As a bird watcher, 33-year-old Matt Anthony has been to every part of Virginia, and after communing with his feathered friends he likes to relax at the local craft brewery.
"Eventually I realized I had been to quite a lot of them and started to be a little more systematic in terms of trying to get to them all," he says.
Since 2015 he has tracked his travels with an Excel spreadsheet and an app called Untapped. He’s sampled Belgian, German and Mexican-style beers and brews with a variety of ingredients, including grasshoppers, lime zest, corn tortillas, avocado, cilantro and pickleweed, harvested from the marshes of Chincoteague.
"There are some with chili peppers in them. You know you get a little bit of spice to it. Smoked beers – that’s a kind of a favorite style of mine. There’s a place out near Harrisonburg – it’s actually a lavender farm, but they have a winery and brewery on the property, so they use their lavender in some of the stuff," he says.
Some breweries have dozens of choices. Others, like the farm property near Abingdon, offer only one.
“They typically have an IPA, and when I was there they had switched that out for a Mexican lager. They only have one on tap at any given time, because they only have one tap," he explains with a chuckle.
His hobbies have taken him to every county in the Commonwealth – some more than once.
“It’s been a good way for me to really explore the state and feel like I know it, feel like I’ve been to places I might not have gone to otherwise.”
This weekend, he’ll stop by the last brewery on a list compiled from state records.
"It’s been a fun little quest for me," he says. "I’m just hoping no ne opens a new one between now and Saturday or Sunday."
Anthony, who works for the community college system, isn’t sure what he’ll do when his grand tour of Virginia brews is through, but he notes his wife Erin is fond of wine, so maybe he’ll travel and hang out with her.
