I have a road trip upcoming and perhaps a stop in Richmond is in order. I will be traveling with my wife and a brewery stop (or 2?) could happen. Of these four breweries you visited, could you recommend a top 2 of that list? Cheers! P.S. I suppose I should mention that while I enjoy drinking Juicy/Hazy IPAs from time to time they are not my preferred beer style.
For style variety... I'd pick Vasen and Brainstorm. I find Vasen to be solid all the way around. Brainstorm is pretty new/young, though. I bet it has 4-6 things available, tops (I could be wrong). It shares space with Black Heath meadery if you like mead. A tasty chocolate lager is their flagship.
Do yourself a favor and visit The Answer Brewpub. Great food, tons on tap and plenty that you can take home. Veil is pretty solid too and they just opened a new burger themed restaurant at their flagship location on Belleville St. Hardywood, Vasen, Richbrau and Triple Crossing are also very good options. For me: Answer is #1, Veil #2 and Hardywood as #3
I know these are the "hype" breweries of what's been mentioned, but honestly, if I went back, I'd definitely try to do Veil and Answer again. And then start thinking about where else to go. The Answer had a really good burger. I got 2 hazy IPAs, and two West Coast - one more modern, sans Crystal malt, the other more "traditional" (at least as I think of them) with the expected Crystal malt addition. Both were very good. One of the hazies was very good, the other, meh. I also had their BA coffee stout - i LOVE barrel aged coffee stouts. It was good for a sip or two. but holy sugary sweet, batman! the FG on that thing had to be 1.050. Otherwise, they had a really impressive list, including many other very impressive guest beers that, in retrospect, I wish I'd gotten. But hey, when in Rome....and i was driving. Veil was my 4th brewery of the evening (5th of the day if you count lunch at Answer) so i had to take it easy or risk not making it back to my hotel. I had a BA barleywine that came in at 17% - i found it to be way too hot. and I'm not stranger to big beers. I couldn't finish it. Otherwise, I had an excellent west coast double ipa. Brainstorm - had like 5 taps, 2 of which were unavailable. I had a surprisingly good cherry sour, though. As noted above, they share their space with a meadery, and the couple i sampled were very good. I'm not mead expert, though. Ardent - Had the german pils which grew on me, despite not being quite as bitter as my preference in pilsners. Otherwise, I had a WCIPA that i really enjoyed, a hazy pale ale that was good, and a hazy(ish) ipa that was servicable. Vasen - I got lots of recommendations here, and from locals, but it was my least favorite of the ones i visited. Take that with a grain of salt, though, it was my 4th of the day and as you see, gets lots of local love. If memory serves, I had the Radapils, neomexicanus ipa, norse ipa, and one other....not recalling, though. I thought they were fine. hope this helps!
That was a certainly a rare big night. I typically average about a drink 3-4 nights a week and about 10 US standard drinks in a week.
