Brewery Visit- Devils Backbone Brewing Company

     On Friday night my boyfriend, Tyler, and I visited Devil’s Backbone Brewing Company in Roseland, Virginia. This is their “Basecamp Brewpub” and while they don’t usually give public tours of their brewing facilities, we thought it would be a nice place to check out and eat dinner.

Neither one of us could decide on what beer to order when we got there, so we both ordered a flight of the traditional Devils Backbone beers. Devils Backbone has two locations in Virginia. The Roseland location produces all of the experimental, seasonal beers, while the location in Lexington produces their traditional beers that go out to stores across the country. We each ordered a sandwich, and under the advice of our waitress started tasting our beers from least bitter to most bitter. Each beer on the menu was given an “IBU” value of the International Bitterness Unit. This was helpful as we navigated our 6 beer samplings. We tasted the following beers:

The traditional flight of beers that we ordered

Trail Angel Wiess: This was the first beer that I tried and probably my least favorite of the flight. It was light gold in color, and had a distinct fruity taste at first followed by a nutmeg-like aftertaste.

Gold Leaf Lager: This beer was one of the lighter beers that I tried. It was slightly sweet and not very bitter.

Vienna Lager: I was familiar with this beer before visiting DBB, and it was already one of my favorites. The Vienna Lager is slightly bitterer than the Gold Leaf lager, and considerably darker in color. It also has a slight toasted caramel flavor.

Schwartz Bier: This was my favorite beer of the flight. I was surprised to like it as much as I did due to its extremely dark, almost black color. It was a bit sweeter than the Vienna Lager, with about the same level of bitterness. There was also a nice flavor of coffee that I found very appealing.

Striped Bass Pale Ale: This was Tyler’s favorite beer of the flight. The beer was a bit hoppier than I prefer, but was still very good! It is a light gold color, with very little sweetness but hints of citrus flavors as well.

Eight Point IPA: This IPA was by far the most bitter of the beers that I tasted. It still had a fairly light, golden color, and was extremely hoppy. While I am not usually a fan of Indian Pale Ales and other very bitter beers, I found this one quite enjoyable.

Malt room with bags of grain stacked up

After dinner, I asked our waitress if she might be able to tell us a bit about the production of the beers. She was extremely knowledgeable, and explained many aspects of the beer making process. There are four main ingredients in beers: yeast, malt, water, and sugar. The two main types of beer are Lagers and Ales. As far as production is concerned, with Lagers the yeast will settle to the bottom and with Ales the yeast will float to the top. Consequently, lagers require more filtration. Some of the lightest beers on the menu go through as many as 27 filters before they are ready to be enjoyed, while some of the more hazy beers go through only 11.

After speaking to us in great detail about the production process, our waitress offered to show us around the brewery to see where the beer is actually produced. The first room we went in was the malt room where the grain is stored and milled. There are different grains for each beer- where the lighter malt is for lighter beers and darker malt is used for the darker beers. Many beers also combine the two.

Steel drums containing beer

Next we went into a refrigerated room which contained the steel drums. The room was kept cold in order to keep the beer at 43 degrees. This is where the beer is stored and then pumped out to the front of the bar in the taps. The next room we went in was where the beer is actually produced. Our waitress explained to us a very interesting process where the discarded grains are picked up by farmers, who use the grain to feed their cows. Eventually the beef from the cows comes back to Devils Backbone and is used in their food items.

Overall the evening was very informative and enjoyable! We were able to privately tour the brewing facilities, and learn almost all there is to know about how Devils Backbone Brewing Company operates. We even got a 6-pack of our favorite beer, Schwartz Bier, to bring home with us.