Calhouns Brewery (now Callys), Devils Backbone Brewery, and Blue Mountain Brewery are all within several miles of my house. All are very god places.
Legends, Old Dom, Shenandoah Brewing, Wild Wolf....to name a few are some I've visited and had a good experience.
I don't mind Star Hill. I really like their Jomo. I'll agree that some of their shit sucks, just like for example some of Magic Hat beer sucks, but the #9 is not bad at all.
Queen City Brewery in Staunton is off the grid, but their beers are very good, especially when you get into some of their Belgium beers at about 7 to 8%. You can only buy them at his place, though, or you can make it yourself.
Water, I'm sure, makes the beer. Devils Backbone, Blue Mountain, and Star Hill have some of the best water sources on the east coast. It's probably the same reason Miller/Coors makes their beers here, too. All around these deep water wells is federally protected land (Skyline Drive) so I'm sure there is very little pollution entering the water source. The town I live in has three water wells to suppl the town, the deepest is 500ft and flows over 1,500 gallons a minute. I get a water testing report about every three months, and the water coming out of these wells is damn near perfect. The town has to do very little to treat the water. Course the hops and recipes have to be good, too, and it's been hard to get good hops the last few years. Blue Mountain grows their own hops.