If you are a novice to visiting craft breweries you may be tempted to turn around and leave before you make it inside of Caboose Brewing Company in Vienna, VA. You may even think you took a wrong turn in Albuquerque and ended up in the warehouse district in some bad horror movie. Either that or you will think that you were hired by the Town of Vienna to work construction in the public works department (which is right next door). Please, power through the appearances and make your way to the tasting room and restaurant. You be glad you did.

There was a time in the history of this country and, in fact, the world when you would get your beer from the local brewer. The beer hall was a meeting place and the center of the social and political debate. The beer hall was the meeting place, the motel, the restaurant, and the marketplace. In colonial America, beer was the common drink of choice. Water was not clean (we humans didn't quite understand how to clean water or the importance of drinking fresh water) and beer had the right amount of alcohol to kill all the germs but not so much alcohol (like whiskey or scotch) to get you drunk. The beer hall was the center of town and that is a wonderful tradition that Aslin Beer Company is continuing for Herndon, VA.