An Ode to Summer and Canned Beer

22 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by in Bars and Restaurants, Bottles and Cans, Summer

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It is officially summer, and DC didn’t waste any time proving it this week with face-melting heat. After three summers getting babied in Boston, I had forgotten about humidity and what being truly hot felt like. No longer.

This kind of weather makes me want to take naps in the shade, cannon ball into public pools, and down ice-cold cans of beer—preferably cans wrapped in koozies for a bit of insulation. This is summer.

Luckily, Boundary Stone—a wonderful place that’s becoming my neighborhood bar—has enough canned beer in their arsenal to satisfy the most important of my seasonal cravings. I’m not sure when the craft beer scene dug its teeth into canning brews, but I back the new fad wholeheartedly. (If I was the kind of person who camped, I’d enjoy it even more.)

So here’s to summer and being pleasantly surprised every time I take a sip of a genuinely good beer that comes in a can.

What Heaven Will Look Like

15 Friday Jun 2012

Posted by in Bottles and Cans, Events, Food, On Tap

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Last Friday night, I tried 22 new beers, scarfed down a few squares of the best cheesecake ever, shook Jim Koch’s hand, and ate some truly amazing cheese.

Thanks to Sara’s serving job, we scored two free tickets to one of the biggest events in the craft beer world. SAVOR—a two-night event that paired delectable food with craft beer—was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

More than 70 breweries were stationed at tables inside the National Building Museum‘s large atrium, each serving up samples of two brews. Squeezed between the crowded mass of brewers and drinkers were trays of gourmet finger food with signs describing how the bite-size morsels complemented the beer you were swigging. I’ve never felt so swanky.

After my second or third beer sample, I realized two things:
1.  I would have to let go of my idea of weaving an organized path across the room
2.  There was no way I’d be able to drink two ounces of beer from every table I hit

Conveniently, each brewery’s table had a pitcher for dumping beer and water for rinsing your glass. I quickly worked out a system of taking a couple sips, deciding whether or not I liked what I had, and pouring out the rest. After three hours of talking about beer and watching the cheeks on everyone in the room flush deeper red, I was surprisingly almost-sober, in the best way.

As a parting gift—as if hours in a room filled with all my worldly delights weren’t enough—every ticket-holder received a bottle of a special Sierra Nevada and Boulevard collaboration created specifically for SAVOR.

The Terra Incognita was a sour, sweet, earthy, STRONG beer, weighing in at 12% ABV, with just enough bitterness to make it incredibly enjoyable to drink.

After downing 22 samples of amazing craft beer, I admit I don’t remember them all (though I did make a list!). But I do remember my favorite—Cane and Ebel from Two Brothers Brewing Co. out of Warrenville, Illinois, which was also my last beer of the night. I had thrown in the towel on the decadent evening until I walked past their table. For whatever reason, I stuck out my glass for a pour and pulled back a deep red rye ale, full of hops and earthy grains. A truly well-crafted beer from a microbrewery I’d never heard of—my night was complete.

I also got to meet Jim Koch, did I mention that? As in, the founder of Sam Adams. He was there, slinging samples of oyster stout, posing for pictures, and smiling wide as he popped mini crab cakes—just as I always imagined him.

Needless to say, it was an amazing night. If you ever have tickets to something like this that you need taken off your hands, I will gladly help you out.

The Flavors of Texas

11 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Bottles and Cans, On Tap

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In the month since I surfaced from my beer-soaked weekend, I diligently hit each bar on the DCBW list, brewed another batch of beer, and, of course, drank. Added into the mix was a five-day trip home to celebrate my parents’ 30th anniversary.

As I’ve mentioned before, my parents’ love of beer—especially my dad’s increasing interest in hoppy brews—was passed on to me like a good piece of furniture. Time at home always includes scouring the beer aisles of their local grocery store (which has a surprisingly great selection) for bottles we’ve never seen before. And there were plenty.

I’ve realized that I’m a sucker for the big bottles and interesting labels. (How else are you supposed to choose?) My parents and I got several to share—though I would have bought all the 22-ouncers I could find if I could some how afford them—and a few six packs, too.

My favorite was the first one my dad and I tried. (My mom had a sip, but she tends to stay clear of the ultra-bitter beers.)

The Hop Henge Experimental IPA from Deschutes Brewery out of Bend, Oregon, was a punch in the mouth. The boldness of the hops was strapped to a jet pack, shooting across every taste bud, showing no mercy. At 95 IBUs and 8.5% ABV, this beer is not for the faint of heart (or tolerance). Created as part of their “annual exercise in IBU escalation,” Deschutes clearly knows their shit when it comes to hopping up a beer. It poured a transparent gold with a tumultuous head, deceptively light-looking, and went down more smoothly than the intense flavor would have you believe it might. “It’s all hops, no apologies.” I wouldn’t want it any other way.

