It’s that time again folks; time once again to sit back and pop open a great bottle of craft beer from your cellar; pour that sucker into a non-frosted, beer-clean glass and sit back and reminisce about the past year. 2009 will certainly go down in modern West Virginia history (at least to us who know) as West Virginia’s “Year of Beer”…
Think about it for a moment; this time last year there wasn’t one Trappist beer standing proudly on one West Virginia beer retailer’s shelf; not one Double IPA was legally allowed to emit its wonderful aroma of citrusy hoppiness after a quick run to the grocer to rescue it from the certain perils of trade abuse. West Virginia has come a long way baby!
Obviously the biggest news of the year then would have to be the WV Legislature passing the law to “Pop the Cap” in West Virginia. With that said, I did not and am not slobbering all over myself in thanking some glad-handing politician for this feat. I thank all of you and dare I thank West Virginia’s beer wholesalers for waking-up to the reality that craft-beer is here. They finally got the message and are surprisingly taking on many new brands!
Next on the list would have to be the creation of the West Virginia Craft Beer Appreciation Society website. Travis Carrow (A definite BTY Medal of Honor winner in 2009) has obviously put a ton of his time into developing a forum for discussion; covering craft-beer sightings, home brewing and anything and everything about beer-culture. I am glad I can help, Trav…
I am happy for John Yevuta, West Virginia’s beer correspondent for the widely distributed “Mid-Atlantic Brewing News”. John now has many more things to write about and believe me I know what it’s like when the cupboard is bare. Thanks for the write-up John!
I have to give a shout-out to George Sitler in Bramwell. He and his trusty band of steeds have been very effective in convincing brewers and visitors alike to make the trek to the old home town of the former West Virginia coal barons to experience Bramwell’s Oktoberfest celebration. Keep it up and heck maybe I will be able to make it down next year.
I give the 2009 “stiff upper lip” award to the “Friends of Clay Center” who just seemingly can’t catch a break. The 2009 Charleston Oktoberfest that they organize was not only “rained on” but freakin rained-out with rain falling sideways! They still managed to put on a great event and find a pretty descent supply of craft beer for the event.
Highlights of the year in beer for Charleston starts with getting the Star Hill line of beers. I would then move to vote Harpoon Leviathan as “Beer of the Year”… Yeah, that’s right! Why? Because it hit the streets of Charleston about two days after the law changed, almost beating that alco-pop abomination “Joose” to the market. Leviathan holds the historic milestone as the first double IPA in WV! I only hope the folks that make and distribute this ”Joose” crap will find scrutiny at heaven’s gate. I cannot believe that the WV state Alcohol commissioner finds fault with labels like “Flying Dog in Heat Wheat” but quickly approve a product like “Joose” which is nothing more than “crack in a can”…
The biggest “flop” of the year and the winner of the BTY “Flat Beer” award was Festivall’s “Festiv-ale”. The bad thing is that I was the organizer of the event. Festiv-ale was an abject failure! I need to re-think this thing. Stay tuned!
OK, this a bit of a long-winded blog tonight. I am sitting in the Boulevard Tavern sipping a few nice craft beers and the words are flowing. I will cut it off here though. I want to wish all of my readers a Happy and Safe New Year. I hope we see many more great brews on the shelves soon. This is our moment! Let’s get out there and patronize the bars, grocers and liquor stores that sell what we want! If we don’t the spark will fade and the fire will go cold and wholesalers will go back to selling what they know has worked for the past seventy-plus years.
M.E.S.S. ( I was asked to put this in my blog by a very cute, but pretty buzzed young lady from Cincinnati; I hope she gets a kick out of it)
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Rich, thanks very much for the “Medal of Honor”. I must say that I am not doing what I do for awards and so forth, but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t think it was pretty damn cool to be mentioned here and in Mid Atlantic Brewing News.
My new years resolution for 2010 is to make it an even better year for beer in WV.
I plan to do a similar post over at http://www.WVCBAS.com in the next couple days, but in case I don’t get around to it, we also need to recognize the brewpubs and breweries that have been making quality beer here in the Mountain State. In addition to the ones that were here when the clock struck 2009, NET, Mt State, Mountaineer, and Black Water, we now also have Morgantown Brewing Co.,and will soon see the first beers come out of the fermenters for Bridge Brew Works in Fayettevile and Lost Creek Brewing Co in Wardensville.
As happy as I am to see quality beer on the shelves from around the US and the world, I am equally excited to see more locally produced beer here in the Mountain State.
Speaking of Star Hill, why haven’t we seen Dark Star here yet ? I had some in the Outer Banks with some raw oysters and it was great, but haven’t seen any in good old WV.
I’m not sure if the WV Distributors are carrying the whole line of it. I’ve seen posters on the WV Craft Beer group saying they’ve had The Gift Winter Bock. I had to call Carenbauer’s in Wheeling to special order a case of that.
Yeah, our Kroger (Teays Valley) has “the Gift”, Jomo, and the Amber. I would just love to see the Stout in state.
save west virginia brews. mountaineer is about to be dropped by a certain local charleston distributor. please dont let it happen. things are progressing so well for the craft beer industry here. it would take a hit if beers from here in wv are lost in the shuffle and forgotten
Matt, Actually I am glad that Proud Eagle is dropping the line; at least this way Mountaineer Brewing will be free to sign with a distributor that will actually sell their beer. It’s unfortunate that Proud Eagle lost interest in the line. I guess they were easily distracted by getting the Yuengling line and at this point have obviously chosen to remain a macro-swill distributor and do not want to develop their craft-beer portfolio like Capitol and North Central have done…