Afton
Nelson County, Virginia
In just three short years Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton is already feeling growing pains, in a great way! “We needed more seating in the cold weather and we finally closed on some land behind us so we are going forward with our expansion. It will be next fall before that’s up, so we’re in the emergency procedures for the cold weather,” said Taylor Smack, co-owner and brewmaster at BMB in Afton.
Nelson’s first microbrewery opened back in the fall of 2007. Since then the business has grown leaps and bounds. “We grew between ’08 and ’09 a 35% increase and we’re up 65% this year over last year,” Taylor continued. The original 5000 square foot building has already become a tight squeeze for the booming operation. Enclosing the front porch gives BMB a little time before they double the square footage by next fall. It’s about a 5000 square foot customer sized addition, so it will basically be bigger than what we have now. More customer space, offices, cathedral ceilings, same farm house style with the gabled roofs. Virginia Frame’s doing it again. It’s big time,” Taylor grins.
Over the past 3 years Taylor and the crew at Blue Mountain have added several things to keep people coming back, and admits he’s learned along the way. “We kind of didn’t know what we were doing in the beginning and let people kind of guide us by wanting more food, entertainment, etc,” Taylor adds. Just in the past few weeks they have added Tuesday Tastings, featuring not only local Virginia brews but ones you can’t get from anywhere around here. “Every Tuesday we are doing a new beer style, often to highlight the release of one of ours, but we do others, like English Pale Ales, kind of the best in the world. We taste about 6 different types.” The tastings have already been very popular with as many as 20 people attending the free tastings of unique beers.
This is very good news!
Congrats Guys!
