The original English settlers—104 men and boys—hopped off the boats at Jamestown with the essentials: weapons, hand tools, plows, livestock and beer. They made sure to serve beer in their first celebratory feast in the New World on May 24, 1607.
Later, Northern Neck’s own George Washington, his homies Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin and other legendary figures of our past considered beer essential. Gen. Washington included a quart of beer in his Revolutionary War soldiers’ daily rations. Let’s not forget that we dumped tea into Boston Harbor—not beer.
Lee Graves is a noted Virginia beer expert and author of “Virginia Beer: A Guide from Colonial Days to Craft’s Golden Age.” He says beer was a “staple that provided nourishment and sustenance for Englishmen accustomed to viewing water as unfit to drink.”
A visit to our local microbreweries indicates some views endure through the centuries.
Our first settlers made just one tragic oversight, however. They didn’t bring a brewer and Jamestown soon went dry. We know: they had one job, right?
Fortunately, our beer history in America does not end with empty kegs at Jamestown. Enough of these hardy souls endured the privations of starvation, disease, death, befouled water, bloody conflicts with the locals and no beer to live to raise a pint again.
Or to at least place a “help wanted” ad in the newspaper for a skilled brewer. It’s true, says Graves. The men of Jamestown published the ad in 1609.
By 1620, the year another batch of immigrants landed 600 miles north at a rocky outpost in Massachusetts, brewing and the cultivation of barley were underway in Virginia. Just three years later the House of Burgesses in Virginia recommended that all new colonists bring enough malt to this colony to brew their own alcohol.
While the days of a Virginia legislature promoting malt for home-brew liquor may be over, beer has had a renaissance of sorts. At least in our Tidewater region.
Microbreweries dot the landscape, strategically situated to satiate thirst along local highways just like the colonial taverns of yore. From Williamsburg to Gloucester and on up across the Northern Neck through Kilmarnock, Warsaw and Montross, a microbrewery run is a day trip that would make our forefathers proud.
Not to mention amaze them that you could do it in one day. Thank you, modern-day carriages and paved roads, in my case a Chevy Express van ambling over Route 14 and the Kings Highway, also known as Route 3.
It’s as if the heavens foretold my journey. My microbrew journey occurred on a Saturday in April when a “micromoon”—also known as the annual “pink moon”—rose in the eastern sky.
They Ride with Me for Beer
MerriGrace Cartier, one of my five daughters—I also have nine boys in case you were wondering—and her husband, Mac Cartier, joined me. Yes, Cartier. However, not that Cartier of luxury brand fame. But it’s a fabulous surname to drop when you’re trying to get dinner reservations at Michelin-starred restaurants.
Joining us was my photographer friend Igor Nedvaluke. Born in Ukraine, he moved to the U.S. when he was 14 and was sporting a fisherman’s knit sweater he had picked up two weeks earlier in Iceland. Which has really good water and beer, Nedvaluke reports. Oh, and scenery. Good scenery.
Also along was my friend from the greater Dutton area of Mathews County, Ryan Graveline. He’s a beer nerd, writing nerd and father of a nice starter set of four kids. Both Nedvaluke and Graveline are former colleagues from my work as a communications consultant to the federal government.
Of the group, Mac Cartier is on another level when it comes to beer knowledge and appreciation. His beer bio reads: “Mr. Cartier has tasted over 2,000 beers including the rarest and most sought-after in the world. He has traveled across the globe to find and drink beer, from Vermont’s genre-defining New England IPAs to the centuries-old recipes brewed by Belgian monks in monasteries. An avid home brewer, he not only appreciates beer but seeks to understand the science behind the art of brewing.”
L to R: Ryan Graveline, writer Matt Sabo, MerriGrace Cartier, and Mac Cartier visit local breweries.
Read what Matt and friends have to say about select local breweries.
