Thursday, February 13, 2025

Billsburg Brewery to Celebrate Five Years of Beer and Community

Picture taken from the grand opening of Billsburg Brewery. The local brewery celebrates five years of business this weekend, Oct. 29. (Courtesy of Billsburg Brewery)

WILLIAMSBURG — Billsburg Brewery is celebrating its five-year anniversary this Saturday, Oct. 29, with a special all-day event.

“We’ve had a such great response, from not only the other craft breweries in the area, but from our guests that we have served over these five years. The response has just been phenomenal,” said Billsburg Brewery General Manager Eric Williams in an interview with WYDaily. “It’s amazing to see how the community has rallied and supported small businesses, from when we first opened the door, through COVID, to where we are now. We’re actually being able to make some of the improvements on the ground that we have originally envisioned five years ago when this was all first started.”

The brewery’s five-year anniversary party will feature three bands and will host four visiting food trucks, offering a variety of food options for guests to enjoy.

Food Trucks:

Bands and Performance times:

“It started with our original founder, Dave Baum,” said Williams. “He was able to take his passion for home brewing and craft beer and he decided to make the leap and left his normal everyday job to start a brewery. He was able to work with James City County and secure the location that we’re in now right here on the marina across the street from Jamestown Settlement. Then, he was able to get some investors to join in with him and that’s kind of how Billsburg started. It’s become a gathering place for friends and family to come out and drink really good beer, enjoy a view of the water, and make new friends.”

(Courtesy of Billsburg Brewery)

A birthday cake cutting is scheduled for 2 p.m. and there will be a bounce house set up for families with kids, Williams told WYDaily.

Billsburg Brewery is releasing five beers on Saturday in honor of the brewery’s five years in business. The beers that were selected were the staff’s favorites from the past five years.

There are a couple of brewers that have been with Billsburg since the local brewery opened, and Williams said they asked them what they wanted to bring back for the anniversary. Four have been revealed, and the fifth will be revealed at the party. 

“We’ve been very fortunate. We’ve had great stability with our brewers. So it’s been really nice. The people have been getting really good consistent beer from five years ago to today,” said Williams. “As we go along the way we come up with new beers and we’re trying new things. That’s really the hallmark of what keeps Billsburg going. We’re not afraid to try a new beer style or turn our selzters into craft cocktails. That kind of mentality of always being willing to try something new to see what our neighbors really want, because it may not be a style that I personally drink or one of our brewers drink, but if our guest really wants it, we want to make the best version of that beer possible.”

(Courtesy of Billsburg Brewery)

Beers Released:

  • Smoke Stack Lightning  
  • Col. Ebirt – Vienna Lager 
  • Apfelschorle – Apple Flavor Sylzer
  • James City Export 

The concept and the preliminary work for Billsburg Brewery actually began closer to seven years ago.

“It took a little while to get the brewery itself built,” said Williams. “It’s been a really good partnership, not only with the community but the county. It’s really worked out well.”

The brewery also serves cocktails and recently added non-alcoholic and alcoholic slushies to its menu. Billsburg Brewery is situated on 10 acres of land and Williams says that there is plenty of room for everybody to come out and feel at home. 

(Courtesy of Billsburg Brewery)

“We just completed building our Pavillion, and that’s the first real big project that we’ve been able to do in five years,” said Williams. “Now that we’ve made it through COVID and we made it through the infancy, and the business is doing well, in these next five years you’re going to see a lot more development on the 10 acres that we have out here. It’s really exciting to kind of see what the future has in store to make the guest experience here better. A lot of development, a lot of innovation, and it’s just an exciting time.”

The Billsburg Brewery anniversary celebration is a free event, open to everybody at no charge. 

For more information on Billsburg Brewery, check out its official website or Facebook page.

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