"Give me breweries or give me death!" or Richmond, VA: Part I

Let me begin this post with a prologue of sorts...

I was going to name this particular blog entry "Drinkin' in River City." Why, you ask? Well, Richmond, VA, is commonly known as The River City. That has a nicer ring to it that its other nickname, RVA (whatever that means). Then I learned that Patrick Henry gave his famous Revolutionary War-era "Give me liberty or give me death" speech in 1775 at St. John's Church in - where else? - Richmond, VA. Although I'm not 100% sure I'd trade my life for the freedom to drink beer (that'd be a tough call), I thought the title had a nice ring to it. OK, please proceed.

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It's amazing how much you can cram into one 48-hour span of time. We'd been wanting to get down to Richmond for the full brewery experience, but simply hadn't had the right opportunity. We'd passed through a few times (typically on days when most breweries are closed or have less than convenient hours) and only had the opportunity to swing by Strangeways on one particular occasion. With a rare free weekend, we took the opportunity to make it happen.

On Friday afternoon, I had some time to kill while waiting for Brewslut to meet me at a predetermined Park & Ride just off Rt. 15 near Gettysburg. I was on a rare "field trip" for work, which took me to a vendor in New Oxford, PA. So rather than driving back to rendezvous with my traveling companions (don't forget about Pleeps), we saved time by meeting at the Park & Ride. (Editor's note: The Park & Ride was kind of sketchy, by the way. Despite being on the Commuter Services of PA's list of official Park & Ride locations, there was no signage at all; it was basically a big gravel lot next to a church and a fire company. Thankfully, we didn't get towed.)

I decided to use my spare time to check out a relatively new brewery in nearby Hanover called Miscreation. Ten years ago, we'd make it to a new brewery within a few months of its grand opening. Well, it took me almost 4 years to get here. Better late than never, I guess.

Outside Hanover's Miscreation Brewing.

Located at Center Square right smack dab in the heart of the Snack Capital of the World, Miscreation is open seven days a week and offers a variety of house brews, a small pub menu featuring panini sandwiches and such, and live music on the weekend. The space has an interesting multi-level layout with an upstairs loft that overlooks the front of the tasting room. They also have outside seating on the sidewalk.

View from my seat at Miscreation.

I decided to head upstairs (since that's actually where the bar is) and joined a few local muggers at the bar. The people were friendly, and the server seems like she was one of the owners. I mentioned it was my first time here, and they welcomed me with enthusiasm. To avoid drinking on an empty stomach, I decided to have some lunch (a tasty Buffalo chicken panini) with my beer. I started with an 8-ounce pour of a pale ale called Severed. This struck me as a pretty standard, bare-bones American pale ale with a mix of floral and citrus hop notes and just a touch of spicy pine sap in the finish. At 6.6% ABV, it's beginning to approach IPA territory.

Waiting for lunch with Severed.

My second choice was a pumpkin cream ale called Booo!!! This one features a smooth, creamy body similar to a nitro pour with a pumpkin spice flair that's heavier on the cinnamon and lighter on the clove with some nutmeg and allspice thrown into the mix. I like smoother beers like cream ales, porters, or stouts as the base beers for "pumpkin" ales rather than amber or Belgian styles just for the creamy texture those styles possess... at least when they're done right. This one had a rich, smooth mouthfeel and didn't overdo it with the spices.

Booo!!!

Overall, the beers are solid and the prices are reasonable. I was hoping to hit another newer brewery called Something Wicked while I was in town, but unfortunately they didn't open until 4 p.m., so it will have to wait for another day. No worries, as I killed my last thirty minutes at a record store around the corner from Miscreation (although I left empty-handed; a rarity for me after spending any amount of time in a record store). And with that, I made the short drive to the designated Park & Ride just off Rt. 15 in rural Gettysburg to meet Brewslut and Pleeps.

As we were driving to our first brewery (which was supposed to be Hardywood), we passed a sign advertising a brewery called 6 Bears & A Goat. "There's no way we aren't stopping there," I said. I mean, come on... goats! We quickly took the next exit to stop in for a quick beer and take a break from the horrendous Virginia traffic. Seriously, this was like Chicago bad. Enter audible #1... and we hadn't even gotten anywhere yet!

Outside 6 Bears & A Goat Brew House.

