Roanoke Railhouse Back on Track

Steven Davidson tends bar at the new digs of the Roanoke Railhouse brewery.
Steven Davidson tends bar at Roanoke Railhouse’s new loccation.

One of Roanoke’s oldest microbrewers is suddenly its newest again – Roanoke Railhouse Brewing is open again at 3106 Franklin Road after a five-month hiatus.

Railhouse, the brewer of craft beers like Track 9 and Switch Monkey, closed its tasting room/brewery in the Wimmer Tire Store on McClanahan Avenue five months ago. After renovating a former retail store and going through the permitting process Roanoke Railhouse held an official grand opening last week.

Co-owner Steven Davidson said the brand was kept alive during its hiatus with Blue Mountain Brewery in Nelson County doing the bottling. Now they’re back with a larger, brightly lit serving room where beer is available again by the glass. Davidson said there’s a small outside area that can be used during the warmer months. No food trucks on site as there are at some of the other microbrewers in town – Parkway, Big Lick, Soaring Ridge – but Frank’s Pizza and other local bistros will deliver.

“Roanoke’s cool,” said City Council member Ray Ferris, who was on hand for the grand opening. “We’re happy to share it with everybody across the state and up and down the east coast. This was one of the first breweries in the valley. We’ve had several more pop up across the valley – and several more are looking to move here.”

Davidson said the new space would give Roanoke Railhouse more “of a presence in the community. It will make us highly visible I hope, which will really increase our reach into the restaurants, the convenience stores and the grocery stores.” Raising awareness for what Davidson called “Roanoke’s oldest brewery at this point…we make very good, approachable beer.”’

Davidson said “welcoming more people into the wonderful world of craft beer,” is something his newer competitors are also doing at this point – and that’s okay, there’s more and more people that get dragged to a place or get introduced to it that swore they didn’t like beer at all – now they drink beer. It’s just like the old saying…a rising tide raises all ships.”

By Gene Marrano

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