CulturAle Press

Short Pump Weekend: Kindred Spirit Paid In Full IPA

Date:  May 21, 2019

The Story—  We reviewed Kindred Spirit yesterday, but a few other notes about the place. It’s a big place in the very newly developed fringes of an ambitious soft-industry area expanding into the woods in the middle of nowhere, and around back – very hard to spot, though a GPS helps get you quite near.    The taproom is divided from the open brewhouse by a long bar with seats on both sides.  There’s cornhole in the back of the brewhouse and it’s an atmospheric place to drink..  A big 2-cornered bar and assorted dining tables in the rest of the space accommodates the big crowds pretty well.  Our experience with food trucks there have been quite good..  Live music with bands that make the brew pub rounds in the Richmond area. It’s on the fringe of Richmond, but worth a visit.

The Beer—  At 8.9% abv and 79 IBUs, this is a “big hammer” beer that would be hard to mess up dramatically.   Still its full bodied and creamy breadth builds a fine platform for a broad range of hops of fruit earth and pine  Citrus with just a hint of berry fruit graces the chalky and creamy finish.

Value —  Good.   We had three dollar samplers which is more or less going rate.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

May and early June are some of the best times to take a weekend and go brewery hunting.  Most rates haven’t reached their out-of-school peak, and the chances for good weather are … pretty good.  So for a few weeks, we’ll give you some Mid Atlantic suggestions for weekend excursions.

We’re including beers and breweries we’ve found in researching our guide to breweries and inns of the Mid Atlantic.  We won’t adhere to the “must be walkable” rule here, though.  Once again we present our standard caveat: only a few of the beers we describe will be at the brewery if you go there, but they’ll probably have a beer that’s close to the style and if they do one stout well, they’ll probably do others about as well.  We hope the “story” will be at least as valuable as the actual beer review.

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is in answer to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers,   and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”