By Chris Dumler '09
Reviewer

Located on Critzers Shop Road in Afton, right across the Nelson County border and a mere twenty-minute drive from Charlottesville, Blue Mountain Brewery’s restaurant and tasting room looks like a cross between a Bavarian brew house and an antebellum plantation.

The gravel parking lot has room for about forty cars and one of the spots is always occupied by brewmaster Taylor Smack’s Corolla, complete with “BMBREW” vanity plate. Smack has been brewing professionally since 2000, getting his start at Chicago’s Goose Island brewpub. He moved to Charlottesville in 2002 to become head brewmaster at South Street Brewery, before leaving last October to open Blue Mountain Brewery and Hop Farm.

Blue Mountain grows 200 vines of Cascade hops, all of which are used in their Full Nelson pale ale. Smack says growing his own hops helps his business tremendously, given the current hop shortage—in fact, the Cascades grown at Blue Mountain were the only examples of this variety Smack was able to get his hands on last year. You can’t get any more local than that, though the food at the brewery comes close.

The tasting room seats about fifty and has a unique atmosphere. It’s well-lit, with lofty ceilings, good music, a fireplace, spectacularly clean restrooms, and a few nooks and crannies with a couch and comfortable chairs. The most striking feature of the tasting room, however, is the twenty-foot tall window behind the bar through which three of Blue Mountain’s five fermentation vessels are visible. There’s no question that the beer here is fresh.

Blue Mountain’s menu has its pros and cons. For one thing, it’s local, like the hops: all the bread is baked fresh daily down the road at Goodwin Creek Farm in Afton, and even the pigs are slaughtered nearby at Kite’s in Wolftown. The food is also inexpensive for its quality, with menu items running anywhere from $3.50 for a huge Bavarian-style pretzel to $16.00 for the large roasted vegetable pizza (the menu doesn’t say, but I’m willing to bet the veggies aren’t from too far away either). Another plus is the use of their own beer in many of their food items, such as beer bratwursts boiled in their Kölsch and their Evil 8º bread pudding. However, the brewery does run a one-person kitchen, so if you visit on a busy night, expect your food to take a while. And although what’s on the menu is good, fresh, local, and relatively inexpensive, there isn’t too much to choose from—the menu is perhaps fifteen items long, including appetizers, soups, various platters, and desserts.

But—let’s be honest—who goes to a brewpub for food? Blue Mountain runs six taps, four of which host year-round brews. The Blue Mountain Lager and the Kölsch are fine examples of their respective styles, but it’s the Full Nelson Strong pale ale and the Evil 8º dubbel that require special mention. The Full Nelson is Blue Mountain’s flagship brew, a gorgeous copper-hued ale bursting with strong piney, floral, and citrusy hop aromas and flavors, all resting on a rich, caramelly malt palate. The Evil 8º, served in a 10.5 ounce goblet, is a foamy, opaque brown beer with a crisp, sweet nose and a roasted and slightly bitter but balanced taste. It’s a light-bodied, expressively carbonated, and unusually smooth example of a dubbel, a Belgian style that many American brewers avoid, probably because it’s so difficult to get right. The Evil 8º actually uses a strain of yeast from one of the world’s six remaining Trappist breweries, many of whose beers are among the absolute finest ever brewed.

The brewery’s remaining two taps are reserved for special offerings and seasonal brews, currently occupied by an Irish Dry Stout and the Mandolin, the newest addition to their lineup and my favorite beer of the evening. An example of another oft-avoided Belgian style—this time a tripel, brewed with that same rare Belgian yeast—the Mandolin has a gorgeous, hazy amber body and loads of spicy cloves, light, fruity esters, and mild citrus hop notes. It is a truly stellar beer, and well worth the trip to try on draught.

Somewhere between the Mandolin and the Irish Stout, Smack came out of the brewery proper with a sample of something he called their “Bourbon Barrel Aged Dark Hollow Imperial Stout” for me because, as he said, it looked like I took my beer quite seriously. With the cockles of my heart warmed (though it might have been the ethanol by this point), I was invited back into the brewery and shown the entire cozy operation, from the brew kettles, where the grain and hops are boiled in deep-drawn Virginia artesian well water, all the way to the bottler, a quaint hand-operated machine that maxes out at about six beers a minute. I was even shown the barreling operation, where their Dark Hollow Stout is aged for 100 days in fresh, unwashed Jim Beam and Wild Turkey bourbon barrels, imparting a smorgasbord of phenomenally complex flavors. We discussed the brewery’s upcoming plans for an expansion of the hop crop and the brewing of an Imperial Pilsener for the summer. Then I headed out, promising a good review in exchange for a free six pack.

Okay, so that last part didn’t happen, but even without having been bribed, Blue Mountain Brewery is a surprisingly mature and professional operation for a business that’s only been around for six months. The atmosphere is great, the food precisely what you want from a brewery tasting room, and the beer often truly amazing.