As we pulled up to the brewery, cars were parked along the roadside leading up to the entrance of the parking lot. "Looks pretty busy," I said. Inside, the place was brimming with customers enjoying dinner and beers. I was surprised not only by how big the place was but also by the sheer number of people there. The greeter said the wait for dinner was about 45 minutes, but we politely mentioned we just stopped in for a quick beer. There was one lone stool available at the very end of the bar near the serving area, so Brewslut snagged it, and I stood.

With such a curious name for a brewery, we obviously wanted to learn of its origin. The name was inspired by its founders and the mascots of their respective military services. The six "bears" represent 20-year retirees from the U.S. Coast Guard, while the "goat" is a retiree from the U.S. Navy.

After perusing the beer list, I opted for the Pilothouse Pumpkin Porter. A variation of its Pilothouse Porter, this variant features the addition of a variety of pumpkin pie spices amid the beer's canvas of chocolate and coffee flavors. Aroma-wise, it hinted of cinnamon, nutmeg and clove as well as a bit of chocolate, and the mouthfeel was actually pretty spot-on. The initial flavor was also pretty pleasant, but unfortunately there was some kind of metallic off-flavor in the finish that just lingered on my palate. Not sure if it was a flaw or a slight infection from equipment, but for lack of a better term it had a "dirty" finish. Otherwise, it was pretty solid.

Pilothouse Pumpkin Porter at 6 Bears & A Goat.

Meanwhile, Brewslut was working on a pour of Passionfruit Goes Ahhh. I had a few sips and this was a straight-up passionfruit bomb. It had a fruity tartness but lacked the complexity of a well-executed gose. Again, it wasn't bad overall but in the grand scheme of the gose world, let's just say it needs some tweaking.

Despite its middle-of-the-road beers, it was nice to see a small, local brewery booming on a Friday night during dinner hours. At the very least, it was worth a stop just to take a break from the grueling start-and-stop traffic we'd experienced since entering the DC Metro area.

Since traffic put us back about forty minutes, we decided to call audible #2 and rather than head to Hardywood, we stopped at the Fredericksburg location of Strangeways. In retrospect, I'm glad we stopped here because we'd already visited the smaller Richmond site on the way home from our last Drinksgiving trip to Virginia Beach. This was a much larger, open space in full sight of the production facility, complete with a stage for live entertainment and plenty of seating options.

We ordered our beers and settled in at a four-person table somewhere near the middle of the room. The place was sparsely attended, but it looked like some kind of show was going to begin shortly, as there was a sound guy twiddling some knobs at the sound console. Turns out Strangeways was hosting some kind of burlesque show later that evening. I saw a few tattooed ladies (one of them with a freshly shorn noggin) getting all decked out in corsets and other Victorian-esque garb. Sounds like burlesque to me. Absinthe and burlesque sounds like a better combo than beer and burlesque. Either way, we'd be gone by the time the show started.

I kicked off our visit with a juicy pale ale called Everything Changes. Part of its "Directional Pale Ale" series, this is a double dry-hopped pale ale featuring copious amounts of Green Bullet and Pacifica hops to elicit flavors of ripe mango, orange marmalade, and pineapple juice.

Pleeps doesn't react well to change.

Meanwhile, I'd been scoping out some of the sour and tart ales on the beer list, as they were plentiful. I was feeling a Berliner Weisse, and they had two base Berliners (a standard and an imperial version) with a variety of flavored syrups. I eventually decided on Imperial Lucky Charms, which was described as an Imperial Marshmallow Berliner Weisse. Turns out it's basically their Fred Zeppelin Imperial Berliner Weisse with traditional German woodruff syrup. Fine by me, as I love woodruff syrup. This green-tinted syrup imparts a sweet marshmallow counterpart to the beer's inherent tartness. Turns out it was a delicious concoction, and I'm glad I went with the imperial version, which had a thicker body and a bit more tartness (I sampled both base beers prior to ordering).

View from our table at Strangeways.

We decided to share a pour of Apes in the Hammock, a sour ale brewed with a house lactobacillus strain and fresh lemongrass and apricots. Actually, Pleeps pretty much forced us to order this beer because of the name. There were several monkey and ape-themed beers from which to choose, but he liked this one most. It's always good to stay on Pleeps' good side when drinking. He can sometimes go heavy on the imperial stouts, and if he gets agitated - for whatever reason - he might start flinging poop. Generally, he's pretty well-behaved, but it happens to all of us (the going too heavy on beers, not flinging poop; of course, I've been known to crop dust from time to time). But back to the beer. This one's fermented hot with a house Kveik yeast strain (from Scandinavia) for a vinous character, this tasty sour features notes of white grape, apricot, sour candy, and lemon zest. Kveik (pronounced “kwike”) literally translates to “yeast” in a particular Norwegian dialect. We actually started using a few of these Kveik strains at Tröegs for some recent Scratch beers. (You can read more about this fascinating yeast in a recent article from Draft magazine if you care to learn more.)

