Beer Spotlight!
Black Narrows / Väsen / Fine Creek / Crooked Run OktoberForest: Taste Virginia Collection
$16.99 for the 16oz four-pack cans
Four different styles with four different plant additions
First of all, let us point out, for the sake of clarity, that the name of this four-way, Virginia craft brewery collaboration is Oktoberforest, not “Oktoberfest.” Clearly they’re playing with the word “Oktoberfest,” but these are not Oktoberfest beers. They’re something quite different and quite special.
We called this four-pack a four-way collaboration, but, really, there are five entities at play …
Black Narrows Brewing Company from Chincoteague,
Fine Creek Brewing Company from Powhatan,
Väsen Brewing Company from Richmond,
Crooked Run Fermentation from Sterling,
and the Nature Conservancy.
For those who would like a refresher course, the Nature Conservancy seeks — through the conservation of lands, rivers, and acres of ocean — to slow down our all too rapid climate change and halt the extinctions that threaten our biodiversity. Life on our planet is like a blanket. You expect to lose a few threads with normal wear and tear. It’s worn, but it still works. Pull out a lot of threads and it ceases to be functional. Pull too many and it just straight out unravels.
Each of these breweries have designed a beer around some foraged plant from an area that the Conservancy oversees. The initiator of this project was Black Narrows Brewing, who had already done such a beer, using pine needles from Piney Grove Preserve (their Long Leaf IPA). After that, they returned to Piney Grove for another IPA and reached out to three other VA craft breweries to do the same thing in three other preserves. Here’s what Black Narrows says about the project …
“This beer is so much more than what’s in the glass. So much more than [its] notes of grapefruit and sap. More than [its] uniquely floral bitterness that leaves you wondering.
“It’s gator rides through woods that are unbounded.
“It’s four years of old relationships deepening and new family members arriving.
“It’s a connection that is more than the sum of [its] parts.
“2019 found us collaborating with the Nature Conservancy’s Piney Grove Preserve team. They care so diligently for the Longleaf forests that were all but extinct in Virginia a short 30 years ago. We took the whole family, even our little one year old who bounced and giggled her way through the forests on an ATV. It was pure magic, kindred in so many ways.
“It was that magic that spurred us to spread these experiences to dear friends in the industry. Friends whom we respect both for the beers they produce and the heart with which they produce them. Friends that we knew would find that same kindred spirit with the three other Nature Conservancy teams covering the commonwealth.
“So after all that time and travel, all that foraging and foresting, we’re ready to share it all with you. Four beers from four Virginia breweries. Collaborations with the four Nature Conservancy teams covering the three corners and center of the state. A literal taste of Virginia, and celebration of what we can do together. What we can do for our planet, for [its] people, and for the connection between the two that makes life so meaningful.”
In the Oktoberforest Taste Virginia Collection,
Fine Creek makes the Fine Creek Allegheny Farmhouse Ale,
a farmhouse ale with sassafras leaves foraged from Warm Springs Mountain Preserve.
Väsen makes the Väsen Barrier Islands Gose,
a Gose style ale with eelgrass collected from underwater meadows in the Virginia Coast Reserve.
Crooked Run makes the Crooked Run Clinch Valley Saison,
a Saison style ale with Appalachian red spruce tips carefully cut from trees high up on Clinch Mountain.
Black Narrows makes the Black Narrows Piney Grove IPA,
an IPA with longleaf pine needles gathered from Piney Grove Preserve.
Virginia is for beer lovers!
Remember!
You can see our entire beer inventory on Untappd.com!