In this month’s Brewery Spotlight, we talked to Redbeard Brewing Company, a dog and child-friendly brewery serving up amazing craft beer in downtown Staunton. Read on to find out about exciting new partnerships and collaborations and the slew of upcoming concerts, events, and activities they have planned for you. Learn about the new batches of beer they’re brewing and about the “beer factory’s” former life as the area’s biggest coal yard. They even share where the secret walk-in vault is located.
Do you offer tours?
We do not offer tours. Redbeard’s production area is one room that resembles a commercial kitchen more than the “beer factory” most people think of as a brewery. So there’s nothing really to tour, per se.
What’s new or what’s coming up?
We’ve recently entered an exciting new partnership with Central Virginia Brewing, in Crozet, VA. First, we’re doing a couple of “one-off” batches to dial things in, but CVB will eventually take over the production of a number of our “core brands,” enabling us to free up the taproom brewery for more experimentation. This should also allow us to make our beers available to the retail market for the first time. More on that in the coming months!
What are your go-to brews and what makes them unique?
Our most popular beers are some of our simplest recipes, 221b Baker Brown, Pennyroyal Pale, Two Moons Pilsner, etc. We have always focused primarily on trying to produce clean, true-to-style English, American, and Belgian ales, with a recent toe-dipping into lagers. It’s unique that we’ve stuck to that ethos, in the era of pastry stouts and frozen seltzer slushies.
What is something unique/quirky about the brewery?
That I’m constantly paying people to keep it from falling down? Just kidding, but it is a very old property with a long and varied history; most people wouldn’t know that we have a walk-in vault from the 1920s in the bathroom hall. At that time the property had operated as the William S Bryan Coal and Lumber Yard for over 40 years, and it was the largest coal yard in the area. The building the taproom is in was built at that time as a covered, open-air, coal yard. You drove a truck into the building, got weighed empty, then loaded up with coal, weighed full, and then drove out. Cash payments were stored in the vault.
Do you distribute locally or have any local collaborations?
We currently have a collaboration on tap with Ciders From Mars from across the street. It’s a beer/cider co-ferment called Graf. It’s a dry, fruity, very cider-like quaff. Distribution-wise, again, more on that in the coming months…
Do you allow dogs?
Yes, but only in our beer garden. We understand how much people love to travel with their fur babies, but we also understand that other people are allergic, phobic, etc. We want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to enjoy their visit.
Are you kid-friendly?
Of course, otherwise, my two kids would be loitering on the sidewalk or in the parking lot constantly. The taproom has some vintage Nintendo video games and a snack machine, so your kids aren’t going to be yanking on your sleeve asking if it’s time to leave the entire visit.
We don’t, however, focus on catering to families in the way that some of our Beerwerks Trail peers do, and more specifically can. Our friends at Stable Craft, Basic City, Skipping Rock, Devils Backbone, etc. are much better suited to focusing on kids’ activities, as they have the space for it. The Redbeard taproom is, in essence, an urban downtown pub (as urban as Staunton gets), and therefore we focus on appealing to the demographics most likely to frequent our area.
Do you offer food on-site?
We offer basic snack machine fare as well as some pre-packaged Olli and Berreta brands charcuterie snack packs.
What events do you offer?
Lots. To begin with we have a Summer Concert series running basically every other weekend throughout the summer. Those events are held in our beer garden and parking lot, it’s free admission, and food trucks will rotate from date to date. We do request a $5 donation, a portion of which is donated to Staunton City Schools, your $5 donation gets you a commemorative can koozie that is not available for sale. In addition to that, we have monthly events like Arts ‘n Drafts, Dungeons and Dragons, Professional Comedy, etc, as well as weekly karaoke, trivia, and music bingo. Also, there’s Beer Day, which is every Sunday-Saturday, noon-midnight.
