Blue Mountain Beer Dinners
Over the past several years, the craft beer industry in Nelson County and the Charlottesville area has really burst on to the scene. We have so many great breweries putting out fantastic beers and earning well-deserved praise and awards from across the country. Furthermore many of the breweries, including the three located here in Nelson County, have outstanding restaurants as well, so it’s a real treat to have the opportunity to enjoy the best of both worlds – a beer-pairing dinner.
We attended our first beer dinner at Blue Mountain Brewery a few years ago, and were immediately hooked. We had been to Blue Mountain several times for lunch or dinner, but this was a completely new experience. Co-owner and brewer Taylor Smack and chef Rob Bond work together to create a five-course dinner, using plenty of locally-sourced foods that highlight and complement Blue Mountain’s great beer lineup. Taylor offers diners a great preview of each course, describing the flavor combinations that led to the pairing.
Fast forward to today, and we’ve enjoyed about 8 or 9 of these beer dinners over the past few years, usually joined by some of our fellow innkeepers from the area. Blue Mountain’s most recent beer dinner was highlighted by Chef Rob’s “B-B-Q Beef Frickles” and “Napa Cabbage Wraps” with braised pork belly. (Check out the full menu below.) We also got to preview some of their tasty new beer creations, not yet available to the public.
At the end of the meal, Taylor announced that the next beer dinner, on Thursday, November 13th, will be a “best of” dinner, featuring the best courses from all of their previous dinners. So we will be eagerly awaiting that event, and invite all you beer lovers and foodies to join us.
Our other Nelson County breweries, Wild Wolf and Devil’s Backbone, now put on beer dinners of their own, either at their restaurants or in guest restaurants around the mid-Atlantic. We’ll happily make a space in our schedule to enjoy a great meal with them soon.
