Any good local beer shops in the northern Virginia area? Will be in the area for a week and am looking to pick up some local beers and such. Any help will be much appreciated Thanks! Louis B
i lived on the western edge of NoVa for about a year, so I may only be of a little help. generally i find total wine to have the best selection (there are several around) followed by wegmans. if you are looking for a non chain spot Norms Beer and Wine in Vienna is a good spot http://normsbeerandwine.com/ perhaps someone who has been here longer and is really in NoVa can provide better help.
Total wine and Whole Foods should be your best bet, theres a lot of each in the area. Wegmans has a decent selection, but you usually wont find anything very special or limited there. And yeah Norms is a good one, a little pricier but not too bad. Theres Westover Market in Arlington, pretty big selection there. Theres usually some rare-ish beers long gone from other stores, but thats because the price is jacked up to all hell. Some of their prices are pretty fair, but some are insane. I havent been there in over a year though. Cork & Fork in Gainesville is a small shop with a fairly small selection, but they get all the good beers there though. Like Westover, expect to pay a little to a lot more for anything here, but mostly theyre not too bad. I've found a few beers here i thought i had missed out on, so they can be worth a look if youre close. Some local breweries to be on the lookout for. Lost Rhino in Ashburn, they are the guys from the Old Dominion brewery before they got bought out. Unfortunately their beers are not very impressive imo. Theres Port City out of Alexandria, the porter is pretty good. Theres a little place outside of Leesburg called Corcoran Brewing. I havent been, but i met the guys at a brewfest and since then ive been trying to make my way out there, but its a bit of a hike. And then there is the Sweetwater Taverns in the area, Centreville, Sterling, and Merrifield, maybe more. Sweetwater brews its own beer at the restaurant, they've got a pretty nice operation going. They usually have 5 different beers available, and they sell growlers. Unfortunately you have to buy a growler from them unless you have the exact type they use (they are just plain, unbranded, large swingtop with metal handle) since they dont fill the growler you bring but you exchange it. Anyway, i think all the fills are under $10. They have won a few GABF awards. Their head brewer Nick Funnel knows what hes doing, and ive seen his name pop up pretty often in beer newsletters and such. The food is really good there too, and their service is annoyingly attentive. Seriously, i hate going there, but thats just me. Everyone else seems to like it.
Also, i should have specified, the Fair lakes Whole Foods is the best one in the area. Theyve got the biggest selection, and 16 different beers on tap, not one of which is BMC. And theyre all available in 32oz or 64oz growlers. I think all of the whole foods in the area sell growlers.
Ricks Wine in Alexandria is better than the old town Alexandria wholefoods if you are in that area. I would probably try to go to Norms and the Wholefoods in Vienna they are within a half mile of each other. And the beer buyer at that wholefoods does a good job. If you are out near the Chantilly/Fairfax area hit the fair oaks whole foods and the total wine in chantilly(dogfish ale house is in the same shopping center)
