Usually, when Mrs V and I drive back to central Virginia from South Carolina we stop at Olde Mecklenburg Brewing in Charlotte, mainly to swap our my growlers, have a beer, and maybe get some cans as well. On our most recent trip, we decided to change things up a little bit and go to visit a brewery that I have been following on Instagram for about 18 months now, Keepsake Brewery in Gastonia. We took something of a scenic route from Columbia as we had overestimated how long the trip would take, and so pulled into the adjacent parking lot with about 10 minutes to opening time. Thankfully, we were meeting up with Mrs V’s life long best friend, so there was much hugging and chitchat to fill the empty time.
We wandered into the brewery premises themselves, noting the spacious beer garden, piles of kegs, crates, and other brewery type paraphenalia, and bimbled into the just opening taproom.
From many, many posts and stories on Instagram, I knew that Keepsake is dog friendly, so it was nice to not have to leave our wee Cairn Terrier in the car with the windows cracked – it also helps that Hamish, for that is his name, is quite content to just lay down and chill while we sit in a beer garden.
Having scoped out the lay of the land, parked the children at a picnic table with devices (yeah, yeah, judge away), we went inside the taproom and immediately I felt as though I was back in Central Europe – my favourite part of the world if you haven’t already noticed. I am sure I have mentioned this in a post about my ideal pub, but I have a soft spot for eclectic, mismatched furniture…yay!
I was charmed to say the least, oh, did I mention the stammtisch nook? No, ok, here:
And yes, that is Hamish’s fuzzy wee butt. Anyway, we weren’t here just to indulge my Mitteleuropaphilia…there was beer to be had, so I started at the beginning, with their house helles lager, Heartsease.
Now, I am going to be honest, and if you’ve followed along with my approach to tasting notes at breweries you will know that I generally don’t bother, and this day was no different. That said, I bought a six pack and took some notes last weekend. The helles is a very respectable beer, soft bready malt, with just a slight crusty edge and enough hop bite to keep things interesting, there is a nice floral hop aroma floating around. At 4.5%, I could quite happily sit around drinking a few jars of this. A solid start then.
Next up, as you can see, I went to the dark side with their “Vesper” Dark Lager – again I bought some home with me so these notes are from the weekend. First off though, kudos for a proper German style half litre bottle, you know what that looks like right? I don’t recall the menu at the taproom stating what kind of black lager this is, I asked if it was schwarzbier, dunkel, or tmavé, but really didn’t get an answer to the question. I later learned from pottering around the internet that it is considered a “San Francisco Style Black Lager”. Not really having a sense of what that means in relation to the others…it is definitely black, jet black, like a blackhole swallowing the light. Mostly I got American chocolate, espresso, and a rich maltiness that made me think there was a fair old whack of dark Munich malt in there. It was surprisingly thick and chewy for a 5% abv beer, and put me more in mind of a London porter than the dark lagers of central Europe. Still, another flavourful, respectable beer.
Next up a style I don’t think I had ever actually tried before, a California Common, monikered in this case “Causwell”. Another well put together tasty beer, with plenty of bitterness to prevent the maltiness being overly cloying. As I had never tried this style before, I know, I am lame and a total beer dilletante, I have no frame of reference, but I had a second pint, so that’s a good thing right?
For the remainder of our time at the brewery, we had to get back to Virginia after all, I actually stuck to Keepsake’s pale ale, called “Little Helper”, and I think it was my favourite of all the beers I tried. Hopped with Cascade and, I think, Spalt Select hops, this is a delightfully hoppy, citrus forward easy drinker. The grist is, again working from memory, is 100 pilsner malt, and the combination just works beautifully, I might have to try making something similar myself.
Having ordered in some food, there being no food truck that day, we finished up, leaving the band to carry on playing, and a growing crowd to enjoy the atmosphere. We enjoyed our visit, everything about the space is delightful, including, and I am not joking here, the décor in the bathrooms. It not only feels like a Central European space, but also a local hangout spot that were I to live in Gastonia would very easily become my local. I definitely expect we’ll be back, as the trip out of the way makes a nice change from just churning through the interstates of Charlotte, and Keepsake are on to something good here.
