This month marks Pale Fire Brewing Co.’s sixth birthday. They celebrated with an outdoor anniversary party, COVID-19 style.

Opened on April 10, 2015, the craft brewery and taproom is located in the heart of downtown Harrisonburg. Pale Fire is one of five Shenandoah Beerwerks Trail stops in the Friendly City.

“It’s been cool just seeing how it brings people from all over to come check out our brewery. Without the trail, they would’ve never even discovered us.”

Pre-pandemic, Reynolds was stamping anywhere from five to 50 passports every shift, totaling around 100 per week.

“It’s just a cool way to not only support the breweries, but the community as well,” Reynolds said. “It’s gonna, in the long run, really help our businesses and our community be able to expand and grow. In turn, that means we as locals can share our community and what we’re about, and that’s super cool.”

Pale Fire’s most popular beer, Red Molly Irish Red, won a bronze medal in the Irish-Style Red Ale category in 2016 at the World Beer Cup and in 2019 at the Great American Beer Festival.

Pale Fire offers between ten and 12 beers at a time, all displayed on vinyl. Artwork is plastered around the tap room and a large bookshelf sits on the back wall. The brewery itself is named after the novel “Pale Fire” by Russian author Vladimir Nabokov. Pre-pandemic, Pale Fire hosted live music shows once or twice a week.

In addition to live music, Pale Fire is known for their Wednesday night trivia. Resuming May 5th after a pause due to COVID-19, there will be roughly 15 to 20 tables that can accommodate groups up to six people.

“It’s cool for people to come in and enjoy beer, but when you can have an activity to do while you’re drinking beer it’s even funner!”

To find out more about upcoming events, find Pale Fire on Facebook, Instagram and palefirebrewing.com.