Charlottesville Beer by Graves Lee;Pullinger Jennifer;

Author:Graves, Lee;Pullinger, Jennifer;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2017-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Mary Wolf and her son, Danny, have shepherded the growth of Wild Wolf Brewing Company from a small homebrew shop to a restaurant, bar and event site in Nellysford. Photo by Lee Graves.

Both are available in cans, as are Blonde Hunny and several other beers. Like many craft breweries, Wild Wolf is taking advantage of the increased acceptance of cans among consumers. About two-thirds of the brewery’s annual production—about 4,100 barrels—goes into packaging, with the rest in kegs to be sold on draft. “When we first went into cans, our distributor was like, ‘You aren’t going to sell any beer,’” Wolf said. “We got our own canning machine in July [2015]. So we’re canning sometimes three times a week. We’re putting a lot of beer in cans.”

Wild Wolf was the first Virginia craft brewery picked up by Loveland Distributing Company, based in Richmond. That association has led to some interesting offshoots—specially brewed batches for the Richmond Folk Festival, the Richmond Kickers soccer team and other partnerships. Those have broadened the brewery’s exposure, as have the busloads of tourists exploring the beers, ciders, wines and distilled spirits in Nelson County. Most times, the Wild Wolf stop is sandwiched between Blue Mountain Brewery in the shadow of Afton Mountain and Devils Backbone’s Basecamp Brewpub & Meadows below Wintergreen. “Each of the three breweries is incredibly different, which I think makes it awesome because there’s a good reason to try each one,” Wolf said. “We all have amazing beer, and we’re all doing things just a little differently.”

Unlike the other two, Wild Wolf has no second production facility, and expansion was definitely under consideration in 2015. Brewing on the fifteen-barrel system has been pushed to its capacity, the main sixty-barrel fermenter is filled as soon as it’s emptied and five trailers are used for storage on the ten acres. “We have pushed the limits as far as we can push them,” Wolf said, “so we know in a couple of years we’ll have a new brewery.”

Still, the acreage has room for hops, spices, produce and chickens that go into the beer and food. Plus, the restaurant embraces the “farm to table” concept by supporting local farms, not only by purchasing goods but also by supplying spent grain to cattlemen.

Part of Wild Wolf ’s success comes from the accessibility of easy-drinking beers like Blonde Hunny. It’s called a gateway beer, a door that opens for the Bud-Miller-Coors drinkers who are tasting their first craft beer. Or for wine enthusiasts whose palates are more accustomed to the tannins of grapes than the esters of ales.

Wolf herself once preferred wine to beer. She and her husband were regulars on vineyard tours, and they still have a three-thousand-bottle cellar. “But I don’t drink wine anymore. I made a complete switch,” she said. “I just have fallen head over heels in love with beer. Beer is just fine for me.…As an ex-wine drinker, what I mostly loved about wine was the variety, and that you could have different wines from different parts of the world.

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