Beerfest

Cally’s homemade brew wins top honor at state competition

By Kristina Morris, contributing writer  
Posted on October 11, 2007

This year Cally’s Restaurant and Brewing Company was awarded Best in State at the Virginia Beer Cup in conjunction with the Capital City Carnival.

The event was held in Centreville, Va., during the last weekend in September and was open to all Virginia breweries. The Virginia Beer Cup is known as the premier microbrewer competition in the state.

Entries are evaluated during a three-day period and the three entries that best represent each beer-style category as described and adopted by the Great American Beer Festival win awards.

According to its Web site, the Great American Beer Festival has a professional judge panel that offers gold, silver and bronze medals recognized around the world as symbols of brewing excellence. These awards are among the most coveted in the industry and heralded by the winning brewers in their national advertising.

A gold medal, which Cally’s won, is characterized as a world-class beer that accurately exemplifies the specified style, displaying the proper balance of taste, aroma and appearance.

“This was the first year we’ve done this competition,” Cally’s brewer Eric Plowman said. “We’ve entered a total of five different competitions and won first place three different times.”

Cally’s winning entry was the “Smokin’ Scottish Ale,” also known as the brewery’s flagship beer.

“[It] is ruby- colored ale with a rich malt flavor and is very smooth in character,” Plowman said.

Plowman uses Scottish-grown barley and yeast originally from McEwans’ Brewery in Scotland.

“Our beer is pretty authentic to what is served in Scotland,” Plowman said. “The bitterness comes from the hops so we use it very sparingly. Instead, our beer is very malt-oriented which makes it a smooth, easy drink.”

JMU graduate Grant Neuhart agrees.

“Being a medium-bodied ale, the Smokin’ Scottish is very smooth and the smokiness of the malt gives it an overall nice finish,” he said.

Plowman said the winning brew has always been a crowd pleaser.

“We’ve had the Smokin’ Scottish for the whole 10 years we’ve been open and still use the original recipe,” he said. “It has been our flagship beer since we first opened and was a big seller before the popularity came from winning awards.”

The same beer won the Gold Medal at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO in 2004. Cally’s famous Nut Brown Ale also won the Blue Ribbon for the regional competition of the Microfestivus Beer festival in Roanoke, Va.

Cally’s characterizes the Nut Brown Ale as having a rich dark malt flavor with a mahogany hue.

All of the beer served at Cally’s Restaurant and Brewing Company is designed and brewed at the restaurant and is served at the Harrisonburg brewpub year-round.