Pleeps likes Strangeways for obvious reasons.

Once again, we weren't able to connect with the elusive Mike Hiller, one of Strangeways' brewers (he used to own Bavarian Barbarian in Williamsport a decade ago). But we had a good visit and were able to skedaddle in time before the burlesque show started... not that I'm offended or anything. I just prefer to keep nudity and comedy segregated (unless Sarah Silverman or Nikki Glaser want to start a new genre of comedy). While Strangeways seems to get overshadowed by trendier places like The Veil and The Answer, I'd highly recommend including a stop on your itinerary if you ever plan a trip to the Richmond area. Their beers are legit... and, you know, monkeys! 

We still had time to make it to Hardywood before they closed for the evening. We hoped they would have a food truck on-site. Luckily they did, and I was able to get some tasty shrimp tacos just before they closed up shop. I'd enjoyed Hardywood's beers for many years and we'd been to its taproom in Charlottesville during my birthday weekend in March 2017, but this marked our inaugural visit to the production brewery in Richmond.

Hardywood's no-frills tasting room.

Before I dug into the beer, I quickly checked out the bottle selection in the adjacent room. To my surprise, their price points are pretty low! I got a 750mL of the rum barrel-aged pumpkin and a gin-barrel aged peach Tripel for only $12.99 each. Smaller 500mL bottles were only $4.49. Good value for the money, I'd say!

Pleeps posing with my haul from Hardywood.

But back to the task at hand. I knew we only had time for one beer each and maybe a shared third beer, but that was it. I opted for Tropic Like it's Hot, a sour ale brewed in collaboration with Ardent Craft Ales and Center of the Universe Brewing. This one is brewed with passionfruit, pineapple, and butterfly pea flowers. Wait... huh?! I'd never heard of butterfly pea flowers. Turns out the flowers of its vine were thought to have the shape of human female genitalia, hence its Latin name Clitoria ternatea. So this beer was brewed using a flower that looks like a vagina. You learn something new every day. The beer has a lovely magenta hue (courtesy of the vagina flowers) and boasts a fresh, tropical aroma with a slightly tart, dry finish. It even tasted good in a plastic cup.

Brewslut went for the hoppy beer this time with something called But Does it Make Sense? This NE-style Double IPA is hopped with Galaxy and utilizes Mosaic lupulin powder. If you've never heard of lupulin powder before, it's something that's catching on among craft brewers these days. It's kind of like a super-concentrated version of whole-leaf hops containing all the resins and aromatic oils for an added dose of hop power.

For our "shared" beer, we settled on something called Tropication 2.0. Described as "liquid recess," this beer features plenty of Mosaic and Nelson Sauvin hops to impart tropical fruit aromas reminiscent of passionfruit, mango, pineapple, and lime. This one was bright and juicy, and quite enjoyable. Sadly, our time at Hardywood quickly expired as the staff began cleaning up while we finished this tasty beverage. I wish we had a little more time, but at least I've had many Hardywood beers in the past.

Our last stop of the night was one of two reasons I wanted to spend a weekend in Richmond: The Answer (the other being The Veil, but more on that later). When we arrived, we were confused at first because they appeared to be closed. Upon further examination, we soon discovered that entry was in the rear (that's what she said), so we headed out back behind the building to park.

Once we started checking in our beers on Untappd, our Team D(r)INK compadre, Jamberg, caught wind of our shenanigans and, being only a few blocks away at his hotel, decided to surprise us with a visit (even though he had visited for dinner). Turns out he was down in the area with one of his  colleagues, Brandon, for the Phish concert at Hampton Coliseum. (I too had seen Phish there back in November 1998, and the shows were later released as a live album called Hampton Comes Alive.)

Now... onto the beer!

