20 on the 20th at Legend Brewing

On 20 February 1994, Legend Brewing —newly opened, in Richmond, Virginia— delivered the first keg of the first beer it had ever produced. To the day, twenty years later, I was invited by the fine folk at Legend to celebrate their 20th anniversary with them, by tapping a cask of beer I had helped design and fill.

So, this past Thursday night, there I was in Legend's upstairs taproom —in the photo with brewmaster John Wampler (r) and cellarman Aaron Sanders (c)— to tap and drink 'my' cask-conditioned Golding hops-infused Legend Brown Ale. It was a fun evening, with many friends and fans of Legend present. I was honored to have been invited.

Several other friends of Legend have participated as guest cask-tappers.

• Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones
• then-Governor Bob McDonnell
• Beth Bates —beer blog Chicks Love Beer
• Jason Roop —Editor in Chief, Richmond Style Weekly
• Lee Graves —beer columnist, Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The program continues through the year. Next up, on 20 March, will be Todd "Parney" Parnell, vice president and chief operating officer of the Richmond Flying Squirrels (the Double-A minor-league affiliate of the San Francisco Giants major league baseball team).

The brewery's official 20th anniversary celebration will take place Saturday, 19 April 2014. Details to be announced.

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• I filled the cask two weeks prior to the tapping. Here's the story.
• This particular size of cask is called a pin. It contains 5.4 U.S. gallons, or approximately 43 U.S. pints. (It sometimes is erroneously reported that a pin holds 4.5 U.S. gallons. That comes from confusing British and U.S. volumes. 5.4 U.S. gallons is the same volume as 4.5 Imperial gallons.) The size of cask more commonly seen in the U.S. is the firkin, a cask of 10.8 U.S. gallons (which is the same as 9 Imperial gallons). More on cask volumes: here.