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Make Your Own Wine and Beer in Alexandria, VA

I’m sure at some point you’ve heard a friend or co-worker talking about brewing their own beer at home, possibly with less than stellar results. Micro-brewing has become an emerging trend and stores, both online and brick-and-mortar, have begun popping up to cater to this new culture. But now instead of learning by trial and error you can head over to the Shenandoah Brewing Company on South Pickett Street in Alexandria to learn firsthand how it’s done.

SBC has over 70 recipes to choose from when brewing your own beer, from pale ales and IPAs to stouts and lagers.  SBC provides all of the ingredients and equipment you’ll need and they even clean up the mess afterwards! Once you’ve brewed the beer it takes 4-12 weeks to ferment and then you make an appointment to come back and bottle it yourself. You even get to design custom labels if you want to. One session usually produces 4-5 cases that you can take home and enjoy at your leisure.

SBC is also a pub where you can go enjoy food and their in-house brews that have already been prepared. If wine is more your style you can head over to their sister company, Carafe Wine Makers, to take part in a wine-making session that produces around 30 bottles. Though I’ve tried brewing my own beer before (I was mildly successful) I haven’t experienced SBC yet but I definitely will be setting up my brewing appointment in the near future, and chances are it will be an IPA.

Jim Patrick

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