The beer list was pretty ridiculous and encompassed everything from imperial stouts brewed with a laundry list of items found in your grandma's pantry, IPAs, sours, fruit beers, and The Answer's signature "Frozan" concoctions, which are essentially beer slushies dispensed out of a - you guessed it - slushy machine. After a minute or two, I decided to go with a flight of four decadent-sounding dark beers. I really wanted to dig into the beer list, but so many of these just sounded too damn good to ignore. Here's a quick recap:

• Out on Bail: Bondsman's Breakfast - A variant of Out on Bail porter conditioned on Rostov's hazelnut coffee, cacao nibs, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. 
• Deanna Breakfast - Imperial Oatmeal Stout with Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, Dark Vermont maple syrup, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal.
• Swiss Chocolate Macaroon - Imperial Chocolate Stout with Swiss Almond coffee, Swiss White and Dark chocolate, and coconut chips.
• Papa Bui - Imperial stout based on an Italian "love cake" with decadent notes of chocolate, hazelnut, and coconut. 

Each successive beer was more impressive than the last, and to be honest, Out on Bail set the bar pretty high. Overall, these are some of the best porters and stouts I've enjoyed in our travels. The mouthfeel was right in my wheelhouse and what I'd call perfection: Smooth and luscious with low carbonation but full-bodied and slick. They all drank like 6% beers with virtually no noticeable alcohol heat; however, three of the four beer were in the 8.5% to 11.5% ABV range.  

Question: Why is Pleeps so happy? Answer: The Answer.

Since our visit turned into a hang with friends, I neglected to snap a decent number of photos as I typically do when visiting a brewery. Such is life. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow of good company and good conversation. That didn't stop us from enjoying more beers, though.

We decided to dip into some of the fruit beers, which all sounded fantastic on paper. Let's see how they translated to the finished product. First up was Virginia Cobbler: Cherry Peach. The Answer describes this beer as a "Cobbler style Gose," so that already sounds delicious. Cobbler is such an underrated dessert, and it's also fun to say out loud. This sweet-tart beer is brewed with Morello cherries, peaches, and a touch of cinnamon and vanilla.

Back to another stout, this time we ordered a pour of Raspberry Fluffernutter, an Imperial Chocolate stout with Jif peanut butter, fresh raspberries, toasted marshmallow, and a touch of vanilla.

Drive Thru Daiquiri: Hurricane - Part of the "Joose/Sips" series and a collaboration with Parish Brewing out of Louisiana. The impetus of this beer was to replicate the famous Hurricane cocktail. Brewed with passionfruit, blood orange, and rum-soaked Morello cherries, this one definitely straddled the line between beer and cocktail.

We arrived at The Veil about ten or fifteen minutes before they opened for the day, so we chilled in the CRV for a bit. We were able to grab a spot in the parking lot, which shares its space with a beer-garden-of-sorts featuring a covered area with outside seating (likely for overflow). About five minutes until, we got out and there was already a small crowd amassed in the parking lot. Inside, the tasting room area is narrow and rectangular. Within thirty minutes, the place was packed with a mostly Millennial crowd of twenty-somethings and hipsters... LOTS of hipsters. Remember my comments about Dangerous Man? Yeah, like that. Hipsters aside, we were surprised by another visit from Lamberg and Brandon. And later, we ran into some of my Tröegs peeps, who were also headed to the Phish show in Hampton later that evening.

Inside the mothership for hipsters.

I started with Young & Pure, an IPA hopped with Citra, Galaxy, and Simcoe. The Veil is known for its juicy, hazy IPAs with minimal bitterness and malt presence. This is one of them. I don't know. It seems to me it's as if these newer, hip breweries are trying to cater to the haze craze and the fact that young beer drinkers constantly want something different so that they can get another Untappd check-in. While I like using Untappd as much as the next beer geek, it makes me wonder if a brewery like The Veil (and I'm only using it as an example because I happen to be writing about this brewery at this precise moment) brews the same IPA with a different name so people will continually line up for a can release and buy whatever is new at the time. They all look the same and taste pretty much identical. ***cough***Trillium***cough. Some are better than others, but there's not much deviation from the formula, which might be something like this: 1. Does it look like something you'd drink for breakfast? 2. Is it double dry-hopped? 3. Does it smell better than it tastes? 4. Is is juicy or dank, brah? If you answered "yes" to all of these questions, then you have yourself a NE-style IPA. The trend now, it seems to me, is that appearance trumps flavor. And to me, that's absurd. I'm not buying a beer to look at it. I'm buying a beer to drink it. I'm not trying to single out The Veil by any means. I've just reached the point of critical mass with hazy IPAs and decided to write about it. This was a fine beer, but I just feel that hazy IPAs lack the complexity and depth of flavor as, say a West Coast style IPA. There. I said it. Let's move on.

