Blue Mountain Brewery
The Blue Mountain Brewery in Afton, Virginia is a brewery which forms, along with Starr Hill Brewery, South Street Brewery, Wild Wolf Brewing Company, and Devils Backbone Brewing Company, an integral part of the Brew Ridge Trail. Blue Mountain was the first brewery to open in Nelson County. They cultivate 1/3 acre of mainly Cascade-variety hops. One of their seasonal beers, Blue Reserve, took home the first-ever medal for a beer hopped solely with Virginia hops at the world's largest beer competition, the Great American Beer Festival, in 2011 for the American-Belgo Ale category. Blue Mountain is also the only Virginia brewery to hold back-to-back Gold medals at the 2010 and 2011 Great American Beer Festival. In 2012, a new sister brewery, Blue Mountain Barrel House, was opened by two of the founders of the original Blue Mountain Brewery.
