You may enjoy visiting the Shenandoah Beerwerks Trail breweries for their delicious craft beers, enticing menus, and atmospheres of community and fun. But did you know that many of our breweries, even those that aren’t specifically farm breweries, partner with farms? Here’s how they share spaces, champion on-site production and sustainable practices, highlight regional flavors, and collaborate across industries.
Farm Breweries
A long-time leader in the Valley’s agritourism movement, Stable Craft Brewing’s taproom and event spaces coexist with the onsite agricultural and brewery facilities. Stable Craft is a working horse farm that uses trellised fields and brewing wastewater to grow the hops used in its beer recipes. The beer is brewed with artisanal well water, and the menu is packed with made-from-scratch dishes that emphasize agricultural products sourced locally. Stable Craft has been recognized for both the quality of their beer and for green and sustainability projects like zero food waste initiatives and tree plantings to improve air quality and prevent erosion. Stable Craft also partners with local farmers to feed spent grain to cattle.
Visitors to Cave Hill Farm Brewery will discover a farm that has been owned and worked by the same family for nearly three centuries! Throughout that time, the farm has adapted to changing farming practices and maintaining its connection to the land. Cave Hill commits to local sourcing, growing barley and hops on site, and using time-honored recipes and methods, a concept they call “Old Ways, New Days.” The beer incorporates water pumped from an onsite well that the family has maintained for generations. The taproom, a modernized and converted dairy loafing shed, dedicates a portion of space to a small museum dedicated to sharing this history. Visitors can explore the farm, including climbing to a silo-top viewing platform that provides a wide perspective of the surrounding agricultural land.
White Oak Lavender Farm combines lavender farming, viticulture, and education to provide a fulfilling farm brewery experience. Visitors can pick lavender, visit farm animals like alpacas and sheep, and enjoy the Valley’s scenery. They can also learn how the farm harvests and presses grapes to make Purple WOLF wine. Educational tours teach about lavender cultivation and the steam distillation system used to extract essential oils used in the farm’s products. Beers and wines are brewed with site-produced lavender infusions, and the lavender store has amazing-smelling products year round!
Great Valley Farm Brewery is also connected to the land. Not only are the wide spaces and scenic views an important part of the experience, but the brewery also brews beer using the seasonal farm-grown ingredients grown on their own land as well as neighboring local farms and orchards. They use local estate-grown grapes for winemaking along with basil, lemongrass, and fruit for their seasonal saisons. Check out Great Valley’s upcoming Have a Brew for Boxerwood event on October 25. The afternoon will feature beer and wine, live music and a food truck, and proceeds will support the nature center and woodland garden.
Ingredient Sourcing
Though Heliotrope Brewery is located in downtown Lexington, it champions the farm-to-table experience, partnering extensively with local artisans and farmers, whom they credit on their menu. Heliotrope’s rotating menu reflects what is in season (like fresh heirloom tomatoes in the caprese salad and local corn in the Street Corn Pizza). Look for items made with local grains, meats, produce, honey, and much more, including creative pizza topping combinations like roasted regional grapes. Heliotrope brews with Virginia and North Carolina malt and their own house-cultured, locally foraged microflora that they use for farmhouse and sour beers.
Rockbridge Vineyard & Brewery is another farm brewery along the Beerwerks trail that focuses on high-quality, small-batch production.Their award-winning wines use traditional methods and a mix of vinifera, hybrid, and native grapes to capture “the essence of the vineyard.” Now, they’ve brought that same dedication to creating finely crafted beers, which visitors can enjoy while spending a peaceful afternoon on the farm.
Feel the Rain Brothers Craft Brewery collaborates with local food trucks and other businesses like Bold Rock Cider. Look for fresh-pressed apple juice in autumnal favorite Blonde Betty!
Community Partnerships and Connections
The Alpine Goat Brewery partners with the Augusta Harvest Market, a growing market, which sets up every 2nd and 4th Saturday through October on the brewery grounds. Venders sell local produce, baked goods, pastured meats, flowers, bath products, and crafts. Look for Blue Ridge Beez, Farrish Farm, Back Porch Blooms, Open Door Homestead, Revercomb Farms, and more. Peruse the market wares, enjoy a beer, and relax in the rustic taproom on an alfresco seating area with a view of the mountains. Guests can also enjoy live music, weekend food trucks, yard games, fire pits, and plenty of room for families with kids and dogs.
Did you know that The Foundry at Basic City Beer Co. hosts a weekly Craft Sublime Farmers Market? Each Wednesday through the end of September from 4-7p.m., local growers and producers will gather in the space to offer fresh produce, plants, herbs, baked goods, flowers, and locally produced products. This partnership allows visitors to access fresh food and support local agriculture and small producers.
Elkton Brewing supports cyclical agricultural relationships by providing their spent grain to farmers in Rockingham County as sustainable livestock feed. They also honor local history by naming each beer they brew after a local landmark or legend in the hopes that they will spark the storytelling and discussions that feed community memories. The brewery brews with Bear Lithia Spring water, which speaks directly to Elkton’s history since bottling the mineral water was once a major Elkton business enterprise. The lithium salts it contained were once highly touted for having numerous health benefits, including mood stabilization and the ability to neutralize the objectionable chemical properties of whiskey!
While Devils Backbone Outpost Taproom & Kitchen uses local and regional ingredients as much as possible in their beer and food, Devils Backbone’s biggest regional environmental partnerships are with the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. Proceeds from co-branded beers support native habitat restoration and agricultural conservation on public lands like the James River Wildlife Management Area. Currently, the brewery is helping to fund the removal of the invasive Autumn Olive shrub and replanting the areas with native wildflowers.
Celebrate farm partnerships, area harvests, and the changing seasons with a visit to a Beerwerks brewery!