Up next was a beer named Salted Caramel & Oreo Hornswoggler, which I must admit sounded amazing on paper. Described as a chocolate milk stout conditioned on salted caramel and Oreo cookies, it indeed sounded decadent and inviting. Lamberg ordered a pour of this sickeningly sweet, muddy-looking brownish stout to share with the group. It resembled liquid stool that comes out of a baby whose diet consists of nothing but breast milk. I'm talkin' straight from the teet. I mean, I've produced excrement that was prettier than this beer. Everyone HATED it; I thought it was OK, but after about three sips, I'd had enough. So it sat on our table for the duration of our visit... like dookie in the street.

Things picked up with my next beer, Crucial Taunt, The Veil's house Double IPA. It's also named after the band fronted by Wayne's girlfriend Cassandra in the movie Wayne's World. Brewslut got the reference immediately. I did not. I should have, but I didn't. This one was soft and tropical with virtually no bitterness and a big smack of fruit in the aroma; certainly all hallmarks of the NE style.

Since I enjoyed Crucial Taunt, I decided to give another DIPA a spin, so I opted for Nice Nice Relationship Relationship. This double dry-hopped DIPA features a blend of Galaxy, Mosaic, and Ekuanot, and honestly wasn't that much different than Crucial Taunt, at least to my palate. By the way, the name of the beer isn't a typo. It seems all of its "double" or "imperial" beers have similar names that sound like a kid with a stuttering problem (Master Master Shredder Shredder, Never Never Forever Forever, etc.). I guess that's kind of cool; or at least a bit off-kilter.

While I enjoyed the three hoppy beers I tried, I felt they all kind of blurred together. Henceforth, I shall refer to this phenomenon as the "Trillium Effect." By the way, check this shit out...

Taking a break on the set of the upcoming remake of Heathers.

These four stuffy young ladies look like they came straight from the golf course (or perhaps the croquet court). I didn't notice any white wine spritzers on the menu at The Veil, but I could be mistaken. At first, we thought they were wearing Halloween costumes, but then we realized it was a little too early for that nonsense. Rich kids? Maybe. But in all actuality, the quartet was likely a group of pretentious wannabes trying to gain some street cred by hanging at the "hip brewery." The only reason I bring this up is because they were in such stark comparison to the rest of the patrons (especially me, but even the hipsters) that they stood out like a turd in the punchbowl. Perhaps I should offer kudos to The Veil for bringing together a truly eclectic clientele into its circle of fans. Brewslut, on the other hand, wanted to punch each of them in the solar plexus. (I had to laugh at this, because I'm typically the one in "angry old man" mode when we come across people like this.)

So we left the cast of Heathers and continued onward to our next destination.

Right around the corner from The Veil is Väsen, a brewery that's making its mark with forward-thinking sours, fruit beers, and Belgian-inspired ales. Taking its name from the Swedish word “väsen” (which translates to "inner essence" or "way of being"), it pays tribute to the founders' Scandinavian heritage. Gotta love them vikings!

Outside Väsen.

I was immediately drawn to the Smoked Blood Peach Sour. Although they had me at "smoked," I must admit that "peach" sealed the deal. I'd never heard of blood peaches before (blood oranges, yes) so I was intrigued. I won't bore you with the history of this fruit, but here's a link to some more information in the event you are curious. Obviously, a lot can go wrong with a beer like this. Smoked malt. Fruit. Sour fermentation. This beer, however, was a home run! The smokiness was minimal but apparent up front, eliciting a hint of beechwood. The flavor followed through with tart peach gummy candy and a nice bit of pucker in the finish. Overall, a well-executed beer that could have easily gone wrong. Nicely done, Väsen!

View from our bar stools at Väsen.  

Brewslut opted for Everything Floats on Passionfruit, a double-dry-hopped sour conditioned on (according to Väsen) "nearly half a ton" of passionfruit and generous additions of Vic Secret, Mandarina Bavaria, and Citra hops. Passionfruit dominates the flavor (obviously), but there's also hints of grapefruit, pineapple, and tangerine present.

Pleeps + passionfruit = a winning combo!

