Editor’s Note: This biweekly column is sponsored by Dominion Wine and Beer (107 Rowell Court, Falls Church). This week’s Guide is written by Arash Tafakor of Dominion Wine and Beer.

We’re quite impressed with Commonwealth, and have been for a while.

Since we opened Dominion Wine & Beer over 5 years ago we haven’t seen a brewery take Commonwealth’s approach to distribution. Some lucky breweries don’t ever have to sell their beer to a distributor, meaning their beer is not available in local craft beer stores.

They have enough demand to sell their beer straight out of their brewery and people will wait hours in line for those brews. Most breweries strive for that goal, but Commonwealth went about selling their high quality beer just a bit differently.

Since opening up in Virginia Beach, Virginia in 2015, founders Jeramey Biggie and his wife Natalie have created a craft beer distribution method rarely seen before.

So what makes Commonwealth so unique?

Their model is to brew the quality of beer people typically wait in line at breweries for, but predominantly distribute it to local stores and restaurants in Virginia, Maryland and D.C. On average, every two weeks, like clockwork, Commonwealth will distribute 4-6 new unique beers into our area.

Never have we seen something like this in distribution. With all of that said, Commonwealth has become an incredibly strong brand for us, as well as many others in the area.

Another unique quality Commonwealth brings is their creativity when it comes to the beer itself and the beautiful artwork and design of the labels they put on their cans. With the help of a self described “strategic drinks packaging design agency that builds creatively rare, commercially right brands” called Thirst Craft out of the United Kingdom, founder Jeramey Biggie gets exactly what he asks for.

“I want to visually see the flavors I taste in the can.” You can see some examples of this artwork on their Instagram page found here.

Next time you’re in your favorite bottle shop, make sure to check out what Commonwealth beers they have in stock. You will not be disappointed.

At Dominion Wine and Beer we will always have their most recent release of fresh Commonwealth brews.

Welcome to Luxury For Less, a weekly column highlighting the best deals in luxury real estate. Written by Brandy Schantz of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, Luxury For Less offers tips and tricks navigating the competitive real estate market and securing the home of your dreams. To learn more, visit ttrsir.com.

Sometimes it only takes a brief moment to be completely transported to a beautiful memory.

The moment I saw Innsbruck, my mind immediately went to my days in the Army. There is nothing that makes up for your duty station in Ft. Bragg like being sent to Europe. MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation for my non-military readers) really knows how to put on a great ski weekend in Innsbruck.

The best part of being stationed in Europe? The ease of travel. I loved the wineries of Italy, the Christmas markets in Germany and the charm of the English cottages in the countryside.

This week’s feature has me in full nostalgia. 576 Innsbruck Avenue, Great Falls reminded me of my ski weekends in address then brought me back to England with its enchanting Cotswold Stone Manor style. Situated on 5 acres, you can be transported anywhere you want.

The lush garden is delightful and tranquil, perfect for a relaxing day to contemplate what brought you to the D.C. area instead of the actual English countryside. The décor of Innsbruck is impeccable but seriously, who cares.

Just grab a bottle of wine from the best wine cellar in Northern Virginia and head back out to the garden. With a $2.5 million price drop, this is a dramatic feature for this week’s Luxury for Less.

Check out the rest of this week’s Luxury for Less listings:

• 6600 Chesterfield Avenue McLean (Reduced $51,000)
• 576 Innsbruck Avenue Great Falls (Reduced $2,505,000)
• 9464 Coral Crest Lane Vienna (Reduced $66,000)
• 2007 Mayfair McLean Court Falls Church (Reduced $10,500)
• 1431 Waggaman Circle McLean (Reduced $75,000)
• 1201 Ware Street SW Vienna (Reduced $25,900)
• 2308 Westmoreland Street Falls Church (Reduced $50,000)

The properties listed are a small selection of properties available in the Tyson’s Corner area. For a full list of properties listed on MLS and private exclusives, please contact Brandy Schantz.

Laura Schwartz is a licensed Realtor in VA, D.C. and MD with McEnearney Associates in McLean. Reach the office at 703-790-9090.

I’ve seen so many memes going around Facebook that make fun of women in their 30s and 40s and our early bedtimes.