One of my favorite things to do with my parents when I’m home is hit up the two brewpubs in San Antonio. For a city that’s pretty behind in its acceptance of craft beer culture, San Antonio does have two delicious brewpubs that are markedly different in their approaches.

First, there’s Blue Star Brewing Company:

It’s in my favorite part of the city, right along the river, surrounded by art galleries and studios and industrially-designed condos. It’s a family restaurant with a beautiful patio for the short slivers of time when it’s nice to sit outside. I try to go every time I’m home.

The second place, Freetail Brewing Co., is newer and has a very different atmosphere:

The beerhall-style restaurant is raucous and crowded and a fun place to grab some pizza and beer. All of their tap handles are handmade, blown-glass blobules. (I’m sure at one point we asked who made them, but I don’t remember.)

I always enjoy myself when I’m home, which make it hard to leave. Each time I’m there, I go back and forth with myself about whether or not I could live in Texas again. There are certainly a lot of pros (that don’t all have to do with beer) to my home state, but, of course, plenty of cons, as well. For now, I’ll look forward to time with my parents and mining the Texas beer scene when I’m there, but also take advantage of the perks of where I am at this point in my life.

Beer Week Saturation

12 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in Beer Week Promotion, Bottles and Cans, Food, On Tap

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If last weekend serves as any sort of forecast, this is going to be a booze-drenched month. In anticipation of the impending DC Beer Week in August, the folks who organize it set up a pretty ingenious promotion for April: You buy a DC Beer Week button for 10 bucks,

visit each of the 15 craft brew bars that are participating, flash your button, receive various deals on drinks, get a stamp on your “passport,”

and (hopefully) win some gift certificates. It’s an awesome marketing technique, and, naturally, I decided to hit up as many of the 15 boozeries as I could in a three-day span. It helps that a lot of the bars are in the same areas—pub crawling made easy.

I started the weekend with a couple $2.50 beers at District ChopHouse in Penn Quarter on Friday night. If not for this month-long deal, I would have never thought to go there for a drink. It’s an expensive steakhouse (two attributes which don’t appeal to my poor, vegetarian sensibilities) that brews its own beer. That’s right—they make it all, right there, on site. And it was good. I had their IPA and a nut brown ale that were both delicious. I also had some socially-lubricated conversations with tourists. It was fun. (I, regretfully, forgot to snap any pictures of the beers I drank, but there are plenty more beer-in-pint-glasses shots to come.)

Laying low on Saturday, my dutiful accomplice and I made for the bars again on Easter Sunday afternoon. It was the perfect day for outdoor drinking. After fueling up on falafel and hummus at Zorba’s Cafe in Dupont Circle, we headed to Pizzeria Paradiso for our first drink of the day. Knowing we’d have several more before the day was done, I browsed their extensive bottle list for a lower alcohol content brew. Almost immediately, I settled on the Founders Red’s Rye PA.

Okay, so it boasts a 6.6% ABV, but it was worth it! That rye grain sank into my bones then punched me in the face with its rich hoppiness. I loved every sip and drank it slowly to savor its complex goodness. Michigan knows how to do beer right.

We moved on from there to Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe, pausing first to eat a cookie the size of my head from Firehook Bakery. (I take my sweet treats seriously.) Just about every time I’m in Dupont Circle, I mill about the shelves in the small bookstore portion of Kramerbooks—accumulating piles of paperbacks in my arms that I just can’t live without, and then slowly whittling down the stack to one or two—but Sunday was the first time I sat at the bar and actually consumed something. After I was told they were out of my top two choices on their draft list, I went with the Pfeifferhorn Lager from Epic Brewing Company.

Brewed out of Salt Lake City, this light, American lager tasted shockingly similar to my cheap beer standby, PBR. It was an easy, refreshing drink, but it reminded me why my eyes automatically skip over lagers when I’m in the mood for a beer.

Leaving Dupont a bit underwhelmed, we trekked out to Adams Morgan, which looks dramatically different under the bright light of a beautiful Sunday afternoon than its usual nighttime ambiance. We sat on the roof deck at The Reef, enjoying the day. Under the pressure of a quick decision, I order a Fat Tire; Sara, better with quick decisions, had an Arrogant Bastard. Then we people-watched.

Across the street, we hit up Smoke and Barrel. Because we were the only non-employees in the place, we camped out longer there, watching baseball and fortifying our beer diets with barbecue nachos. It was there that I had one of the best pale ales I’ve ever tasted.

Firestone Walker’s Pale Ale 31 was a flavor powerhouse. At only 4.8% ABV, it had such a light, clean finish I could drink them all day. This California brewery is serious about its pale ales and it shows. My second beer at Smoke and Barrel was another departure from my typical arsenal of brews—an oatmeal stout.