We definitely got reeled in by our first choices. My Smoked Blood Peach Sour was one of the highlights of the weekend, so we felt obliged to stick around for a second round. I decided to switch gears and go with The Wired Walrus, a stout cold-steeped with Blanchard's coffee beans from Ethiopia and Guatemala. Actually, it should come as no surprise that I ordered a coffee beer. This lighter bodied stout features hints of mocha and strawberry with a hint of chocolate.

Surprisingly, Brewslut went with a pour of Barrel Aged Grapefruit Tripel, an Abbey-style ale aged for 4 months in Chardonnay barrels with grapefruit to impart intense flavors of citrus zest, oak, and vanilla. Nelson Sauvin hops provide subtle fruitiness and enhances the white wine character with notes of white grape. Belgian yeast provides additional nuances of spice akin to clove and black pepper as well as dark fruit. This one had a lot going on, and I enjoyed the peppery grapefruit rind flavor that came through in the finish.

Pretty sweet large mural painting at Väsen.

Looking back, this place really stood out from the pack. It was one of the most memorable visits of the trip, and it's a place I will definitely visit again next time we're galavanting around Richmond.

When we arrived at Ardent, the Tasting Room and adjacent beer garden area (despite being rather windy and chilly outside) were both pretty full. The beer menu looked varied and inspired with a few IPAs, saisons and pilsners. However, we were smack dab in the middle of our day and starting to get a bit fatigued, so we opted for a one-and-done visit. After getting our beers and searching for somewhere to sit, we gave up and went around back where we set up shop on a cement walkway near the food truck.

Beer board at Ardent.

I decided to throw caution to the wind with my one-and-done beer here: Sweet Potato & Sage Saison, a dry, farmhouse-style saison. This one was quite earthy with an herbal bite. It was also quite fragrant thanks to the addition of fresh, local sage. But it sounded interesting, so I ordered it. It was... ok. I mean, it had a lot going on: prickly carbonation; an earthy (almost starchy) character courtesy of the sweet potatoes; a sharp herbal bite; and a lingering dry, spicy finish. I don't know what I was hoping for, but I just don't think I was in the mood for this beer at this precise moment. Perhaps it was a well-executed beer; it just didn't sit well with me for the duration of the imbibement (is that a word)?

Sweet potato & sage saison.

Brewslut went with the Pineapple & Passionfruit American Sour Ale. I guess beer names are really hard to come up with these days. Anyway, this beer is a blend of sour blonde and sour wheat ales aged in oak barrels with pineapple and passionfruit. Needless to say, there's a heavy-handed tropical fruit presence (especially passionfruit) in both aroma and flavor, but it finishes on the sweet-tart side of the spectrum.

We tried to get comfy here but it just didn't pan out. The place was packed (inside and out), and it was too windy and cold to really camp out on a concrete sidewalk for more than the duration of a single beer. Plus, the beer didn't inspire us to stay for seconds. So, onward and upward.

For some reason, Three Notch'd wasn't even on our initial itinerary. However, once we arrived and I realized it too was situated in Richmond, we squeezed it in. I'd had one of its beers not too long ago at the Mellow Mushroom when we last drove through the area, but that was my only other encounter with the brewery until now.

Since we hadn't planned to visit, we opted for another one-and-done stop. I was ready for a West Coast IPA, so I was drawn to 40 Mile. Brewed with an abundance of American hop varieties for a tropical and citrus-forward hop experience, this beer is heavy on grapefruit and tangerine with hints of peach and pineapple. This beer's name refers to the number of miles Jack Jouett raced to warn Thomas Jefferson that General Cornwallis had ordered their capture. Jack Jouett’s ride is legendary in Virginia and put Three Notch’d Road on the map as a central story in the fight for our country's independence. And there's some more colonial-era trivia for you.

Brewslut went with As You Are, a pineapple mango gose. I've been getting kind of gose'd out lately. Every once in awhile, I like to throw one in to clear off the old palate, but honestly all of the various fruited versions just mask the flavor of the base beer, which to me is quite simple and refreshing. Some of the fruited versions are subtle, but so many turn out to be fruit bombs. Just an observation.

I didn't really feel much of a connection with this place unfortunately, so we split after one drink.

Never fear! There's still more to come as we explore River City. Stay tuned for the conclusion of our romp through Richmond, coming soon to your friendly neighborhood Pour Travelers blog soon. Until next time...