Southern food seems a runaway trend train on bacon-greased rails—it’s about time beer hitched along for the ride. Despite oases like Asheville, North Carolina, long ranked as one of the best beer towns in the land, most of the southeastern United States has been hard country for beer lovers, bristling with legal thorns like ABV caps, on-site sales restrictions and a patchwork of dry counties. But as those laws fall, brewers sweep in fast. Virginia banned booze two years before Prohibition; until less than a decade ago, you could count Richmond’s craft breweries on one hand. One finger, actually: Legend Brewing Co.

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