The brewery has a fermentation laboratory for testing various yeast strains, which the brewers plan to collect from natural sites in the region. “We want to culture our own yeast,” said Nathan Winters, Väsen’s marketing and environmental director. “We will have a lot of our own house strains.”

For now, the brewery is planning limited distribution of its beers in kegs to restaurants. It plans to install a canning line in about six months to distribute beer to retail stores.

Both in their early 30s, Darragh and Giordano grew up in Northern Virginia and came to Richmond to open the brewery after first pursuing careers elsewhere. Giordano worked for Boulder Beer Co. in Colorado, where he honed his skills as a brewer, and Darragh worked as an engineer for electric automobile maker Tesla Motors.

“Growing up, we had always talked about doing some sort of business together,” Darragh said.

The cousins started making plans to turn their brewery dreams into a reality in 2014. As part of the planning, they took a trip to Europe to visit classic, old-world brewing regions in Belgium, Germany and England.