Virginia Beer Company Plans 10th Anniversary Freeversary Party for April 2026

Virginia Beer Company brings its 10 Year Freeversary Celebration to 401 Second Street in Williamsburg's Edge District tomorrow, April 11, from 3 to 10 pm, marking a full decade since co-founders Chris Smith and Robby Willey opened what BeerAdvocate would name one of the 34 best new breweries in the United States.

The seven-hour event features live music, multiple food trucks, and four collaboration beer releases brewed specifically for the occasion with partner breweries. Anniversary collaboration drops have been a VBC signature, and this year's lineup adds to what has become a reliable tradition for the Williamsburg brewery. Specific partner breweries and beer names have not yet been confirmed, but the collaboration count alone signals this is a release event worth planning around.

Smith and Willey are both College of William & Mary alumni who first connected at the Green Leafe Cafe in Williamsburg, bonding over craft beer before pursuing separate careers: Smith into financial analysis, Willey into management consulting. When they returned with a plan to open a brewery, they recruited brewmaster Jonathan Newman two years before the March 2016 opening. Newman was then at SweetWater Brewing Company in Atlanta, at the time one of the country's largest craft operations, and had previously helped launch Jackalope Brewing in Nashville. He was also completing his degree through the American Brewers Guild.

Newman's own account of that pivot carries real weight. "Hard to believe I took a chance leaving one of the nation's biggest breweries in my hometown of Atlanta to become the Brewmaster at a new brewery in Williamsburg, VA way back in 2014," he said. "Following a passion like homebrewing and turning it into a career...feels like a dream come true. Here's to many more dreams!"

The brewery opened in a building originally constructed in 1960, carrying the founding motto "Beer, People, Purpose" into what was then a revitalized stretch of Williamsburg's Edge District. Ten years on, VBC's distribution footprint spans Virginia, New York, the United Kingdom, continental Europe, Japan, and South Korea, giving the 10th anniversary a reach its Edge District neighbors likely never anticipated.

April 2026 is a dual-milestone month. Earlier this month, VBC also opened The Kitchen, a full brewpub at 7120 George Washington Memorial Highway (Route 17) in York County. The Yorktown location includes a from-scratch in-house menu, full bar, on-site brewing program, beer garden with an outdoor bar, overhead heaters, and fire pits. Kristi Olsen-Hayes, director of York County's Department of Economic and Tourism Development, called The Kitchen "a long-awaited community destination," noting the county worked alongside VBC through every phase of planning, design, and construction. VBC's own announcement framed the Yorktown opening and the Freeversary as parallel moments: "Community is why we expanded to Yorktown."

The Freeversary will also include a charitable component tied to VBC's local nonprofit partners, consistent with a decade of fundraising alongside brewing. The brewery's Full-Time Friends Social Club loyalty community is expected to play a visible role in the celebration. With The Kitchen now open and the anniversary party hours away, 2026 has already shaped up as the most consequential year in VBC's history.