Photo Courtesy of Mary Wolf : ©2011 www.nelsoncountylife.com : Danny Wolf (brewmaster) sorts through parts to hook up to fermenters at Wild Wolf's newly built brewery in Nellysford.

Nellysford
Nelson County, Virginia
Within a matter of days Wild Wolf Brewing Company will begin brewing beer at their new and permanent home in Nellysford, Virginia. This past week Danny Wolf, the brewmaster, at WW was busy getting everything ready to start production.

New fermenters just put in place at Wild Wolf's new home in Nellysford.

Wild Wolf has been on an aggressive fast track construction and remodeling project at the old Rockfish Nursery location on Route 151.

Our September story on Wild Wolf’s new construction. Click on the image above to read.

The restaurant portion of the new operation is nearing completion with an anticipated opening date of 11.11.11.

The new brewhouse getting ready to make beer at Wild Wolf's new location.

We can’t wait!

More on the history of the building location long before it was purchased by Wild Wolf – by clicking here.

Blue Mountain Brewery is releasing it's Afton Amber Ale on Friday 4.22.11 just in time for Easter Weekend!

Afton
Nelson County, Virginia
The folks over at Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton just keep turning out the new brews. Just in time for Easter Weekend Taylor Smack, co-founder and brewmaster at BMB, has released Afton Amber.

Here’s what Taylor has to say about it:

A classic East-Coast amber ale, with attention to balance and malt complexity. A blend of nine different malts along with rolled oats and wheat malt form the light, bready flavor of this brew and create the amber hue. English and German hops round out the beer but remain pleasantly in the background, and a fermentation with three different ale yeasts—American, Belgian and Scottish—create a blend of flavors that add depth to this simple classic. 20 IBUs, 5.5% alc./vol. Served in a 16oz. pint glass for $4.

Sounds absolutely delicious!

Photos By Hayley Osborne : ©2011 www.nelsoncountylife.com : Dirt flew Monday afternoon in Rockbridge County as Devils Backbone officially broke ground for their new beer production facility just off of U.S. Route 11 west of I-81.

Rockbridge County, Virginia
It’s not really official until the dirt flies from the golden shovels. That it did, Monday afternoon at groundbreaking ceremony for Devils Backbone’s production facility. “We’re glad to be a part of Rockbridge County. It’s great to see everyone here today and since we weren’t able to locate in Nelson, we so glad to be here in nearby Rockbridge,” Steve Crandall told the crowd gathered Monday afternoon. Steve is the founder and owner of Devils Backbone Brewing Company in Roseland, Virginia.

While Nelson County was Steve's first choice of location, a technicality surrounding the sewage treatment facilities caused him to move out of the county with his production brewery.

DBBC head brewmaster, Jason Oliver (left) serves up samples of Devils Backbone beer at Monday's groundbreaking ceremony.

Above our March 2011 story on DBBC’s expansion into Rockbridge County. Click on the image above for the full story.

Dignitaries and other locals gather this past Monday afternoon at the construction site for the groundbreaking of Devils Backbone's production facility in Rockbridge County, VA

When completed, the facility will be able to have a 30 barrel brew system compared to the 8 barrel system DBBC currently has at the Roseland operation.

This was just a cool shot Hayley got! It's looking up toward the sky as they shoveled dirt into the air at Monday's groundbreaking in Rockbridge.

Steve tells us the new facility should be completed by the end of 2011 or the first of 2012.

Congrats DBBC!

©2011 The Afton Group, LLC : Taylor Smack, co-founder, owner and head brewer at Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton, VA looks over the beginnings of a 5000 sq foot expansion that's underway. It will join the existing original building in the background built in 2007.

Afton
Nelson County, Virginia
We first told you back in December 2010 about a major expansion on the way for Nelson’s first microbrewery, Blue Mountain, established back in 2007. Has it already been that long? Yep, sure has! “It’s about a 5000 square foot customer sized addition, so it will basically be bigger than what we have now. More customer space, offices, cathedral ceilings, same farm house style with the gabled roofs. Virginia Frame’s doing it again,” Taylor says.