Bishop’s Breakfast from Oliver Breweries was smooth, rich, and a bit sweet. I rarely even consider drinking a stout, but I didn’t regret this one. I would absolutely order it again.

Our last stop for the night was Tryst (just a couple doors down), which I’ve wanted to check out every time I’m in Adams Morgan. In the hours we were stationed at the end of the bar, happily carrying on, I had my only local beer that day.

Chocolate City Beer’s Cerveza Nacional de la Capital is a dark, roasty Vienna Lager. It finished much lighter than its color had me believe. The roasty notes were a bit too strong by the end, but the flavors work well together. After a couple of these, I was done for the night.

Since the beginning of the month, I’ve crossed seven bars off my list. I can’t wait to hit up the remaining eight, though my liver probably can. I’m excited to see what some of these other craft beer hotspots in the city have to offer and expand my Rolodex of Places to Have a Beer. Who wants to join me?

How I Learned to Not Be So Set in My Ways

04 Wednesday Apr 2012

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On the first day of spring, I drank my first spring seasonal (this spring). I admit, I’ve had a few others this year, since breweries seem to release them before the hangovers and bad decisions of December 31 have faded. Knowing I love the spring, Sara thoughtfully bought a six pack of Magic Hat’s Vinyl to ring in my second favorite intermediary season.

To be honest, I’m usually not a huge fan of Magic Hat (or spring seasonals in general). Their beers are good, but it’s never my first, or second, choice when I want a frosty “adult beverage” (that term makes me feel very un-adult). I like their advertising and I follow their Twitter and I chuckle at their bottle cap witticisms, but my mind has always associated the Vermont brewery with their “not quite pale ale,” #9. It’s a delicious, refreshing beer when you’re in the mood for it, which I rarely am. Call me crazy.

The Vinyl, however…

…made me rethink some things. This amber lager is all I want to drink this spring. Its deep, malty color and sweet flavor, accented by the right amount of hop bitterness to steer it away from cloying, make it perfect for the season it was created to represent. It may be the best spring seasonal I’ve ever had. I’m starting to drool just thinking about it.

Doesn’t this beer just look like it comes from Vermont with its hippie-esque label? The further I go in my pro/con list for Magic Hat, the more I realize that I shouldn’t keep writing them off. I do actually like #9 sometimes! And I absolutely liked Vinyl (they went unrepentantly fast).There’s a mental block somewhere that’s slowly being dissolved by beer. I believe in you, Magic Hat! (One must keep one’s beer snobbery in check.)

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I really want to come up with a rating system for the beers I drink and write about here. If you have any clever ideas, let me know! I’m still mulling over my apparently arbitrary dislike of Magic Hat’s brews.

Adventures in Home Brewing, Part III

14 Wednesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Home Brewing

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I have a confession to make—I didn’t love my beer. I’ve been trying to find a way to say that for two weeks. It feels like a mom thinking her baby isn’t cute. These things just aren’t said. But I couldn’t lie about it—not here for the whole world to see.

When the time came to crack open a bottle of the homemade brew after weeks of waiting, my diligent accomplice throughout the brewing process, Sara, and I decided to make an event out of it (which means we fixed some gnocchi with fresh mozzarella and actually ate at the table). The beer would make the perfect liquid accompaniment.

Or so we thought.

My initial disappointment came from the complete lack of fizz in the poured beer. There was no hiss when I opened the bottle; there were no bubbles swimming up from the bottom of the glass; there was no frothing head. All in all, it looked pretty unappealing, like being served some sort of alcohol-scented juice when what you wanted was an IPA so bitter it makes your taste buds shrivel.

Determined to enjoy my creation, I tried to put aside my lackluster first impression of the-beer-with-no-name and took the inaugural sip. Again, I was disappointed. For all its boldness in smell, the taste left much to be desired. It did, at least, calm my fear that I messed up the carbonation stage of brewing—I couldn’t see the bubbles, but I could feel them. Fruity notes dominated the flavor profile. I wrinkled my nose. As a general rule, I’m not a fan of fruity beers. If I want to taste a banana, I’ll eat one.

After downing the one liter bottle (I don’t throw out alcohol, even if it does bore my palate), I decided my dislike of the beer may have been a result of too-heightened expectations, and perhaps a bit of user error in maintaining the proper temperature for the fermentation keg and bottles (I’m not an expert yet, okay?).

I left the rest of the bottles slumbering in their dark nook in my closet to hopefully help the beer enhance its flavor and carbonation. From what I’ve read, the longer you wait, the better it tastes. Here’s hoping.

Are You a Bitter American?

22 Wednesday Feb 2012

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On my way home from work last Friday, I stopped in at the grocery store to pick up some food for my cat and, inevitably, 15 other things I didn’t realize I needed until I was there. After filling my basket, I swung by the beer aisle (my favorite aisle) to pick out my weekend six pack.

