Monday 1st of October 2012 11:21:47 PM

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Nelson County VA has a wonderful beer and wine trail following Route 151 along the eastern base of the Blue Ridge mountains. For craft beer hunters, there are four major stops including Blue Mountain Brewery, Wild Wolf Brewing, Devil's Backbone Basecamp, and Blue Mountain Barrel House. Along this 31 mile trail there is also Blue Toad Pub, Bold Rock Cidery, and several wineries. I highly recommend exploring this scenic region. The trail starts in the north at the extremely popular Blue Mountain brewpub in Afton, and ends in the south at its younger sister called the Blue Mountain Barrel House. While the original Blue Mountain is an elaborate restaurant and brewpub, the Barrel House is a larger production brewery with a simple tasting room.

The Blue Mountain Brewery is a hillside building with a dedicated parking lot. Appended to the main building is a white corrugated steel brewhouse, with a midsize white grain silo. In front there are multi-tiered umbrella patios and a three sided 12 chair wooden tiki bar. The patios are framed with wooden beams and overhead lights, a lovely sight which draws many evening patrons. Inside on the left, and upstairs, there are plenty of dining tables. The multi level architecture feels like a small ski lodge. On the right is the bar area, with a serpentine 13 chair wooden bar and several tables and wooden booths. Behind the bar are windows that look onto five stainless steel fermenters. There is a refrigerator cases with Blue Mountain and Barrel House bottled beers for sale. On tap, they have eight house brews. Their flagship ale is the nicely hopped Full Nelson American Pale Ale (5.9% abv). Their crisper beers are Kolsch 151, Classic Lager, and Rockfish Wheat Hefeweizen. The offering gets more robust with their "Blue de Blanche" Witbier, "Straight Outta Chiswick" ESB and "Evan Altmighty" Sticke Altbier (6.6% abv). By far my favorite is the deliciously complex Dark Hollow Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout (10.0%). Their food menu includes appetizers, pizza, hot sandwiches, and daily specials. Friendly service, decent food and a good variety of beer makes Blue Mountain a nice bookend for the Blue Ridge beer trail.

Wednesday 15th of August 2012 12:29:29 PM

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Blue Mountain is located at the top of a 12 mile stretch along Route 151 that includes three above average brewpubs / breweries (Blue Mountain, Wild Wolf and Devil’s Backbone), a beer bar (Blue Toad), a cidery and about half a dozen vineyards. The area is definitely worth a visit.

We tried the sampler: Lager, Kölsch, 2 wheats (Belgian & Bavarian), Bitter, Düsseldorf, APA and Imperial Stout. All were good clean beers with no obvious flaws. The APA and the Imperial Stout were the best.

Typical brewpub fare on the menu. We did not eat, but the pizzas looked very enticing.

There’s ample outdoor seating and it’s adjacent to their hop garden.

Friday 10th of February 2012 08:11:17 PM

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This was my second visit to Blue Mountain Brewery and I was not disappointed with the beer, the food or the service. I had a flight and was pleasantly surprised to find that only 2 of the eight beers on the flight were repeats of my previous visit. I had their Classic Lager, Full Nelson IPA, Kolsch 151, Evan Almighty, Long Winter Nap, Hibenator, Evil 8 and Boubonator. The lager and the IPA are excellent, the others were good with the exception of the Evil 8, which is a Belgian Dubbel, (personal preference on this one, it gets good reviews at beer advocate). The food is excellent and the views of the Blue Ridge are spectacular. Blue Mountain is well worth the short trip off the interstate.

Tuesday 23rd of February 2010 12:23:14 PM

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Stopped here while driving through, definately worth the trip if you're in the Charlotte area. Good selection of beers. Just had the spinach/artichoke dip appetizer, but it was good. They had a live bluegrass band playing. We were there in early spring. Bad timing as we were out of season for the hops farm. Also, things were confined to the indoors as it was still not warm enough out, but during the warmer months it looked like a great place to drink some good beer and find some entertainment. Kind of tricky to find. Haven't been to the other breweries in the area yet to compare, just had time for this one.

Thursday 17th of September 2009 08:16:08 PM

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Headed to this place for lunch in the middle of touring some vineyards. Got their flite sampler. Beers were mostly ok, Full Nelson was the best. Porter was also pretty good. Had their pizza (called Roma) and it was really huge. They bottle and can! but didn't have much in stock to take away. Service was ok. Menu was limited but with some interesting choices. Good place for a quick lunch, or to hang out.

Monday 31st of August 2009 02:45:09 PM

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Stumbled across this place en route to visit one of the many wineries that dot the area. Should have just forgotten about the wineries and parked it here on the sofa in front of a big gas fireplace. When we visited in December some fantastic winter beers (none of which are currently on the website) were on tap. The full Nelson IPA was well enjoyed too.

Food was OK, we chose the brat pizza from the limited menu which was way too much for two people. But I'd go back for the beer in a second, and to see how their hops are doing.

Friday 7th of December 2007 10:02:38 PM

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This person needs 3 or more reviews on the site for their scores to start counting.

If you are in the area of charlottesville (with a great music scene)
or on your way to wintergreen (to ski this winter),
you MUST stop at the blue mountain brewery,
which just opened in late october. These guys
don't make commercial stuff... each batch is
carefully crafted. My favorite was the "full
Nelson" (it's brewed in Nelson County) but now they've got a "dark hollow" bourbon barrel stout that's so much smoother than others. The owners are young and seem to be really passionate about what they're doing. But, there's also a chef who will experiment. Just go. The Blue Ridge Mountains are right outside.
Maybe I'm a little biased, since now I have a Brewery in my own backyard...
Vulcha from Virginia...