale and Double Bastard Ale, Ballast Point’s Victory at Sea Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter (on tap at a couple of places around town) and Sculpin IPA, and Hardywood’s Ginger Bread Stout.

Still a mystery is the “even larger craft brewery” in serious talks with Norfolk that Style Weekly briefly mentioned in their original report.

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It wouldn’t be a weekly Richmond beer news column without mention of some sort of Stone Brewing Co. snag or snafu. This week it’s an ABC law that prevents a brewery from supplying beer to a restaurant two blocks away–if the properties were continuous, however, it’d be totally no big deal. It’s all a confusing and mostly archaic result of Virginia’s three-tier alcohol distribution system that was set up after prohibition.

This past weekend Lickinghole Creek released their Enlightened Despot. This news is one week too late, but I’m guessing after you look at this picture of the line you won’t be too bummed you missed it.

The Washington Post is hosting a Beer Madness 2015 bracket, which features a couple local brews including Hardywood Singel and Devils Backbone Vienna Lager. If sports aren’t your thing, but you wish that you could participate in some sort of bracket, the WaPo has your back.

The kind folks at Triple Crossing indulged our pestering and answered a bunch of questions we had about St. Patrick’s Day and beer. Turns out it’s not all about Dry Irish Stouts. Although, if my life were all about Dry Irish Stouts, I think I’d be quite happy.

Wednesday March 18th, Blanchard’s Coffee will celebrate their ten-year anniversary over at Ardent. They’ll have limited release coffee and limited release coffee beer. Delicious on all accounts!

For $50 you can pair a ton of Hardywood beers with a ton of Graffiato foods this coming Monday, March 16th. Gimme that The Shire pizza!

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Elsewhere…

Flying Dog Brewery–out of my great grandmother’s home town of Frederick, Maryland–just won a Court of Appeals case against the Michigan Liquor Control Comissioners. Those jerks had banned the sale of Raging Bitch in that state back in 2009. Flying Dog will use the money from the suit to establish a freedom of speech society in Frederick. While you’re at it, read illustrator Ralph Steadman’s wiki–he does all of the label designs for Flying Dog.

I love lists, and I especially love lists of items that I can check off. Here’s one that hits all my spots: “100 American craft beers every beer lover should drink.” I’ve had 22, how about you?

Congress will consider doing a tax thing that could help small brewers.

Takeovers and releases

• Triple Crossing Brewing Company will release their Clever Girl IPA, which has some killer label design, Friday afternoon.
• Last night, The Answer tapped a ton of coffee beers. Totally not my scene, but a lot of quality brews on the list and, presumably, still available for your consumption.
• This Saturday, Blue Bee Cider releases their fascinating Smokey Winesap Cider. Each dang apple was smoked in Camden’s Dogtown Market’s smoker before juicing. This sounds incredible.
• Also on Saturday, Hardywood will pair their Bourbon Sidamo release with the sweet, sweet sounds of Goldrush.

Beerygram

March 13, 2015 10:40 AM 1