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While the Outer Banks has numerous breweries, only one stands out as a definitive gastro-brewpub. Outer Banks Brewing Station offers not only a diverse variety of small-batch beers, but also a complex, chef-driven menu that complements them. The passionate symbiosis between their brews and fare extends to the Outer Banks community and environment with both brewery-to-farm and farm-to-table philosophies.
With an old-school outlook behind its brewing process, Outer Banks Brewing Station crafts about a dozen continually rotating brews under the creative hand of Head Brewer David Virgil. The bar taps are directly fed from the fermenters and holding tanks of a Deutsche Beverage 10-barrel system, so customers can enjoy a drink directly from its source. A fountain of brew, if you will.
Using only the finest grains, hops and yeasts, Virgil tends to brew lager-style beers with light and slightly malty characteristics. His most recent creation is a French Saison, which is a wheat-based beer with hints of orange peel. For the fall season, he created an Oktoberfest-style beer, and for the colder months, there’s a dark porter and many other surprises in store. The only two year-round mainstays are the Hugh Hefeweizen and the Lemongrass Wheat Ale, while everything else changes or rotates seasonally.
“Not only does Dave brew to meet the beer drinkers’ fancy, but also to pair along with Brewing Station’s world-class menu,” says Keith Acree, co-owner of Outer Banks Brewing Station.
This harmonious awareness drives novel arrays of complementary flavor profiles between beverage and food as well as the eco-friendly practice of spent grain recycling.
Spent grain, aka draff, is what’s left of malt or barley after it’s used to make beer. Spent grain accounts for around 85% of the mass of brewing byproduct. In a mindful contribution to the future of circular bioeconomics, the Brewing Station uses its spent grains to provide feed for local cattle farmers. It is an interdependent relationship, as these same farmers later provide the beef in dishes in Outer Banks Brewing Station’s pasture-to-plate program.
Co-owner Steve Cordea says the beef tastes better because of the variety of grains in the cattle's diet. The Brewing Station’s chefs also use the spent grain in their breads and pizza crusts.
“We feel one reason our brewing is successful is because we are able to tie it back into the food we serve,” Cordea says. “It’s unique that we are able to bring together our beers with a complex menu.”
The popularity of Virgil’s craft beer does more than propel the Brewing Station’s distinction; it also supports a local food bank as the brewpub has generated programs to raise donations from Virgil’s brewing.
In addition to Outer Banks Brewing Station fully embodying its name, it’s so much more than a brewery with the vernacular aesthetic of a U.S. Life Saving Station. If you’re looking for great beer and so much more, this brewpub is also an environmentally conscious, full-service restaurant, a live music venue, a family-friendly backyard bar and a community gathering spot of the best kind.
(252) 449-BREW (2739)
600 S. Croatan Highway, Kill Devil Hills
About the Author Gabrielle Giannone
Gabrielle Giannone is a contributing writer for OuterBanksThisWeek.com. She moved from Virginia to the Outer Banks in early 2023. Outside of writing and exploring the area, she is a server at three local restaurants and a fine art painter.
