Since 2022, Josh Chapman has used his twin obsessions of local and foraged flora and beer made from local ingredients to create brews for a festival, OktoberForest Fest. OktoberForest Fest 2025 happens next month, on Sunday, September 7, at Fine Creek Brewing in Powhatan, Virginia.
You may know Josh or his wife Jenna Chapman, who together founded Black Narrows Brewing Co. and then Upweller Beer Company. Upweller released their first beers in October, 2024. At that point in time, Chapman was brewing at the Right Proper Brewpub Shaw, though today he’s calling Suffolk, Virginia’s Sojourn Fermentory home. This year, Upweller beers will be poured at OktoberForest Fest 2025, the fourth iteration of the festival.
The festival is unique on many fronts, notably there are four different Virginia-foraged ingredients in four beers brewed specifically for the festival. Atypical ingredients like sassafras leaves, spruce tips, longleaf pine, and eelgrass are going into the beers. These ingredients and the beers they are in were brewed by Upweller Beer Company, Fine Creek, Väsen, and Sweetbay Brewing to benefit The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
Outside of the beers supporting TNC, each beer was paired with one of the TNC’s landscape-conservation programs. The sassafras leaves, used in the Allegheny Highlands Farmhouse Ale at Fine Creek, come from the Warm Springs Mountain Preserve. The red spruce tips for the Clinch Valley Amber Lager, brewed at Sweetbay Brewing, came from Beartown Mountain. For the Barrier Islands Gose, brewed at Väsen, Eelgrass was collected from underwater meadows in the Virginia Coast Reserve (which, according to TNC, is the largest and most successful seagrass restoration effort on Earth). And finally the Piney Grove IPA, brewed by Upweller, features Longleaf pine needles gathered from Piney Grove Preserve—the initiatives aim at restoring the longleaf pine forest.
On September’s first Sunday at noon, expect free admission to the event with festival beer tokens available on-site (Fine Creek Brewing Company in Powhatan, VA).
The collaborating breweries are Fine Creek Brewing Company, Sweetbay Brewing Company, Upweller Beer Co, and Väsen Brewing Company. But that’s not all! Additional guest breweries like Blindhouse Beer Company, Brainstorm Brewhouse, Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, Heliotrope Brewery, Lost Generation Brewing Company, Mieza Blendery, Selvedge Brewing, and Sojourn Fermentory will all be pouring.
In addition to the worthwhile beers there will be live music, coffee drinks served by Batteaux Coffee Co., and food including Mother Shuckers Oysters.
Ann Nallo, director of marketing and communications of The Nature Conservancy emailed DC Beer the following:
The Quick Breakdown of the OktoberForest Virginia Collection:
“Help Protect the Lands & Waters on Which All Life (and Beer) Depends”
This collaboration pairs four breweries with four landscape-conservation programs spanning from the Atlantic to the Appalachians. One special local ingredient, carefully collected by hand from each conservation area, offers an expression of Virginia’s lands and waters that you can taste in every beer.
- Allegheny Farmhouse Ale, brewed and bottled by Fine Creek Brewing Co. in Powhatan, using Sassafras collected from The Nature Conservancy’s Warm Springs Mountain Preserve (Allegheny Highlands).
- Barrier Islands Gose, brewed and bottled by Väsen Brewing Company in Richmond, using eelgrass collected from the coastal bays of the Volgenau Virginia Coast Reserve (Eastern Shore of Virginia).
- Clinch Valley Saison, brewed and bottled by Sweetbay Brewing Company in Abingdon, using spruce tips collected from restoration sites in the Clinch Valley (Southwest Virginia).
- Piney Grove IPA, brewed and canned by Upweller Brewery, using longleaf pinecones, branches and needles collected from The Nature Conservancy’s Piney Grove Preserve (Southeast Virginia).
Can’t make it to the fest? A limited edition of 4-packs may be available at better beer stores in Virginia.