One of my favorites says “One day you’re 23 enjoying happy hour in a crowded bar, the next you’re in your 30s avoiding social events and watching murder documentaries to relax.” Truer words have never been spoken. So if you’re in the mood to leave the house and be social, here are some ladies night ideas to try out:

• Music Venues: Jammin Java has an 80s night, which includes food and drinks, or the 80s coverband the Legwarmers at State Theater in Falls Church. The State Theater also has 90s night in August.
• If art and wine are more your thing, try Muse Paintbar in Mosaic.
• Trivia night might be another low key option if the neon side ponytails are not your thing. You could try Lost Dog, Blackfinn, Caboose Commons, Art’s Tavern or Paddy’s Bar for trivia.
• If you’re looking for moral support to try a new exercise class, there are a few Spin classes, Purre Barre, Orange Theory, Crossift on Mill Street, or tons of Yoga options.
• Another artistic option is Board & Brush, where you can create your own wood sign.
• There’s a hidden gem among Vienna called the Culinaria Cooking School, where you can sign up for a cooking class.

I would LOVE to hear from you on ideas or topics for future posts. What are you looking for and/or what info do you need?

This is a sponsored column by attorneys John Berry and Kimberly Berry of Berry & Berry, PLLC, an employment and labor law firm located in Northern Virginia that specializes in federal employee, security clearance, retirement and private sector employee matters.

By John V. Berry, Esq.

We meet with federal employees and government contractors who are facing issues in the security clearance process.

They often ask our attorneys at what point they should consult with a security clearance attorney to assist, advise or represent them. The usual response is that an individual with a potential security concern should do so as soon as possible. Generally, the earlier that a person with possible security concerns consults with a security clearance lawyer, the better the odds become in avoiding a potential adverse outcome.

What Does a Security Clearance Lawyer Do?

There are a number of ways that an experienced lawyer in security clearance law can help someone with security concerns. It is often the case that they can advise an individual regarding potential strategies before a security clearance problem develops.

We have found that most individuals have a good sense as to whether or not they may have a security concern (e.g. recent drug use, bankruptcy, foreign contacts) as they prepare to complete their security clearance forms like the e-QIP, SF-86 and/or different various of the SF-85. The earlier advice is sought when there is an issue, the more that can be possibly done to mitigate the concern.

Clearance lawyers also advise individuals during the investigative process and during any security clearance responses or appeals.

Delays Can Hurt the Ability to Mitigate Security Concerns

One of the major issues that we see in the clearance process is where an individual has waited too long to consider or in starting to address a potential security clearance concern until it may be too late.

Sometimes, individuals who have had financial issues which could have been explained or refuted initially, wait too long thinking that if they lose during the clearance hearing or personal appearance that they will just retain an attorney further on in the appeals process. This is usually the worst strategy.

When people with serious security concerns have waited too long to address them, or gone through an in person response without representation, it is usually too late to do much on further appeal. One example I remember is a case where a government contractor had an alleged debt that was overdue, didn’t respond with evidence that it was not his debt thinking that he could appeal it after the administrative judge had ruled.

The debt was clearly not his, but because the clearance appeal could only be based on the evidence already presented, the clearance could not be saved.

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Even after 47 years, Ar-Jon Portable Toilets in Vienna is still “a family-owned business.”

The septic company is based out of 327 Owaissa Road S.E. and offers portable restrooms and sanitation equipment for any type of event that might need them.

“It’s a family thing,” Ben Wood said of the company his father started in 1972. Ben joined the business in 1975. “I’m the only son. My mother still runs the office and she’s helped out by my niece. I have two sons and the younger one works for us.”

Wood said the company has expanded and changed considerably since his father’s time. Over the last few years, there have been new innovations in septic-toilet cleaning.

“He started off with 12 wooden ones he built in the backyard,” Wood said. “Now, we’re at around 2,500.”

Like many businesses, Wood said Ar-Jon was hit hard by the 2008 recession, but the growth of construction in the area — and the subsequent need for portable toilets — has been a boon.

“Vienna is growing,” Wood said. “They’re tearing down all the 1940s homes and putting up big ones.”

For Wood, that means dozens of construction sites, all of which need portable toilets. Wood said that’s a large part of where the company’s business comes from.

“About 90 percent of our sites are construction,” Wood said. “We also do parks and specials events on weekends, that type of thing, especially like ViVa Vienna and Taste of Vienna.”