Construction crews began work this week on the major expansion at Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton. Not to worry, the doors are open while everything is underway.

The new construction is ongoing while the brewery and restaurant operate normally. The addition will go off to the right of the original building.

The project will be completed in the fall of this year, just in time for the beautiful autumn leaves and cool weather!

Woo Hoo!

visit www.thejavadepot.com for menu

Event Date: Friday 12th of February 2010 07:00 PM

Location/Address: By DBB off Rt 664, the road to Wintergreen

Contact Telephone Please call 434 361-0221 for more information

This post was submitted by nancy kern.

Jan Smith plays live Sunday afternoon from 2:30PM to 5PM @ Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton, Virginia.

Jan Smith plays live at Blue Mountain Brewery this afternoon! Come join us!

Event Date: Sunday 3rd of January 2010 2:30PM

Location/Address: 9519 Critzers Shop Rd. (Rt. 151)

Contact Telephone: Please call 540-456-8020 for more information

Event Date: Friday 25th of September 2009 7:00 PM

Location/Address: 9519 Critzers Shop Rd. (Rt. 151)

Contact Telephone Please call 540-456-8020 for more information

This post was submitted by Mandi Smack.

Event Date: Sunday 27th of September 2009 02:30 PM

Location/Address: 9519 Critzers Shop Rd. (Rt. 151)

Contact Telephone Please call 540-456-8020 for more information

This post was submitted by Mandi Smack.

©2009 Blue Ridge Country Magazine : Several local breweries including both of Nelson County's are written up in Blue Ridge Country Magazine.

Nelson County, Virginia
Congrats to Blue Mountain Brewery and Devils Backbone Brewing Company! Both of Nelson’s microbreweries were recently recognized for their craftsmanship of beers in Blue Ridge Country Magazine. Hat Tip to David Turley over at Musings Over A Pint for letting us know about this! If you are a beer lover and have never read David’s site, be sure to check it out as well. If it’s beer, he’s got it covered!

Congrats again to Jason over at DBBC and Taylor at BMB for making some of the best beer around!

Photo Courtesy of Sue Battani : One of the 6 jumbo garbage bags containing a combo of paper napkins, paper cups, corn cups, & food waste recycled from this past weekend's BRTMF.

Nelson & Albemarle County, Virginia
This past weekend’s Blue Ridge Trail Music Festival was a complete success, but after the festival comes the cleanup! And a festival with over 1000 people creates lots of trash. The organizers of the event, Cerberus Productions, in conjunction with www.myrecyclingclub.com in Albemarle County made sure as much of the waste created from the event was recycled. “John (John Spagnolo of Cerberus Productions) did a great thing and elected to purchase ‘corn’ cups for the event that are made of 100% corn husks and are bio-degradable and those cups were filled with quite a bit of beer on Saturday to be sure.” Eventually those cups along with paper napkins, paper cups & food waste were delivered to Royal Oak Farm in Evington, VA (Above photo)

“We started My Recycling Club (www.myrecyclingclub.com) in July ’08 when we heard from several people in Albemarle county that they wished they had help getting their recyclables collected. We began a pilot program for 12 customers and since last summer our client base has grown to over 120 individual customers and businesses, including Keswick Hall, Blue Mountain Brewery, and Devils Backbone,” says Sue Battani of My Recycling Club.

In addition to the items mentioned above, more recycled items were sorted and delivered to McIntire Recycling Center in Albemarle County

· 1 jumbo-sized garbage can of glass bottles
· 2 jumbo-sized garbage cans of plastic bottles and jugs
· 1 large stack of cardboard and brown paper packaging

Sue says they will be back next at the 2010 festival! Pretty cool!

