Devils Backbone Brewing Company Tour

My homebrewing club, Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale (CAMRA), organized tours of two local brewing companies this past weekend.  The first stop was Devils Backbone Brewing Company (DBBC), which is located  at the foot of Wintergreen Mountain, near Nellysford, VA.  DBBC gained national recognition last year when they the 2010 World Beer Cup Champion Brewery and Brewmaster Small Brewpub award for wining the most medals in their size category at the World Beer Cup.  The brewery started making beer in 2008 and has done well enough for themselves that they are opening a bottling facility to take their beer to a larger market.

The brew pub building is has a very rustic style to it, one that fits well with its mountainous surroundings.  The main part of the pub has vaulted ceilings and walls that are adorned with various mounted animals, making the pub seem like a hunting lodge.  The wall behind the bar has glass windows that looks in on the brewhouse, which is of German design, but was manufactured in Japan (the instructions around the switch board are still in Japanese).  The DBBC brewmaster, Jason Oliver, gave us a tour, which was very informative.  After it was over, we all sat down to have a nice lunch on the DBBC deck, which overlooks the beautiful countryside.

Stay tuned for the second stop on the trip, Wild Wolf Brewing Company.

It was a great day,

Tom

Pictures from the event are below.  I apologize for their quality, as I only had my cell phone on hand to take them.

Mounted big horn sheep adorn the walls of the brew pub

The DBBC copper brew kettle

The DBBC brewhouse switch board, where the labels are written in Japanese

An tank holding aging beer on brettanomyces, with a picture of Bret from Flight of the Concords stuck on it

DBBC cold-conditioning room 

Lunch included a wonderful German bratwurst served on a spent-grain roll, German potato salad, pickle and a few pints of DBBC beer (Maibock and Reilly's Rye Ale)