Roanoke Craft Beer Trail — Appalachian Brewing Culture

Roanoke has more craft breweries per capita than any city in Virginia — thirty-plus breweries, taprooms, and brewpubs within a thirty-mile radius. The range runs from downtown lager houses to farmhouse ale producers near the Blue Ridge Parkway. The concentration follows a pattern: outdoor culture attracts the same demographic that builds breweries. The Norfolk and Western Railway chose the small town of Big Lick as its headquarters in 1882, and within two years the town had become the City of Roanoke. The population grew twenty-two times over in the 1880s. When N&W moved its headquarters out in 1982, the city pivoted. In the 21st century, a robust healthcare industry and the development and marketing of outdoor amenities helped reverse population decline. Roanoke now sits within the Blue Ridge range with twenty-six miles of greenways connecting bicycle and pedestrian trails to mountain access. The breweries are part of that reversal — a service economy built around the fact that Southwest Virginia's economic and cultural hub happens to sit fifty miles north of the North Carolina border with trail systems radiating out from downtown. Trail maps are available at Visit Virginia's Blue Ridge downtown. Use a designated driver or the greenway between venues.