Photo via Facebook

Three Stones Residential agents pride ourselves on our consultative service approach, local expertise and real estate market knowledge. With over 26 years of business experience in the DMV, we have consistently performed in the top 2% of local Realtors and are currently the #1 group at Keller Williams Metro Center. 

2200 Journet Drive, Dunn Loring
3 BR/3.5 BA
Agent: Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
Listed: $799,999
Open: Saturday 2-4 p.m.

501 Creek Crossing Road NE, Vienna
4 BR/3 BA
Agent: Fairfax Realty Select
Listed: $815,000
Open: Saturday 2-4 p.m.

8432 Hollis Lane, Vienna
4 BR/3 BA
Agent: Pearson Smith Realty, LLC
Listed: $815,000
Open: Saturday 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

8527 Minerva Court, Vienna
5 BR/3.5 BA
Agent: Keller Williams Realty
Listed: $899,999
Open: Sunday 1-4 p.m.

2162 Westglen Court, Vienna
5 BR/5.5 BA
Agent: Weichert Realtors
Listed: $1,149,000
Open: Saturday 1-4 p.m.

2403 Sagarmal Court, Dunn Loring
4 BR/4.5 BA
Agent: Pearson Smith Realty, LLC
Listed: $1,300,000
Open: Saturday 1-4 p.m.

601 Park Street SE, Vienna
6 BR/6.5 BA
Agent: Pearson Smith Realty, LLC
Listed: $1,690,000
Open: Saturday 1-3 p.m.

Our role is to offer sound advice and guidance to our clients in order for them to achieve their goals in either buying, selling, leasing or managing real estate. We are truly “Your Home… for Everything Real Estate.” To schedule a private showing of these or any other properties of interest please do not hesitate to contact us here or email us at [email protected].

Three Stones Residential agents pride ourselves on our consultative service approach, local expertise and real estate market knowledge. With over 26 years of business experience in the DMV, we have consistently performed in the top 2% of local Realtors and are currently the #1 group at Keller Williams Metro Center. 

The following properties were recently listed in the Tysons, McLean, Vienna and Falls Church areas.

• 2117 Hutchison Grove Court, Falls Church, VA — $600,000
• 8736 Wolftrap Road, Vienna, VA — $678,500
• 1360 Snow Meadow Lane, Mclean, VA — $959,999
• 7721 Lear Road, Mclean, VA — $1,050,000
• 2202 Harithy Drive, Dunn Loring, VA — $1,050,000
• 2054 Arch Drive, Falls Church, VA — $1,495,000

Our role is to offer sound advice and guidance to our clients in order for them to achieve their goals in either buying, selling, leasing or managing real estate. We are truly “Your Home… for Everything Real Estate.” To schedule a private showing of these or any other properties of interest please do not hesitate to contact us here or email us at [email protected].

The working professionals who pursue the Arlington-based Executive MBA at Virginia Tech get a rich education in the fundamentals of business — accounting and finance, marketing, operations, ethics, communications and leadership.

But woven around those foundation courses are “experiential modules” designed to accelerate development in four essential and current areas:

• Business analytics
• Entrepreneurship & innovation
• Leadership & governance
• Global business

Each module includes two concentration classes plus a “big experience” course that puts the learning to work immediately, says Barbara Hoopes, academic director for Virginia Tech MBA Programs.

Corporate leaders are brought in “to provide guidance and bring real-life projects to students,” adds Parviz Ghandforoush, associate dean for graduate programs in the Pamplin College of Business.

What does this look like on the ground? For the analytics module, which covers BI and data mining along with marketing analytics, Hoopes brought in four software vendors — Microsoft, Qlik, SAS and Tableau — to provide access to their products and act as coaches.

Students addressed pressing issues with U.S. infrastructure using publicly available data to analyze Congressional airport funding and its relationship to economic growth, identify causal factors for large utility outages and predict hazard classifications of dams in order to prioritize inspections.

Hoopes asserts that students really “need to understand how data can be used to support their decision-making.” That means “learning how to tell a story that convinces others” — in other words, traversing that last mile between the data scientist and the people at the very top.

Ghandforoush notes that students often arrive with an expectation that the data work they will do during their MBA is a throw-away “because they don’t need it or they have analysts at work who will do this for them.” And yet faculty hear back from former skeptics that those lessons turned out to be the most valuable in the program “because they’re actually using it at work and they’ve seen the results.”

