Cacapon Mountain Brewing brightens tradition

“This could be the best Kölsch-style beer I’ve had from a West Virginia brewer,” I said, as I savored the golden liquid in my glass. And that’s saying something these days.

West Virginia brewers have certainly discovered the Kölsch-style ales, as we find so many of them making one. With Kölsch being one of my favorite warm-season beers, I notice.

Cacapon Mountain Brewing’s Kölsch was more distinct in its temperament than most. The flavors aren’t muddied, they’re crisp, clean, and crystal clear. The graininess; the lightly floral, pleasantly bitter hops; and the neutral yeast with cool fermentation and lagering all manage to sing in a most pleasant harmony. It’s light, but it’s not a bit watery.

Its component threads are woven together with a master’s touch. It just feels right. If you know, you know.

In a lighter-style beer like Kölsch, as in a basic lager, there is no place to hide flaws. If something is a touch out of balance, it shows. If flavors are muddied you know it.

If a brewery nails its Kölsch; they’ve got my attention.

First visit to Cacapon Mountain

This was my first visit to Cacapon Mountain Brewing in Berkeley Springs, WV. When I walk into a brewery for the first time and sample a few beers, I learn a lot pretty quickly.

It’s a beautiful place, built inside an antique textile factory. The taproom is as pleasant as the beer. It’s a good-looking, comfortable place.

For beer, I’m pretty sure they have something you’ll like. Though it’s heavy on traditional styles, you’ll find ales from light to dark in both color and flavor impact.

See the beer board below to get a feel for the variety the brewery offered in September. The board changes regularly and seasonally in styles.

What I learned at Cacapon Mountain Brewery was that these guys brew some exceptional light and traditional styles of beer. Not only Kölsch, but beers like English Pub Ale, Dark Mild, and Pale Ale stood out.

That’s certainly not to suggest that the rest of the beers were not up to snuff. They were fine. But when I find a range of basic, lower-ABV traditional styles brewed to perfection, that tells me all I need to know about the brewing skills at a place.

Shane Mills in charge

Owner/brewer Shane Mills opened his brewery in 2020, and since that time he’s developed a solid following in the Eastern Panhandle region. The guy has a lot of energy and manages all the brewing himself.

It’s not just all about his lower-ABV traditional styles either. To make money in a small, touristy town, you have to offer a wide range of popular beer styles, including today’s most popular category: IPA. So Shane does that too.

I tried beer #12 in his Nose Noise IPA series. It’s well-flavored, with pale malt and a moderate haze, aroma hops with a peachy-grapefruit impression and solid bitterness. It’s beer #3 on the flight carrier pictured above. (6.3% ABV, 70 IBU)

The beer board rotates through styles over the months. Expect to find IPAs, flavored stouts, hoppy ambers, lagers, wheat beers, porters, saisons, sours, milds, and more at various times throughout the year.

A look around the taproom

Quick Q&A with Shane Mills

I asked Shane to answer a few quick questions so we could get a better feel for his brewing priorities. Here’s what he had to say.

Q: What do you most want to be known for as a brewery?
A: Clean, drinkable beer.

Q: What are your favorite beer styles to brew?
A: Lambic-style beers. It is so time-involved and counterintuitive to standard beer making that it feels mysterious and possibly dangerous, which is a fun diversion from boiling your standard cereal juice.

Q: What are your biggest challenges in operating a brewery in Berkeley Springs,
A: Anticipating tourist traffic.

Q: What are some upcoming beers for the fall season that you’d like people to know about?
A: Unfortunately, we had our glycol chiller go down in late summer, so we won’t have any Oktoberfest beer this year, but we will have our Anniversary IPA back in November, with lots of Simcoe, Nelson, Riwaka, and Citra. And late fall should see our Tmave Pivo and Baltic Porter back on tap.

Q: Personally speaking, what are your favorite aspects of operating a small craft brewery? 
A: I enjoy the process of iterating and tweaking recipes to dial in a particular set of flavors, as opposed to treating recipes as a given amount of a specific ingredient. Learning when a process has more flavor impact than ingredient choice is very satisfying. And from a business perspective, it’s incredibly rewarding to watch people enjoy time with friends and family in a place you helped create.

Another reason to return

If you look to one side of the Cacapon Mountain taproom, you’ll see two picture windows through which you can see inside two barrel aging rooms. The wood-lined barrel room is for wild and sour beer, such as Shane’s favorite Lambic-style ales, and the painted room is for clean beers, such as Imperial Stouts.

While I didn’t get to try any of these barrel-aged specialties during my visit, I can’t wait to return for them.

He says he began barrel aging pretty much when he started the brewery, “But I haven’t been focusing on those brands as much as our non-aged brands,” he adds.

A while back he says he made a barrel-aged Sandman imperial stout that he thought was excellent. “I really need to get another batch of that going,” he remarks.

He says he worked on building his sour program the whole time the brewery construction was happening. He would buy as many commercial cultures as he could find and also propagated bottle dregs from some of his favorite wild ales. After evaluating their fermentations, he would dump the weaker performers and consolidate the winners into a handful of different microbe blends, mostly based on aroma profile.

“Then I brewed several lambic-style mashes and pitched varying amounts and combinations of the microbe blends into each barrel to see what was what. Some of the results have been great, some not so much, but thankfully we’re close to the standard 10 percent cull rate for sour barrels (which is considered pretty good).

“We will be tapping the remainder of our Kriek-style beer for our anniversary in November.”

Sounds like the time to plan a visit.

Learn more about Shane’s impressive brewing background in this earlier Brilliant Stream article.

Visiting Cacapon Mountain Brewing

Cacapon Mountain is easy to find just a short block off U.S. Rt. 522 on the north end of Berkeley Springs. Beyond beer, their kitchen features Smash Burgers dressed several ways. Plus, you’ll find some appetizers and small plates of popular bar munchies (corn chips, salsa, guac, nachos, hot dogs, etc.)

Dog-friendly in outdoor seating areas.

Cacapon Mountain Brewing Company
42 Williams St.
Berkeley Springs, WV

Hours:

Thursday: 4:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Friday: 12:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Saturday: 12:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Sunday: 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Monday: 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Closed on Tuesday & Wednesday

CMBC Website
CMBC facebook page link

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Gallery

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