What’s in a name?

That’s what brewery production manager Savannah Roberts and the Triple Crossing Beer team are hoping to figure out.

“How good is the beer outside of this building?” asks Roberts. “That’s the kind of reckoning we’re coming to.”

The beer Roberts is referring to is Triple Crossing’s Falcon Smash, its flagship East Coast-meets-West Coast style 7% IPA.

The beer was born with the brewery in 2014 when founders Adam Worcester, Jeremy Wirtes and Scott Jones decided it was time take their home brew recipes to the big leagues.

“They were very smart about it,” says Roberts, who has been with the company since 2018.

Smart enough that 11 years later, the three owners head up three locations—the original downtown space, an expansive Fulton campus plus a sleek, suburban Midlo spot that opened in Winterfield Crossing in December 2021.

Triple Crossing will celebrate its anniversary with a Toast to Richmond event this Saturday, April 12 at the Fulton location (5203 Hatcher St.) starting at noon.

The fest will feature more than a dozen artisan vendors, live music all afternoon, a kid zone, exclusive anniversary totes and an opportunity for partygoers to join the Falcon Gold Mug Club. Guests will also be able to snag fresh shucked bivalves from Cousins Oysters, whiskey samples from Reservoir Distillery and food specials from the brewery’s kitchen.

Beyond the weekend revelry, though, is that reckoning. For the layman beer drinker, you may not have noticed—we are no longer in the heyday of craft beer. In the 2010s, the influx of craft breweries opening was akin to a tidal wave. Everywhere you looked in every decent mid-sized or bigger city, there were new breweries on every corner. IPAs and sours and saisons took center stage while domestic brews took a backseat.

But at the close of 2024—in a much circulated article—The Gray Lady herself asked, “Has the Craft Beer Industry’s Keg Finally Kicked?”

The cleverly titled (albeit clickbait-y) article referenced the figures from the Brewers Association—in 2024, more craft breweries closed than opened for the first time in 19 years. “It’s tough for all of us,” says Roberts. “I don’t think I’ve spoken to a single person that hasn’t been affected by it [the decline of the alcohol industry].”

In response to a dip in tap room sales, Roberts says the team is pulling out something they’ve held in their back pockets for more than a decade—canning and distributing their most beloved beer beyond their three locations.

You can now grab a four-pack of Falcon Smash (and soon, Clever Girl and Baby Falcon) at your local Kroger and Food Lion. An exciting development for Falcon lovers, to be sure, but also an intimidating moment for the makers of this beer.

“People come here knowing what they want,” says Roberts about taproom guests. “Versus someone that’s going to pick up some beer for a party and sees Falcon Smash on the shelf. We want to make sure the brand can stand up to those moments, that it can keep its name outside this place.”

Triple Crossing has leaned into a reimagining/rebrand/redefining of Falcon with both the wider distribution and a confident declaration: “Richmond Runs on Falcon.”

Roberts says she and Wirtes are talking about Falcon “nearly every day,” tasting and tweaking and experimenting with how cans taste after a few months sitting in a warm room, in a cool room. “Once it leaves the doors, we don’t have any control over it,” says Roberts. “That’s hard.”

Triple Crossing recently purchased five new tanks and more than doubled their production of Falcon Smash for this past year, says Roberts. Their recipe for the beer, which is bright and juicy like an East Coast IPA—Falcon Smash was on the forefront of the “haze craze”—while maintaining some of the bitter hop character of a West Coast IPA, has remained relatively unchanged.

But beer is an agricultural product, and there’s a science to brewing—every batch of beer will, inevitably, differ slightly. Roberts says that when developing their flagship, Wirtes went through 15-30 types of yeast strains before finally landing on the one they still use today.

“We’ve refined the recipe over the years, and we’re still continuing to refine it,” says Roberts. While she admits that sending her baby out into the great unknowns of the wider distribution world is scary, it’s also forced her and the entire Triple Crossing team to “dial in our beer.”

“We know who we are, we know what we want to produce. We know what our beers are and what we want from them,” says Roberts. “I think we’re in a good place.”

Visit Triple Crossing at these locations:

113 S Foushee St. (Downtown)

Open Monday-Thursday, noon-9 p.m., Friday & Saturday, noon-10 p.m. and Sunday noon- 8 p.m.

5203 Hatcher St. (Fulton)

Open Monday-Saturday, noon-10 p.m. and Sunday noon-8 p.m.

1101 Winterfield Xing (Midlothian)

Open Monday-Thursday 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Friday & Saturday, 11 a.m.-10 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m.-8 p.m.