I think it is so cool that Crozet has become the new home to Starr Hill’s brewing operations. There is a great story by Chirstina Ball in The HooK about their continuing growth and accolades.
But local master brewer Mark Thompson, owner and co-founder of The Starr Hill Brewing Company, is making such a slight impossible. Thompson, who’s from Virginia but studied the art of brewing out west, is still beaming from yet another sweeping victory at the 2005 Great American Beer Festival. This festival, which takes place in Denver– “the Napa Valley of beer”-Â each fall, is the Olympics of Beer. Going head-to-head at the 2005 competition were no fewer than 1,672 beers from 466 breweries.
Starr Hill garnered a gold medal for its Dark Starr Stout and two silvers for its Mojo Lager and Amber Ale. Last year both the Mojo and the Starr Hill Pale Ale took the gold.
Thompson’s vision for this new location includes a tourist-friendly tasting room as well as a roof deck offering views of the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains. Tour buses departing from and returning to Starr Hill on West Main Street are also a possibility.
They truly do have great beer. Tour buses in little old Crozet? I certainly would welcome the tasting room though … and maybe even a Starr Hill West?
