A few months ago, the wife and I began our summer vacation, traveling north for a multi-stop trip that brought us as far as Salem, Massachusetts. We didn’t get there all in one day, of course, and the first leg of our drive got as almost 600 miles, to a stop in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

And, of course, a brewery. Two really, but the first was Blue and Gray Brewing Company. Blue and Gray is both a brewpub (Lee’s Retreat) and a bottling microbrewery. Best of all, you can sit in the brewpub and enjoy some great beer and a fine meal, then go around back to the brewery and buy fresh bottles of beer or get a growler filled. Try doing that here in Georgia.

One of the beers I bought in the bottle was Blue & Gray Falmouth American Pale Ale. The bottle admonishes buyers “fresh beer” “Keep cold” (always sage advice), and so I have. Straight from the somewhat anachronistic fridge at the brewery to the cooler in the trunk of my car where it was kept on ice for my entire trip.

The beer made it another 500 miles north and then about another 1100 south; arriving home here in Canton, I whisked it into my DBR (Dedicated Beer Refrigerator) where it has remained since. Until tonight, anyway, when I decided the time had come to try this one.

From the brewery website:

“In Falmouth,VA, the fall line of the Rappahannock River, 18th Century Fredericksburg brewers improved on the extra-hoppy India Pale Ale (IPA) brewed in Britain. The IPA was over-hopped in order to survive the long sea journey to India. American colonists used generous amounts of American grain and a modest amount of American hops and created the American Pale Ale (APA).

Enjoy sweet maltiness and a firm body. We top off this APA for you with whole leaf cascade hops.”

I’m not so sure I agree with their assessment of the origins of American Pale Ale. IPA, after all, didn’t really emerge in force until the mid-19^th century, and American Pale Ale might be credited to American colonists-if you can call late 20^th century Americans colonists. Bad history perhaps, but this is a very good beer.

Blue & Gray Falmouth American Pale Ale pours to a bright orange amber color with a thick creamy head of foam and a spicy citric hop nose. Taking a sip, the first thing my palate is treated to is a caramel shower. If this were an India Pale Ale, I would be expecting a caramel bath, but as an American Pale Ale is somewhere halfway between pale ale and IPA, I got just the right amount of malt. Then the hops hit: bitter, aromatic, and in the finish, citrusy in a big grapefruity way. A decent bittr bite lingers on the tongue after sipping, too.

This is just what I’m looking for in the style. I’ve had bigger, hoppier examples of American Pale Ale for sure, but this one suits me just fine. It’s great fresh beer at its best, and for $4 I’d be buying it all the time if I lived close to the brewery.



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