Goochland County promotes craft beverage trail as tourism draw

Goochland’s craft beverage trail runs from brewery taps in West Creek to cider in Maidens and winery tastings in Gum Spring, spanning more than ten makers. The trail includes three breweries, six wineries, one cidery and one distillery, and it is tied to the Goochland Guide to Food, Beverage & Fun app so visitors can plan around food trucks and in-house dining.

A workable full-day loop

The most efficient way to do the trail is to start in West Creek, where Hardywood Park Craft Brewery West and Kindred Spirit Brewing give the day an easy first stop. Kindred Spirit is listed at 12830 West Creek Parkway in the West Creek area, which makes it a practical place to begin if you want to stay close to Richmond before turning west into the county. From there, the route can widen into a longer loop that picks up Goochland’s older brewing and wine stops, then finishes with cider or spirits in the Maidens corridor.

Midday is the right time to fold in Midnight Brewery, the county’s first brewery, which opened in 2011 and grew out of Trae Cairns’ after-hours homebrewing before he went full time. If Lickinghole Creek Craft Brewery is back on your date, it adds another brewery stop, with county tourism listing its return for May 2025 after an extended hiatus.

Where the wine trail gets its depth

Goochland’s wine stops are where the route becomes a longer countryside outing. Grayhaven Winery in Gum Spring dates to 1978, when the Peple family moved to the old Isbell Estate with the goal of establishing a vineyard, and the winery later received Virginia’s 22nd farm winery license in 1994. Byrd Cellars, which marked its 20th anniversary in county tourism calendars in June 2024, adds another established stop with three generations working in the vineyard and winery.

Further west, Elk Island Winery takes its name from the 1,300-acre island that splits the James River, giving the stop a geographic story that matches the river landscape around it. Rassawek Vineyard rounds out the wine list with select-Saturday tastings, while Bandit’s Ridge brings the newer end of the trail into view. The winery held its ribbon-cutting on April 10, 2025, and county tourism later listed live music and Savoring Sunday events there in 2025 and 2026.

The cider and spirits stops finish the route

Courthouse Creek Cider in Maidens is the clearest agritourism stop on the trail. It is an orchard and cidery, it maintains a 4.5-acre orchard, and it uses natural or rustic production methods; the business also describes itself as the only cidery in Virginia that follows natural production techniques.

Hill Top Distillery adds the spirits leg, and county tourism places it on Maidens Loop, which gives the route a river-country feel that is different from the county’s West Creek brewery cluster. If you want to compress the day, this is the point where you can choose between one cider stop or one distillery stop and still leave with a complete sense of the trail.

What each stop produces

Each business does something distinct within the same county branding effort:

• Hardywood Park Craft Brewery West, beer in West Creek.
• Kindred Spirit Brewing, beer at 12830 West Creek Parkway.
• Midnight Brewery, beer and a legacy that began in 2011.
• Lickinghole Creek Craft Brewery, beer, with a return listed for May 2025.
• Grayhaven Winery, wine, rooted in a 1978 farm story.
• Byrd Cellars, wine, with 20 years of county-visible history.
• Elk Island Winery, wine tied to the James River landscape.
• Rassawek Vineyard, wine with select-Saturday tastings.
• Bandit’s Ridge Winery, wine and live-music programming.
• Courthouse Creek Cider, cider, plus beer and wine, from its orchard setting.
• Hill Top Distillery, spirits in the Maidens Loop area.

Why Goochland is pushing the trail now

The county’s craft beverage push sits inside the ACRES Initiative, designed to connect, promote and encourage rural economic development. The timing also lines up with population growth: the U.S. Census Bureau estimates Goochland at 29,187 people on July 1, 2025, up from 24,727 in the 2020 Census, an increase of 4,460 residents, or about 18 percent.

Goochland is about a 30-minute drive from Richmond or Charlottesville.

The bigger backdrop reaches deeper than tourism branding. The Monacan Tribe originally lived along the James River Valley before later settlement, and Virginia law states a policy to preserve the economic vitality of the state wine industry through farm-winery regulation.

How to budget the day

A full trail day usually takes six to eight hours if you stop for lunch, linger at one live-music venue and visit five or six businesses instead of trying to cram in all eleven. A practical per-person budget is roughly $60 to $120 before gas if you do a couple of tastings, buy a meal from a food truck or kitchen, and take home one bottle or four-pack. A slower day with more purchases can run higher, especially at the wineries.