In the heart of Virginia

I’ve travelled to different wineries across the US and Europe (although not California – yet), and I have to say one of the ones I enjoyed the most was Barboursville, in the wine region of Virginia. For those of you who don’t know it yet, Virginia has developed a reputation for good wines, and it’s deserved, at least in part. To be honest, there are some pretty mediocre wines from Virginia (no, I’m not going to link to any), but there are some very good ones as well. Barboursville is one of the good ones.
Not far from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, the winery is set on a rural road on the former estate of James Barbour, one of the early governors of Virginia. The ruins of the governor’s erstwhile mansion are still on the property, and it’s a great place to relax with a bottle of newly purchased wine and some good cheese. My preference is the red wines, not surprising given that a major investor is a winery out of Italy, but they also make a very nice dessert wine.
The town of Barboursville is little more than a couple of houses and a church, but a trip to Barboursville can be combined nicely with a trip to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s self-designed home and plantation. If you haven’t had enough of politicos you can also see Montpelier, James Madison’s nearby plantation. If you prefer to stay in a town setting, both Staunton and Charlottesville are charming towns. Either way, there’s history, culture, wine, and the natural beauty of rural Virginia. Surely that’s enough for a long weekend.

Not the Pitts

We’ve just returned from a city which, much like my home city of Philadelphia, suffers from an old, worn reputation it no longer deserves. I’m talking about Pittsburgh. Now, Pittsburgh still has its issues, but it’s no longer the smog-filled steeltown of old. One thing which is left from those days (combined with a significant German population) is a legacy of beers. Now, not all of those beers are great, but the beer tourist still has a few worthy things to see.
First of all is the Pittsburgh Brewing company, an old-school American brewery which has been in the same location on Liberty Ave in Pittsburgh for over 140 years. According to Factory Tours in PA, the brewery can be toured from April through November, although the brewery website doesn’t say so. Either way, I’ve never been, but one of these days I will. If you are in the neighborhood and can’t tour Pittsburgh Brewing, you can still make your way to beer experience of a different sort. Just a short way down the street from Pittsburgh brewing is the Church Brew Works, where you can worship at the altar of beer (quite literally) and enjoy a fine example of adaptive reuse. The brewery is housed in an old Catholic church, and where the altar once stood there is a large brewing house. It’s a worthy visit, if just for the unique environment, but the beer’s not bad either.
Finally, another old building has been renovated and, in this instance, brought back to its original purpose in the Penn Brewery. Fans of German music and food will enjoy a visit, particularly during the various German-style events, but we’ve been to the restaurant a few times and always had a good time. The old brewery buildings provide a great backdrop for good German-style beers. In summer, a nice patio area provides outdoor seating as well.

On the River Horse

So, closer to home (at least for us) we visited the River Horse Brewing Company in Lambertville, New Jersey. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that New Jersey remains for me a foreign country, and I always expect to have to change money when I go there. More importantly, I still fail to appreciate the charms of the Jersey jughandle, a strange way of turning left which involves turning right first. Thankfully, Lambertville is right over the bridge from New Hope, PA, so we were able to simply park the car and walk.
In any case, the first place we walked was to River Horse, which is in what clearly used to be the industrial section of this practically too cute Victorian village. The brewery itself is in what looks to be an old mill of some sort (anyone know the answer?). Entering the brewery the first sight is a cozy tasting area, with a bar on one side and a very old table (surrounded by handsome River Horse merchandise) on the other. Behind the bar is a door, and the tour pretty much consists of the guy behind the bar opening the door and saying “Here for the tour?”
The main operating portion of the brewery is on the first floor, with only a few lagering tanks on the second. The brewery isn’t large, but you’re free to wander and check out the facility.
As for the beer, I really enjoyed the Lager, and may have to go back and get a case (did I mention that we parked the car and walked to the brewery?). The brewery is open for tours seven days a week, 12-5. Lambertville offers a lot of kitschy shops, particularly antiques, but it’s not wholly given over to the tourist trade.

A pilgrimage, of sorts

So, this weekend we finally made it it out to the new Yard’s brewing company, in the not-so-lovely (but up-and-coming) Kensington section of Philadelphia. I wanted to visit Yard’s back when they were in Manayunk, near our own section of town, but I never made it. But when Yards combined their clear desire to brew beer the old-fashioned way with the purchase of a genuine, old-time brewery building, I was quite smitten. After all, Philadelphia’s long legacy of brewing is embodied in a whole series of decaying and disappearing brewery facilities, and anything which saves one of these nifty old buildings is a good thing in my book. Yard’s has gone that one better, by turning that old brewery into a new brewery!
The brewery is housed in the old Weisbrod and Hess brewery, which hadn’t brewed beer since 1939. The building is larger than the brewery’s needs for now, and they are clearly restoring it on an as-needed basis, but the parts they’ve done look good and the remainder is at least the beneficiary of more maintenance than it’s had in a long time.
To add to the enjoyment, the tour is very informal, very friendly, and pretty informative as well. There’s a fantastic old room which has been turned into a comfortable tap room for those who are waiting for a tour, and the brewery itself is contained on two floors of the old brewery.
Now, as noted, it’s not the best neighborhood in the world (we may or may not have witnessed a drug deal while driving around to see the rest of the building), but the beer is good and Yards deserves kudos for returning this great old building to its original function. By all means check it out.

And now for something completely different

So, having written yesterday about a European pub steeped in tradition and Scotch, now I’m sitting here at home thinking about something very different – the Flying Fish Brewing company in lovely Cherry Hill, New Jersey. More particularly, I’m drinking a pleasant enough (if decidedly un-Bavarian) beer called Oktoberfish, a seasonal beer brewed, not surprisingly, in October. I’ll cover the Oktoberfest in more detail at a later date, but the many “fest” beers resemble nothing I’ve ever tasted at or near the Oktoberfest. Of course, that doesn’t mean they aren’t pleasant beers, and I enjoy a number of them.
Back to Flying Fish. I have to confess, I’m not a fan of New Jersey in general, or Cherry Hill in particular. I also have to say that the Flying Fish Brewery, set in a nondescript corporate park along a typical New Jersey highway, is not really going to give you the warm fuzzies going in. They make up for it, however, in providing probably the most cheerful and accomodating tour available. Hell, check their website, they’ll even let you bring your dog. That, and they brew some very fine beers.