USA, VA: Strangeways Brewing inaugurates its Fredericksburg location

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe pulled a temporary tap inside a Fredericksburg warehouse on September 29, filled a Strangeways Brewing glass with beer and took a sip.

“Ah, that’s good,” he exclaimed. “It’s good to be governor!”

McAuliffe was at the former Burton’s Menswear warehouse at 350 Lans-downe Road to give Neil Burton, founder of Strangeways Brewing in Henrico County, $150,000 from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Forestry Industries Fund toward opening Strangeways Brewing Fredericksburg, fredericsburg.com reported.

Fredericksburg’s Economic Development Authority will match the grant in $50,000 installments over three years.

The state fund goes toward businesses that use Virginia-grown products. Strangeways has promised to use 12,000 pounds of Virginia honey, hops, pumpkins and other agricultural products at the Fredericksburg location over the next three years. That’s about 43 percent of what will go into its various beers.

“They are sourcing products from Virginia farmers,” McAuliffe said. “That’s a real boon for them.”

Burton said the products will include pumpkins from Miller Farms in Locust Grove, which will flavor Strangeways’ Gourd of Thunder Imperial Pumpkin Porter. He’ll also use wildflower honey from Golden Angels Apiary near Harrisonburg. It’s a key ingredient in Strangeways’ Albino Monkey Belgian White Ale, among others.

The microbrewery will invest $2.5 million in turning the warehouse, which Burton is leasing from his father, into a brewery with a bar and patio. The microbrewery expects to create 27 jobs when it opens in the first half of 2017, and eventually produce up to 10,000 barrels of beer.

Burton said the operation will be smaller than the one in Henrico, which will give it more flexibility to experiment. Strangeways already makes about 300 different beers, and plans to have nearly 50 on draft at any given time at the Fredericksburg location. The one in Richmond has 36 brews on tap.

Strangeways currently distributes throughout central Virginia, and the second production facility will allow the company to continue to meet the growing demand from its existing markets, as well as enter new ones.

Burton grew up in Fredericksburg and graduated from James Monroe High School in 1987. He spent a semester abroad in the early 1990s, and said tasting beers in Germany, Belgium and several other European countries was “truly a revelation.” They were totally different, he said, from the mass-produced beers he’d been drinking at home.

He began collecting beers and brewing memorabilia such as advertising while working in the family retail company, and decided to turn his passion into a business in 2009. He opened Strangeways Brewing at 2277A Dabney Road off Broad Street and Staples Mill Road in 2013. It’s named after The Smith’s final studio album, “Strangeways Here We Come,” which celebrated its 25th anniversary this week.

The September 29th’s announcement and the anniversary were pure serendipity, Burton said.

Strangeways, whose motto is “Think Strange. Drink Strange,” is the largest producer of sour and wild beers in the commonwealth. It has twice been rated Virginia’s Best Brewery Taproom by RateBeer.com users; listed by bon appétit magazine as one of “10 New U.S. Breweries to Watch, from D.C. to California”; and noted in Southern Living magazine as one of the “South’s Best Breweries.” More than 100,000 Virginians and tourists from around the world visit the brewery in Henrico each year.

Burton said that he’s been planning to open a Strangeways in Fredericksburg for two years. It will be the third brewery to open in the city. Spencer Devon opened at 106 George St. in 2015 and Red Dragon opened at 1419 Princess Anne St. last month.

McAuliffe said craft breweries are an important part of the new economy he talks about bringing to Virginia to reduce its dependency on the defense industry. He said state is now home to about 164 craft breweries, which are a billion dollar industry and help support tourism.

He plans to visit all of them while he’s in office.

“It’s my job. I don’t apologize,” McAuliffe said. “Somebody’s got to do it.”

30 September, 2016