Location: Evans Center at Wintergreen Resort
Date: Saturday, September 26, 2009
Time: Noon – 5:30 pm
Ticket Price: $20
Further information: (434) 325-8292;
www.wintergreenperformingarts.org;
info@wintergreenperformingarts.org

Event Date: Saturday 26th of September 2009 12:00 PM

Location/Address: Evans Center at Wintergreen Resort

Contact Telephone Please call 434-325-8292 for more information

This post was submitted by Nanci Taylor.

Photo By Heidi Crandall : ©2009 www.nelsoncountylife.com : Brewmaster, Jason Oliver of Devils Backbone Brewing smells one of the freshly picked Cascade Hops.

Roseland
Nelson County, Virginia
There still lots of summer left, but the crops are coming in for many folks. Over at Devils Backbone Brewing much of their Monday was spent picking Cascade Hops in their garden just outside the brewery. Nope, they don’t grow most of their own hops on site, but the ones picked Monday are part of several pounds they were able to harvest in their first year of operation. ” We picked our first harvest of Cascade hops yesterday morning. I was surprised by the yield of these first year vines, usually you do not get a good yield on year one,” says Jason Oliver the Brewmaster at DBBC. “Pierre from Edible Landscaping did a great job planting these,” Jason adds.

Cascade hops are a cross between Fuggles with a Ruskie hop variety.

“Cascade hops are the most popular hops in craft brewing. They were made popular by beers such as Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Anchor’s Liberty Ale,” Jason continues.

According to the folks over at BrewDudes.com the Cascades are typically used for flavoring and aroma, primarily in American beers.

Hops in the bucket!

“Already a portion of these hops are “dry hopping” a special blend. Dry hoping is when you soak hops in a beer apposed to boiling with them. The soaking of hops in a maturing beer provides fresh intense hop flavor,” Jason says.

A closeup of a Cascade Hop.

Can’t wait to see what Jason will do with these!

Event Date: Sunday 19th of July 2009 02:30 PM

Location/Address: 9519 Critzers Shop Rd. (Rt. 151)

Contact Telephone Please call 540-456-8020 for more information

This post was submitted by Mandi Smack.

©2009 NCL Magazine : Photo By BMB : Taylor Smack, co-owner, of Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton, supervises the offloading of a new brewing tank at their operation.

Afton
Nelson County, Virginia
It’s been a busy week already for the folks at Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton. They have been in the process of offloading a new tank that will double their draft and bottled beer distribution in stores and restaurants. “We just recently got to the momentous mark of having our draft and bottled beer in over 100 restaurants and stores across Virginia. This new tank is going to help us double that within a year,” Mandi Smack, co-owner of BMB tells us.

Blue Mountain opened just under two years ago back in the fall of 2007 as we first reported here.

Taylor mans the forklift to get the new tank secured for storage.

The new tank has about 1000 gallons of capacity! That’s a lot more than your average 12 ounce beer!

Congrats on the upgrade BMB! This is great news!

©2009 NCL Magazine : Photo By Tommy Stafford : Jason Oliver, Head Brewer at Devils Backbone shows of his latest custom microbrew, Cream of Fergus

Roseland
Nelson County, Virginia
So when Jason Oliver, Head Brewer, at Devils Backbone Brewing Company told me the other day he would have another fantastic micro brew coming out soon, he wasn’t kidding! “It is an English-style Best Bitter served off of nitrogen for a smooth and creamy texture. It pours like Guinness but it is light copper in color,” Jason proudly explained Monday afternoon when I gave the newest beer a test drive!

The light copper color shows through from a freshly tapped beer.

Jason also tells me it’s a great session beer at 4.4% abv, which means you can have a few unlike drinking a stouter type of beer which would be higher in alcohol content.

In short, it’s yummy!

Both he and friendly rival, Taylor Smack, over at Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton continue cranking out highly popular beers that have tons of people coming to Nelson County for the one of a kind micro brews!