Brothers Craft Brewing is a family-owned brewery in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Originally called Three Brothers Brewing, it was founded by the three Shifflett brothers, who grew up in Harrisonburg and always knew they wanted to run a business together.

The taproom and brewing facility operates out of a renovated soda bottling plant, giving the taproom an old, rustic, and vintage charm that pairs well with drinking craft beer. As the brewery has grown, the brothers met so many people — including employees and customers in the Harrisonburg community — and made strong connections and relationships, they decided to change their name to Brothers Craft Brewing to be more inclusive of everyone they’d met and how their family had grown from way more than just three blood relatives who started the journey.

All breweries like to experiment with different hops and flavors in new beers, but there’s always flagship beers that stay on the menu year round. Josh Wells, taproom manager at Brothers, said flagship beers are a great place to start if you’re visiting for the first time because of the trail and don’t know what to try.

“Any brewery’s basic identity [are] their flagships,” Wells said. “Those are the beers you put your business behind.”

Brothers has four flagships: Hoptimization (an American IPA), The Great Outdoors (A Virginia Pale Ale), The Admiral (a Double IPA) and Lil’ Hellion (a Helles Lager). These beers are available year round in the taproom and are bottled, kegged and distributed to other vendors in Virginia.

The Beerwerks Trail and passport program have helped local breweries like Brothers Craft survive a pandemic by motivating people to get out and try new places in their community, or travel to neighboring communities. The program’s website also promotes local events and things to do in each city on the trail — including music festivals, hiking, cycling, history tours, and more — and places to stay on an overnight trip. Not only is the program supporting the breweries, but it’s supporting other local businesses in these communities as well.

“I think that’s the best part,” Wells said. “Because it’s such a collaboration of businesses all wanting to help people support local business.”