That’s just what Virginia Tech had in mind when it undertook its redesign of the MBA for working professionals. “It’s not like students graduate and four or five years later we will hear if they have benefited from their MBA,” he concludes. “This is like a laboratory. We get to watch this as it’s happening right before our eyes.”

Welcome to Luxury For Less, a weekly column highlighting the best deals in luxury real estate. Written by Brandy Schantz of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, Luxury For Less offers tips and tricks navigating the competitive real estate market and securing the home of your dreams. To learn more, visit ttrsir.com.

Different experiences can put you in a certain mood.

Last Friday I was fortunate enough to tour the Sotheby’s Auction House in New York City. If you have never been to the auction house, it’s worth the trip. You are surrounded by the best and the experience is unparalleled. Much of the art we saw on Friday has been in private collections up to this point so the only opportunity to see the art prior to this auction has been in a picture.

On view last week were a number of Picasso paintings likely to sell for as much as $30 million, a bottle of whiskey expected to sell for up to $100,000 and a Monet painting that elicited audible gasps from my group that will likely sell for $75 million. All that beauty and the price tags associated with it put me in a mood for opulence.

This week’s feature is a magnificent home renovated by BOWA. The home has now been reduced in price by nearly $500,000 since it came on market. Check out the separate carriage house, yet another stunning yard and pool (this column officially has a trend), and the best gym in town. When you live in a home this lavish, you shouldn’t have to work out with strangers.

7301 Dulany Drive McLean (Reduced $250,000)

Check out the rest of this week’s Luxury for Less listings:

• 7913 Foxhound Road McLean (Reduced $61,000) 
• 9998 Blackberry Lane Great Falls (Reduced $151,000)
• 2353 Chadlington Road Falls Church (Reduced $20,000)
• 601 Park Street SE Vienna (Reduced $59,000) 
• 6928 Butternut Court McLean (Reduced $40,000) 
• 1214 Kelley Street SW Vienna (Reduced $24,910)

The properties listed are a small selection of properties available in the Tyson’s Corner area. For a full list of properties listed on MLS and private exclusives, please contact Brandy Schantz.

This regularly-scheduled sponsored Q&A column is written by Val Sotillo, Northern Virginia-based Realtor and Falls Church resident. Please submit your questions to her via email for response in future columns. Enjoy!

Question: I work in Tysons and often drive through the Town of Vienna. How’s the housing market in Vienna and what it’s like living there?

Answer: Vienna is a suburban neighborhood located about three miles from Tysons. The Town of Vienna has been changing and improving over the past years while still maintaining its original charm and “small town” feel. It’s beautiful, full of friendly people and rich with life.

Here’s What Makes Vienna A Great Place To Live:

Location — It’s located minutes away from Tysons. It has its own Metro Station (last stop in the orange line) with 2 large parking garages, and it is located just a few minutes away from I-66 which provides quick access to 495 and can take you to D.C. in 25 minutes. You can get to Dulles Airport in 20 minutes. Overall, a great location!

Active Community — I lived in Vienna for a few years and I loved the great community atmosphere. The town holds parades and festivals throughout the year on Maple Avenue and Church Street. Viva Vienna! and Oktoberfest are my favorite. Here’s the full calendar.

There are parks and community facilities to meet citizen’s recreational needs. The Vienna Community Center is under renovation but it will reopen this fall.

Cyclists can take the W&OD Trail, a 45 mile trail that goes from Shirlington to Purcellville. Located right off the trail, you’ll find Caboose Tavern serving great beer made on site and delicious bites.

We can’t forget the amazing Wolf Trap for outdoor concerts! And of course, there’s a dog park.

Shops and Restaurants — Perfect place for foodies!

Must try: Taco Bamba (2 tacos and a draft for $12, yes please!), Yama (Sushi), Red Galanga; Vienna staples like The Vienna Inn, and Amphora; Date night places like Bazin’s on Church, Maple Ave (awesome brunch, and check their daily specials), and Clarity.

The Pear Tree Cottage, my favorite shop for antiques and design, has been in business for 5 years and it contributes to the community’s charm. There’s Bard’s Alley for books (and café and wine bar); and Whole Foods with the best fresh seafood selection. Vienna truly has it all.

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