In recent weeks, I’ve started buying a new beer for Friday and Saturday night at-home consumption, in an effort to expand curiosity and tighten my bar budget. Though limited in its quantities, this store has a fairly diverse selection of craft brews and I can usually find something I’m happy to bring home. Last Friday was one exception.

This delicious session ale from 21st Amendment Brewery, admittedly, first caught my attention with its packaging (marketing works!), but I remembered how much I had enjoyed other beers of theirs I’ve tried, so I was excited to add this one to my list. The American political/historical motif runs through the names of most of their beer, and as a self-proclaimed nerd, I can’t not want to order a brew called Fireside Chat or Brew Free! or Die IPA. I mean, I’m only human.

The Bitter American, described on the box as an “extra pale ale with bold malt and hop flavors” packed an enormous hit to the taste buds. And it looks pretty, too.

The lack of head in this glass can be attributed to user error in this case. I can’t always pour a perfect glass, you know? But just look at that rich, malty color. I was amazed. Call me narrow-minded, but I’m still surprised when I empty a can of craft-brewed, quality beer into a glass and it doesn’t look like this:

With the Bitter American, I was very pleasantly surprised. It had that intense hoppy flavor (42 IBUs) I continuously search for, and mellowed out nicely at the end. At only 4.4% ABV, it’s the kind of beer I could drink all day (which I just learned is the intention of a session beer), and I did.

There’s that beautiful head! I also love the cans. Over at 21st Amendment in San Francisco, they put a lot of thought and detail into the packaging of their beer, which I always admire. That tongue-in-cheek aspect is never lost on me, either.

       

After a few of these, I was starting to become a a bitter American, but only after reading one too many articles about Rick Santorum.

Adventures in Home Brewing, Part II

15 Wednesday Feb 2012

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After the excruciatingly long (14 days) fermentation stage of my very first home brew completed over the weekend, I was finally able to bottle my beer.

Since I don’t yet own a hydrometer and couldn’t check the specific gravity of the fermented beer in my keg—scientifically assuring that it was ready to bottle—I had to wing it, which meant drink it. The sample I poured from the keg was burnt gold with a strong smell of malt. It tasted…like flat beer, but that was the idea! From the couple sips I took, I could tell the flavor would turn out nicely once this is all said and done.

Now, without further ado, let the bottling begin!

My Mr. Beer kit came with eight of these one-liter plastic bottles. They don’t look as cheap as “beer in plastic bottles” sounds, but I hope to get some glass bottles soon for a more finished look on my next batch.

Two gallons of uncarbonated beer trickling through a small spout made bottling a lengthy process.

Topping off my last bottle filled me with this pride I never anticipated feeling about beer. I have a much better understanding now of Samuel Adams‘ tagline.

I was, again, amazed at how easy and fun the whole process turned out to be. On Saturday, I get to pop one open and take the first real taste of my homemade beer (!!!), though the instructions advised (several times) to wait 14 days after the initial bottling for optimum flavor. I can’t wait!

The bottles are resting in my closet, cozy and warm, and soon enough, the beer will be resting inside my belly, cozy and warm.

When Worlds Collide

09 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by in Food, On Tap

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In addition to beer, I’ve had one other on-going, passionate love affair in my life—pizza.

Much like Liz Lemon’s sandwich-based world view in 30 Rock, I believe that pizza brings us all together. At the very least, it’s delicious and the words “no, I don’t think I want pizza today” have never crossed my lips. I’m betting they’ve never crossed yours, either.

Any time I can combine my two loves is a time to celebrate, which is exactly what I did last night at District of Pi. Sitting at the bar to take advantage of their happy hour deals, I was delighted to see that not only does this St. Louis pizzeria in the heart of DC specialize in deep dish, they also have a wide selection of craft brews on tap from across the country. I was giddy.

Not knowing anything about the brew or the company, aside from the information shown above, I went with the Schlafly Pi Common. For only $4, this was the best beer I’ve had in a long time, and by no means common.

This amber ale had a deep, hoppy flavor without much heaviness. The crisp carbonation that hit the tongue first mellowed out and made for a delightful drinking experience. It certainly didn’t taste like it was only 4.9% ABV. As I sipped, wondering how many more I could get down before the dreaded happy hour cut-off, I did some phone research on this mysterious brew. When I learned that the beer, brewed by Schlafly Beers (The Saint Louis Brewery), was originally created as an exclusive Pi menu item, I was hooked. (I won’t admit to how many I put away on a Wednesday night.)

After whiling away a few hours at Pi, I’ve now found a new favorite restaurant and beer. The pizza, by the way, was amazing. Now I just have to figure out when I can go again.

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